The taxi took us up to the university district where there were a ton
of people out, considering it was after 10 pm, late by local
standards. Ambulance lights lit up the street where a car had been
demolished by angry students. I found out later that someone that
did not sympathize with the students had stolen the car and run
over a group of 15 demonstrators. This in turn had led to the driver,
and the car, being turned into pulp. 16 people to the hospital.
Signs of a disturbance was the wet, black, oily paint spread on the
sides of buildings and sidewalks. We hopped back in the taxi
looking for the protesting students. Travelling by taxi in situations
like this is the preferred mode of transport in cases such as this I
was told by Joe - it keeps you moving fast and also anonymous,
easy to make a getaway if things get ugly.
About a mile away we found them, about 400 guys dressed in
black hoods ala the KKK with revolutionary slogans on their t-shirts
or images of Che Guevara, or simply black plastic garbage bags
keeping the paint from soiling their clothes. They were
accompanied by 3 or 4 cargo trucks which carried the oildrums full
of "paint", plus a beat-up Japanese stationwagon with a big
loudspeaker on the top, blasting away slogans and instructions to
the mob. We witnessed the defacing of a storefront, rags and
brooms being used as brushes, and spray cans being used for the
graffiti details. (Unfortunately, Joe had a bit of dyslexia operating
the video camera, and I have at least two or three shots of the lens
cap being put on and only audio being recorded. But he did get
some good footage, just not all that was available that night.)
The mob then moved up to a block on a street that had gas
stations on each end, and a car dealership, a bank and an
electronic equipment business along it. One of the glossier
buildings in Xela. When the students started the graffiti on the
dealership a big, fat older guy (probably the owner) came out and
tried asking them to stop. The students continued defacing the
front of the building and the guy went back inside. That's when the
stones and molotov cocktails started being flung into the street
from within the compound.
