WEB EXCLUSIVE: Eyewitness Report of Anti-Bush Protest in Mexico

BY JOHNNY HAZARD

Just back from the anti-Bush march which turned into a bit of a police riot, to my surprise. About 3,000 people started marching from the Hemiciclo Juarez, en the Alameda Central, at 4 o'clock. By the time we reached our destination, there were about 10,000. The embassy is on a major boulevard, Reforma--the same one the people shut down during the post-election action.

Since more than 5 years ago, there's a fence on front of the embassy, but way in front, i.e., there's a frontage road, some grass, and then the main part of the avenue, and that`s where the fence is.

I have some friends who want to knock down the fence in a pacifist way--though the Quaker wimps in the U.S. these days would say that's a contradiction--but today some youngsters decided to do it anarcho-punk style, with some success. I could see that with wire cutters, it would have been down in seconds, but these guys did it by stomping, setting fires, igniting something that exploded and made smoke, throwing rocks at the cops who mostly just hid behind their plexiglass shields. (Or so I thought: every so often one grabs a rock and throws it back, and they got my friend's brother, a performance artist who decided to try to steal the show by jumping on the fence with his make-up, his sister's pearls, etc.)

The people running the stage, affiliated with the PRD and the electricians' union, shout Cuba si, yankees no, but discourage real action, and thus were trying to get everyone to move toward the stage, about a half a block away, but of course I couldn't resist seeing the fence come down, in spite of my illegal-to-protest status.

They launched tear gas twice, but it wasn't very strong. One older cop I saw twice in the middle of the crowd, provoking people. I thought he was a loose cannon, but then saw him interviewed by the TV people, and I thought he must be a commander, because if he had a commander, he would have stopped him. I think he was saying he was attacked. Duh. He was wandering among the punks, by himself and in uniform, arguing.

The second time I saw him he was running, surrounded by activists, toward the main stage. I don't know who was chasing whom, but the guys on stage said: "They're provocateurs," etc., which isn't exactly true, and decided to get the more pacifist or disciplined part of the crowd to sing the Mexican national anthem, some raising a peace sign, others raising a clenched fist. Throughout the proceedings, several effigies of Bush, U.S. flags, etc., were burned.

As we were leaving, my alcoholic, ex-neighbor and I, we saw the police leave their position and chase the crowd toward the Zona Rosa, where the activist punks hoped to be confused among the commecial punks, darksiders, and gays who are always on hand there. Bush was about a thousand miles away, in Merida, where thousands of soldiers, cops, planes, snipers, etc. "protect" him. He and Calderon are there because they think it's a conservative city, one where a couple of gold old white collar bullies can relax. But I hear there was a march there starting up, too.... |