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The situation in Oaxaca is extremely tense today as everyone awaits the results of the negotiations with the Governmental Secretary.

I don't have time to give an entire translation of the following article on El Universal, but I think I can put up enough excerpts to make its meaning clear.

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Residents of Oaxaca City live through a Night of Terror

In a matter of seconds, all over the city, human rivers went down from the adjoining suburbs to fortify their barricades and to close all access roads to the capital of the state.

5:10 a.m. The people of Oaxaca lived a night of terror starting at midnight yesterday after which in the central quarter of the city they heard shots and there was an intense traffic of taxis and vehicles which crossed the streets which frightened the members of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO).

At ll:45 p.m. this Thursday the first shots were heard on Independencia street, only two blocks from the Zocalo central plaza of the city. This obliged APPO to immediately decree a red alert. . . .

. . . in all the suburbs loudspeakers could be heard with which the population sent emergency advisories.

Armed with wooden sticks and pipes, the people signaled the alert, only assisted by the noise of wooden sticks hitting against boats and lightposts.

Ardently aroused, the young, and included among them one young boy, shouted in the darkness: "We're waiting here for you dog!"

Among all the population the version which spread was that the Federal Preventive Police were about to enter the city, something in which they did not succeed.

By means of collective psychosis, the young ran from one side to the other, leaping between enormous public service trailers and trucks which were crossed throughout the Brenamiel suburb to block access to the city.

Around 4:00 a.m., the residents of this city concluded that this was the last attempt of Governor Ulises Ruiz to maintain himself in power, following soon after the failure of the stoppage of public employment that was going to begin this Thursday, in the same way as his failed proposal to summon a return to classes, which only happened in no more than 1,800 plants of the 14,000 which there are in the entire state.

APPO members also concluded that the visit of Ulises Ruiz to Mexico City was a failure, because he was only accompanied by no more than 200 municipal presidents. . . .

. . . They warned that if an armed intervention occurred it would be a "dreadful signal" for all the people of Mexico. . . .
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I am having a hard time getting a grip on what is about to happen. I see all the signals which say things are about to explode and yet I continue to believe that the Mexican federal government is not about to take such action as will precipitate the running of blood in the streets. As a final note, APPO has declared a "total alert" in Oaxaca City.

Not good. So things are heating up.

Are there federal troops in the area?

Next thing you know Obrador will be taking hostages or something equally crazy and stupid. I hope cooler heads than his prevail in this situation.

Thanks as usual.

However, I can't picture the central government simply allowing a coup, something like that could not be isolated to Oaxaca & Oaxaca only.