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GUEST: Vladimir Flores, Oaxaca Correspondent with Free Speech Radio News

Political tension once again flared up in the Mexican state of Oaxaca on Friday when police arrested around 20 people as they blocked an intersection near the state university to commemorate the dead from the 2006 uprising and to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the “All Saint’s Victory”. The Section 22 teachers’ union and the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca had announced a day-long series of events to take place in the Cinco Senores intersection on November 2nd – Day of the Dead – to remember a 7 hour street battle in which members of the popular movement and neighborhood residents prevented federal riot police from taking control of the area around the state university and Radio Universidad, an AM station taken over by the popular movement on the first day of the 2006 uprising.As part of the commemorative events, supporters of the movement to oust the governor planned to build a traditional Day of the Dead altar and “tapete” or thick sand painting in the middle of the intersection.Shortly after blocking off the intersection, state police arrived on the scene and began making arrests and pursuing those who escaped on foot. Neighborhood residents say police then began house-to-house searches looking for youth who had been in the intersection earlier.