Barricades reconstructed in Oaxaca City

At around 5am on June 14, hundreds of fireworks cracked the quiet dawn and burst in the sky above Oaxaca City, Mexico. Though the streets remained still, people began waking up and movement chants could be heard coming from the windows of houses. "If Ulises doesn't go, there will be no peace!" This wasn't like any other day in Oaxaca. June 14 marked the one year anniversary of the violent attempted eviction by the state police of the Section 22 teachers sit-in strike in the Zocalo, and what happened that day set off a chain of events that led to a state-wide uprising and a popular movement with millions of participants to remove the right-wing governor Ulises Ruiz from office and to replace the entire state government with popular assemblies. An organization of thousands of civil groups was formed, called the Peoples Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO). Physically removing local governments from office, APPO and the people of Oaxaca lived autonomously in the capitol city and other communities for nearly five months until the entrance of the Preventive Federal Police in the last days of October. In the early afternoon of June 14, a mega-march of over 300,000 participants began to arrive in the Zocalo of Oaxaca City. The march began at the airport nearly 5 miles away, and as the beginning of the march entered the Zocalo, people were still leaving from the airport. Contigents from Chiapas and Michoacan and other states in Mexico participated in the march as well. At approximately 7pm, barricades reappeared for the first time since November throughout the city. People spontaneously constructed barricades, and at least two major thoroughfares were blockaded using buses and cars. Crowds gathered to reinforce the barricades, and a festive mood took over Oaxaca City Though the movement to remove Ruiz from office and replace the existing government with popular assemblies was brutally repressed and many members of the movement were forced into hiding after the violent battle between protesters and police on Nov. 25, 2006, the struggle in Oaxaca would seem to be far from over. On May 1 and again on June 14, hundreds of thousands of people marched in Oaxaca City in a strong show of force of the remaining presence of dissent among the Oaxacan people and their continuing demands for justice and autonomy.