There have now been 84 "arbitrary detentions" by the Mexican federal police in Oaxaca, according to the Miguel Augustin Pro-Juarez Human Rights Center (PRODH), which has dispatched a team of investigators to the besieged city. The group also reports 59 "disappearances," in which the whereabouts of the detained is unknown, since the city was occupied by 4,000 Federal Preventative Police on Oct. 29. (La Jornada, Nov. 5)

Bombs exploded at three high-profile targets in Mexico City early on the morning of Nov. 6, causing property damage but no injuries. A door was damaged and windows blown out at the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TRIFE), a body which had angered leftists in September for ruling that conservative candidate Felipe Calderon won July's disputed presidential race. Glass and ceiling panels covered the floor of an annex building at the headquarters of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), now embroiled in a bitter conflict in the state of Oaxaca. An explosion also tore apart the metal and glass facade of a branch of Canada's Scotiabank. A fourth bomb at another bank failed to detonate. (Reuters, Nov. 6)

From Reporters Without Borders, Nov. 3 via Chiapas95:

While noting that two of Indymedia cameraman Brad Will's alleged killers were arrested and taken before a judge yesterday in Oaxaca, Reporters Without Borders today condemned the shortcomings in the investigation into his fatal shooting and the fact that three others allegedly involved have been able to escape.

Mexican federal police pushed through barricades on roads leading to Oaxaca's state university Nov. 2, firing tear-gas canisters and water cannons at protesters, who fought back with rocks, slingshots and molotov cocktails. But the police stopped short of crossing onto the campus. At least eight people were injured in the fighting, including a newspaper photographer who was "hit by fireworks" launched by protesters, according to the New York Times. Flavio Sosa, a leader of the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) pledged "we will not surrender." (WP, NYT, Nov. 3; La Jornada, Nov. 2)

In his first public appearance upon his arrival in Chihuahua City on his tour of northern Mexico, Subcommander Marcos announced the Zapatista rebels' total support for the people of Oaxaca "and their most diginifed representative, the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO)." Marcos said from the city's central Revolution Park, "As of today, the federales have killed at least three people, including a minor; left dozens injured, including several Oaxacan women; and detained dozens, who have been illegally held in military prisons." In a communique, the General Command of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) called for the immediate resignation of Oaxaca's Gov. Ulises Ruiz, the total withdrawal of all federal police forces, the unconditional release of all the detained, and the apprehension and punishment of the assassins." The statement said Zapatista militants would begin blocking roads in Chiapas to press these demands Nov. 1. (La Jornada, Oct. 31)

In his tour of Mexico's northern state of Sonora, Zapatista Subcommander Marcos made public the existence of "forced labor camps," where mostly indigenous migrant laborers from Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero and southern Veracruz live in "inhuman conditions" and "virtual slavery."

On Oct. 20 Raul Ojeda Zubieta, center-left candidate for governor of the southern Mexican state of Tabasco, charged in a press conference that Andres Granier Melo, candidate for the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), had won in the Oct. 14 state election through the "manipulation and addition" of 89,689 votes. Demanding a recount, Ojeda said that in addition to buying votes and stuffing ballot boxes, the PRI had conspired with other parties, principally the center-right National Action Party (PAN), to shift votes from their candidates to Granier to give him his margin of victory. (La Jornada, Oct. 21)

The state leader of the Chiapas branch of the Independent Center of Campesinos and Rural Workers (CIOAC), Luis Hernandez Cruz, told a march of some 15,000 followers in the state capital, Tuxtla Gutierrez, that if the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TRIFE) overturns the victory of leftist gubernatorial candidate Juan Sabines Guerrero, there will be a "social explosion" throughout Chiapas, similar to that in Oaxaca. (APRO, Oct. 18)