Morning After
Last night we stood shivering on the roof and watched the fires burning. To the north, the smoke stood out black against the night sky. To the south, a crescent moon hung over Monte Alban. Without any reliable news (only the University Radio calling the populace to arms) we argued about what was burning.
"Oh my God, it's the gasoline station," Luis, my teenage neighbhor shreiked, pointing at the thickest column of smoke, beneath which we could make out a flickering orange glow. It was coming from about five blocks west and three blocks north.
"Don't be menso,¨snapped his older cousin Lechita. "We would have heard the explosion. It's just a bus."
I remembered when the first bus was set on fire, four months ago; it was shocking. Now it's just a bus.
Another column rose from the area of llano park, the Secretary of Tourism? we speculated.
It wasn't until the morning after that we knew what really happened, as much as we can know in the swirl of propoganda that followed. The fire we'd seen the night before had been the State Supreme court building, located next door to the Pemex station on Independencia. When I arrived around 11AM, joining the crowds of curious behind the yellow police tape, there were still firefighters extinguishing the simmering rubble. The exterior, an imposing yellow colonial structure, was surprising intact:the fire only left inky smoke stains above the windows. The interior was gutted. The only thing left standing inside, was the statue of Benito Juarez, illuminated by a shaft of sunlight.
Other buildings burned were the headquarters of the Association of Hotel and Motel Owners, the Secretary of Turism and the adjoining Juarez Theater, the Secretaria of Exterior Relacions, a tax bureau, and two private homes located on 5 de Mayo.
These two private residences were the kind of ornate, Porfirian era structures that give the center its charm. Their elegant facades are now singed black. The inhabitants, including an elderly lady who was rescued from the flames by officers of the PFP, have no apparant link to either side of the conflict.
While the mainstream media attributes the arsons to the APPO, many here believe it to be the work of Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz and the plainclothes officers that serve him.
Opinions are largely split along socioeconomic lines. My students at the airport are squarely against the APPO and applaud the presence of the PFP. They say the feel more secure with the zocalo converted into a military camp and armed police convoys in pick up trucks roving the city streets. My friends, on the other hand, who mostly come from middle and lower middle class families, feel threatened by the PFP. Many are routinely hassled because of their "suspicious" appearence (or rather, for looking indigenous). The other night I "escorted" a friend home from our salsa class downtown because he was tired of being stopped by the police. They assume he is involved in the APPO because he is short, dark-skinned and wears his long hair in a ponytail. He is actually a politically apathetic upper middle class kid who attends an expensive private university. At my side he passed unnoticed by the PFP, who were busy checking out my pasty white legs.
Although the PFP officers have their following among the local females (they can be seen smoozing on park benches between drills) my girlfriends avoid the Zocalo because of the suggestive way the officers stare at them. As I a foreigner, I'm used to the sexual harassment, and I don´t think the PFP would dare lay on a hand on me for fear of causing an international incident. But I believe the reports of local women who say they were groped by PFP officers under the guise of routine inspection.
