Mexican Independence Day In Oaxaca
A friend who saw the parade into the Oaxaca City zocalo this A.M. said it was similar to all military parades he has seen in the US and elsewhere, and by that standard, quite good. I didn’t go, so have no photos. I did however, watch the fireworks through my open sliding glass living room doors. Noticias will not publish on Thursday because national law “compels” vacation days” for newspapers, so since Noticias came out today it will honor its no-print day tomorrow.
No one shot, wounded or jailed! That makes headlines, although I heard that some APPO people who wanted to protest were knocked around by the police, and so were the photographers taking their pictures.
URO, the Governor, had on hand 1500 cops, some in uniform and some plain clothes. He delivered the Grito dressed in a New York-Miami suit, standing on the balcony of the former government palace now a museum, waving the Mexican flag.
A friend reports that in Zaachila, a nearby pueblo, one of the strongest movement towns, there were two Gritos delivered, one official by the municipal president Noe Perez, and the second alternative-popular. Azael Santiago Chepi, Sec General of Section 22 gave the alternative Grito speech. He is quoted as calling on the people to prepare themselves for the coming revolution “which does not necessarily have to be armed, but is a transformative consciousness raising force of the people to achieve a better level of life in all areas”.
Chepi was backed by the Zaachila Education Front which consists of 19 education institutions in the municipality , which chose girl students to perform the national anthem and one of them shouted the Vivas, which after the historic figures ended ¡Viva Mexico! ¡Viva Zaachila! ¡Viva el Frente Educativo Zaachilense!
In his speech Chepi added that people have to prepare themselves for the great revolution awaiting us. “it is the struggle that we teachers have to wage in every community: awaken the consciousness of our students, find solidarity with the parents, contact the true governors of the peoples such as the great grandfathers or councilors of elders, because the movement is in the phase of gathering force…. diversity makes us stronger, ideological concurrence makes us stronger too, to find points of agreement in this battle against the repressive governor; we have to prepare ourselves because more complex situations are approaching where surely we will know how to reply to whatever aggression.”
He commented on the police presence in the Oaxaca capital zocalo which was “to gurad an attempt at a festivity which is not of the Oaxaqueños, but to the contrary, is put in play by all the repressive forces that reside in the state; likewise public plazas in the entire country because of the Mexican government´s fear of social dissent which day by day becomes generalized in the face of evident failure of neoliberal policy.”
Tags: Grito, Independence Day, Mexico, Oaxaca, Oaxaca City, Zachila
Zoe
En el noche, golpearamos