Mexico City, June 21 (RHC)-- In Mexico, Gabino Cue, the outgoing governor of the Mexican state of Oaxaca, was forced to return to his state from a lavish wedding in neighboring Guerrero state after police action left at least six dead and 51 wounded in the town of Nochixtlan.

The governor later confirmed that his administration had given the green light to the operation to clear the highway of a blockade erected by striking teachers.  In a hasty press conference, Cue said the blockade had been impinging on the right of mobility for the past week and needed to be cleared.

Cue claimed that the police who participated in the action were unarmed and carried only their helmets and shields.  The National Security Commission insisted that police did not use live ammunition nor clubs during the police attack on striking teachers.  Video shot by witnesses and media outlets, however, clearly show police with guns and in at least one instance, police can be seen and heard firing live ammunition.

The statement audaciously claimed that those images were “totally false” and that the gunfire could have only come from “outsiders” who attacked both the demonstrators and police.  The National Security Commission was later contradicted by Federal Police Commissioner Enrique Galindo Cevallos who said there were indeed police carrying guns with live ammunition but that they were only there “at the very end of the event, when we were told there were armed civilians firing.”