Mexican police arrest Oaxaca protest leaders, movement fights back

According to a communiqué of the Popular Assembly of the People’s of Oaxaca (APPO), the Federal Preventative Police arrested two of its members on Dec. 4. Flavio Sosa, one of the most prominent leaders of the APPO, and Marcelino Coache were taken in after a press conference where they denounced the state of siege in Oaxaca.

Two of Sosa’s brothers, Ignacio and Horacio, were also detained. The arrests are the latest government attempts at

APPO leader Flavio Sosa, center, was arrested by the Mexican police. The state is increasing its repressive tactics against the people’s movement.

stifling the people’s movement in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

The charges against Sosa are absurd: robbery, damages, violent robbery, malicious destruction of property, destruction of property by arson, causing injury, kidnapping and causing injury in the course of a kidnapping. His brother Horacio faces fewer similar charges.

Other sources reported on Dec. 5 that APPO member Ignacio García Maldonado was also among the arrested. Maldonado and Verano had no charges against them. In an attempt to justify their illegal detention, the police are now accusing them of assaulting police officers and resisting arrest.

The recent arrests show that the bourgeoisie has resorted to fabrications to justify their actions. The real crime of the APPO has been to empower Oaxaca’s workers in a way that threatens the stability of bourgeois democracy in the state—democracy that benefits the rich only.

Sosa was arrested just hours before he was to meet with government representatives. The Los Angeles Times mentioned on Dec. 6 it was unclear “why one branch of the government arrested Sosa while another, the Interior Ministry, was planning to meet with him,” but points out that the arrest “marked a get-tough approach to radical opposition.”

The arrest substituted the search for a political solution for one that is more satisfactory to the capitalists. Unlike negotiations, state repression requires no compromises from the ruling class.

Mexican state represses movement

The APPO and its supporters shut down government buildings and took over broadcasting facilities all over Oaxaca following the June 14 police crackdown on the striking teachers. The PFP occupied the city late in October and by late November had displaced the APPO from its barricades.

During another vicious police offensive on Nov. 25, several buildings were set ablaze. Despite the police’s attempt to blame demonstrators, it is unlikely that the APPO set fire to governor Ulises Ruiz’s offices where key records of his administration were kept.

The main point of unity of the APPO has been the call for Ruiz to be removed from office. “The burnings of many of the

buildings were not burnings that would benefit the APPO at all but rather burnings that contained records that would reveal the details of corruption,” said Sara Mendez of the Oaxacan Network in Defense of Human Rights.

Despite its brutality, the government has been unable to destroy the movement. The APPO has continued to develop politically: a three-day constituent congress that started on Nov. 10 led to the creation of the State Council of the APPO, or CEAPPO, a permanent governing body with 260 representative seats encompassing all regions of the state of Oaxaca.

On Dec. 10, thousands of protesters marched in Oaxaca City demanding freedom for all political prisoners and that all those “disappeared” by the police be returned alive.

The APPO reported that between Nov. 25 and Dec. 5, more than 250 people were detained and 100 disappeared. It is likely that paramilitary forces, who are largely police out of uniform, have killed many of the disappeared.

The dirty war against the APPO exposes the nature of the capitalist state as an instrument of class oppression. The courageous efforts of the people of Oaxaca and their achievements are an example to all who have taken up the class struggle.