Tuesday 31^st October 

The repression against the Popular People`s Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) and its supporters, significantly heightened last Friday with the entrance of the army and Federal Preventative Police and subsequent deaths, disappearances, detentions and casualties, continues today in Oaxaca.

From the Benito Juarez Autonomous University, where they regrouped after confrontations with the Federal Preventative Police (PFP) in the principal plaza, the APPO have denounced the excessive use of force and called for negotiations, with the proviso that four conditions be met: that the army immediately withdraw, that governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz steps down, that all "political prisoners" (or be it activists and civilians kidnapped by the armed forces and held without warrants) be released, and that there be a number of guarantees in regards to the potential commission for negotiations. 

Throughout the city of Oaxaca various marches and demonstrations have been taking place in respose to the violence and forced retreat of the APPO to the Univerity Benito Jurarez. One of the marches, that of the Priístas (those loyal to the Institutional Revolutionary Party) is being ironically touted by its participants as “The March of Peace”, and has in its sights an attack on the APPO stronghold as well as on the Univeristy Radio of Oaxaca that is fighting against the campaign of misinformation that government-aligned media outlets are waging. It has been reported that along this Priísta march APPO barricades have been dismantled and those guarding them forcibly removed, with police detaining scores of people without warrant or provocation. Many of the people participating in the march are doing so under the threat of losing their jobs (for example those from the Government Sectretary of Health), and others belong to various paramilitary organizations that have been aiding the PFP in repressing and “disappearing” members and supporters of the APPO. Upon arriving in the principal plaza at around 1pm this afternoon, certain partipants in the march began making sexually violent threats against women gathered in the plaza, and aided the PFP in making unauthorized arrests.   

As the violence escalates in the city, those who have been detained by the armed forces are being transferred from the prison at Miahuatlán to Mexico City. Its still unlcear whether human rights observers have been able to make contact with the so-called “political prisoners”, but in light of the treatment of those detained during the government attack on San Salvador Atenco May 3^rd and 4^th this year there are legitimate concerns for the safety of these citizens, particularly as no figures have been released regarding how many they number or who they are.

Meanwhile, in Mexico City students of the Autonomous National Univeristy of Mexico have voted to stop classes and march in support for the APPO and their genuine demands, while in various states around the country and the world there have been popular demonstrations of hundreds of people taking place.

In Guadalajara (Jalisco, Mexico) yesterday over 500 demonstraters marched through the streets calling for the withdrawal of the army from Oaxaca and the removal from power of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz; The Sexta Comission and the Otra Campaña (Other Campaign) blocked a key bridge in Sonora (Northern Mexico) and called for similar blockages of main arteries on November 1^st and a national strike on November 20^th; in New York 12 people were detained during protests in solidarity with the APPO and its supporters in Oaxaca; and in Spain the Mexican embassy in Barcelona has been occupied by demonstraters in a show of solidarity for the APPO.