Oaxaca Update

highwayscribery wanted to translate and rely the dispatch of correspondents of Mexico City's left-wing "La Jornada," on the breaking of the rebellion in Oaxaca.

Starting two days ago the federal government sent police into the capital city to do away with the rebellion of indigenous people, a teachers union, and other grass roots groupings hoping to oust the state's crooked governor, Ulises Ruiz.

Signs of what is to come under President-Elect Felipe Calderon's rule began surfacing with his appointment of Francisco Ramirez Acuna as Secretary of Internal Security. Acuna, "La Jornada" says, represents, "the hard hand, the forces of order, and institutionalized violence."

The government of outgoing President Vicente Fox announced two days ago that the time of tolerance had ended in Oaxaca.

As highwayscribery's treatment("Mexico: A Shabby Dialectic," Nov. 27)of a piece by Enrique Krauze made clear, the respectable people were calling for the imposition of order by violence as a sign Calderon meant business.

The federal government proceeded to step up patrols of paramilitary police units who have been arresting advocates of the Assembly of Popular Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), the prime political force behind this fascinating Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ) that, by all means, must be broken by the forces of order.

Those arrested are being shipped to other parts of the country and the radio station at the Autonomous University Benito Juarez of Oaxaca, the informational pulse of the takeover, has already been emptied of dreamers.

The last significant barricade, at Cinco Senores, has been dismantled and the folks who led the six-month rebellion are running for their lives.

In the Congressional chamber in Mexico City, deputies from the leading parties of right and left are camped out on the podium where Calderon is to be annointed tomorrow, with blankets and pillows, singing a capella renditions of classic Mexican songs.