Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca

The Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (in Spanish: Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca), or simply the APPO, is an organization that was assembled in response to the political situation in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, first meeting in June 2006.

A public demonstration and a teacher's strike in May of every year had occurred every year for 20 years in Oaxaca City. The strike would involve occupying a portion of the main square in the city, exhortations made via bullhorn, civil protest marches and an eventual settlement of some of the demands of the teachers. Before 2006, none of these protests resulted in large scale violence.

At 3:30 in the morning of June 14, 2006, the striking teachers of Section 22 of the Mexican National Educational Workers Union (SNTE) who had occupied the Zócalo (main square) of Oaxaca de Juárez (the capital city of the state of Oaxaca) were evicted by 3500 Oaxacan municipal police, some local firefighters and troops from the Policía Federal Preventiva (Federal Preventative Police) supported by helicopters in an attempt by the state government to dislodge the strikers. The teachers had been on strike for 23 days with demands for higher wages, salary rezonification in the state, and increased educational resources. At many points in the altercation tear gas and shots were fired by the police. After hours of conflict, the teachers were able to take the center of the city as their own and begin to construct a system of barricades that would make it impossible for the police to return via the roads. Reports vary as to the number of casualties the teachers sustained in the struggle. Amnesty International has since confirmed that there were over one hundred people hospitalized.

This police action resulted in the 2006 Oaxaca protests, calling for the resignation of Oaxacan governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. In the following weeks, the teachers were reinforced by sympathisers, who helped them with the construction and protection of barricades made of wood, concrete bricks, corrugated metal sheets, and disabled cars and buses. For a number of months, these roughly constructed barricades had been effective in preventing the entry of police into the central part of the city that surrounds the Zócalo.

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