From Oaxaca to the Zócalo: Uprisings and Repression in Mexico

by E Wayne Ross on October 30, 2006

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Upside Down World: From Oaxaca to the Zócalo: Uprisings and Repression in Mexico

Jose Santiago sits in front of the radio station’s guarded door with a box of bread rolls in his lap. To his left, soda crates filled with Molotov cocktails line the wall. To his right two women with a club stretched between them block the door. A 62 year-old elementary school principal in Oaxaca City, Santiago was supposed to retire this year, but when state police brutally repressed a teachers’ strike on June 14, sparking an unprecedented civil uprising from all sectors of society, he thought, “I’d rather jump in.”