The following are reports from three separate marches that took place in Oaxaca City in the final week before the 7th MegaMarch, which witnessed, once again, the unleashing of a brutal repression against the Oaxacan movement that continues today despite claims by the government that peace has once again returned to Oaxaca. Violence continues to be provoked by the Federal Preventative Police’s (PFP) continued occupation of the city’s zócalo, and on November 25th it exploded into violence that left nearly 40 buildings ablaze, the use of firearms against the people by the PFP and paramilitaries, and subsequent raids and arbitrary detentions that have forced the movement’s militants and sympathizers underground. Following these reports is a brief analysis of the situation in Oaxaca in the context of Mexico´s national crisis of legitimacy:

Today, shortly before 1 p.m., a march led by hundreds of women left the APPO encampment in Santo Domingo for the barricades of the PFP in the zócalo in a creative and peaceful protest against recent sexual abuses that have been committed at the hands of these federal officers.

Three days ago, this Thursday November 16th, a 48 year-old woman from Oaxaca was stopped by PFP agents at one of the checkpoints they have established around the city’s central square. Telling her that they needed to search her bags, they took her behind a large dumpster and began to sexually assault her verbally and physically, whispering in her ears while they touched her breasts and vagina. Her shouts went unheeded in the city’s center which is entirely occupied by these federal troops ostensibly sent to ‘establish order’. Although this is the first such denouncement, human rights defenders indicate that it is likely indicative of a series of such abuses similar to those committed earlier this year in San Salvador Atenco, where 26 women were raped by local and federal police.

The women marched the two blocks to the barricades and confronted the PFP with skillets and mirrors covered with the words ‘rapists’ and ‘cowards’ so that they could see for themselves what they look like. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, federal officers soon began spraying pepper spray at a number of the demonstrators and journalists. Calling for people not to fall into such provocations, the march moved to the next occupied intersection where they put on a bit of street theater to reenact the events of this past Thursday in front of the ranks of riot police. At the end, members of the PFP joined in applause in this act condemning their very presence and complicity in the continuing repression against the Oaxacan social movement. Immediately afterwards, backed up by their tanks armed with high pressure water canons, they moved their ranks forward to push the demonstrators out of the intersection.