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Links to Full HTML version of stories may include photos, graphics, and related links
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http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7BCB617A26-342A-40F1-A434-A5ACE78B4E13%7D)&language=EN
November 10, 2006
Obrador for Human Rights Commission in Oaxaca
Mexico, Nov 10 (Prensa Latina) Mexican opposition leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador asked the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) to intervene in the state of Oaxaca, where the list of missing and murdered people continues to grow.
The leader says area governor Ulises Ruiz, accused of human rights violations, has remained in power because of political maneuvering by the controversially elected Partido Revolucionario Institucional president Felipe Calderón.
During a nationwide tour, Obrador said his truly legitimate government will do much more for the people than those in power, who act like "police, protecting the violent few."
He called on the people to attend the symbolic inauguration act on November 20 in Mexico City s main square, highlighting his main goals are to protect the people and defend national heritage.
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http://www.socialistworker.org/2006-2/609/609_04_Mendoza.shtml
A striking teacher from Oaxaca describes...
“Our fight for social and economic justice”
November 10, 2006 | Page 4
FERNANDO MENDOZA has taught public school in Oaxaca, Mexico, for 26 years. He is father to four children, and his wife is also a teacher. Both have been on strike since May, along with 70,000 other teachers.
Fernando represents his section of Local 22 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) in the People’s Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO), the coordinating committee directing the struggle in Oaxaca. He was sent to California by APPO and his union to spread awareness and build solidarity. He has spoken to more than 50 meetings of students, union members and community activists.
Socialist Worker’s JESSIE MULDOON and TODD CHRETIEN sat down with Fernando on October 29 after a meeting hosted by the Oakland Education Association--just as Mexico President Vicente Fox was ordering 5,000 federal police to invade Oaxaca.
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CAN YOU explain why Oaxacan teachers went on strike in May, and why the APPO was formed in June to support them?
THE STARTING point for our struggle is the intense poverty that the vast majority of Oaxacans suffer. In our state, we have 16 indigenous groups, all speaking different languages, and we are the majority of the population.
Our demands were to prevent the privatization of education and to get funding for libraries, learning centers, breakfast programs and access to health care for our students. We also asked for work programs in Oaxaca so that our people don’t have to keep going to the United States to find work.
Of course, working in the United States gives us a chance to improve our situation, but we know that the situation for undocumented workers living here is very hard, and we are hoping that the laws are changed so that Oaxacans can live hear legally.
APPO was formed because the struggle of teachers, indigenous people, students, farmers and farmworkers in Oaxaca has a very long history. We have fought for years to win basic demands like education, health and work.
The state government of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz [Oaxaca’s governor from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who is widely believed to have stolen the state election in 2004] refused to meet our demands. Therefore, on May 22, there was a great march of over 70,000 teachers and our supporters, and we established a permanent sit-in in the center of Oaxaca City.
APPO was formed on June 14, in response to the repression that Ruiz organized against us, in order to unite all the different struggles. Today, APPO is known all over the world.
APPO brings together delegates representing teachers, indigenous people, farmers, high school and university students, housewives, cooperative members, women’s organizations, political groups such as those in solidarity with Cuba, and workers from many different industries, such as the railways, telecommunications, electrical, health, university and roadways.
HOW ARE APPO delegates elected, and how many are there?
DELEGATES TO APPO are named by each group according to their historic traditions, but all of the delegates have to gain the respect of those they represent and demonstrate the capacity to lead with honesty, transparency and with justice.
For example, in the teachers’ union, you have to go through many levels of elections and tests to become a leader, and you have to prove yourself in the struggle over many years. Typically, there are between 200 and 250 delegates at an APPO meeting.
IN JULY, the Party of Democratic Revolution’s (PRD) candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, was cheated out of his victory in the presidential election by fraud committed by the National Action Party (PAN) and the PRI, handing the presidency to PAN candidate Felipe Cálderon. Millions of people in Mexico City took to the streets to protest. What impact did this have in Oaxaca?
THE TWO struggles come from the same system of corruption and of imposing governors and politicians on the people.
No one in Oaxaca believes that Cálderon won. Everyone believes the fraud was total, deep and shameless. Even the most humble farmer knows that Cálderon is trying to take office illegally, and they feel cheated out of their legal right to vote.
Thousands of us teachers are members of the PRD because our political beliefs coincide more closely with its principles. AMLO has said many times in the national press that he supports our demands, and the PRD delegates in the national assembly and senate have also spoken our for our struggle.
However, as a party, the PRD is not leading the APPO. For example, Section 22 maintains as a principle complete independence from any political party. Our struggle is organized from the base up, and we do not divide up on the basis of political parties because we feel that this will divide the unity of our members in Oaxaca and at a national level.
IN MID-October, there were signs that the national leadership of the SNTE had reached an agreement with the government to end the strike, based on a substantial pay raise, but it was rejected by the rank-and-file teachers. Why?
WE HAVE to be very clear. This struggle is run by the base, the rank and file, not by the leaders.
The national leadership of the SNTE met with the government and asked, “How can we return to classes,” but they didn’t consult with the teachers. Therefore, the teachers rejected the leaders’ right to enter into these negotiations.
Instead, we organized another consultation with the teachers and with our allies in the APPO to discuss the offers made by the government. After more than 13 people were killed by Ruiz, we could not simply forget about our demand for his resignation.
Our decision to reject this first offer led to a great increase in the amount repression against us. Also, the national leadership of the union was exerting a great amount of pressure on us to settle. After five months without pay and many threats, including the threat to cancel all collective bargaining agreements, some teachers began to feel that we had to return to work and continue the struggle in a different way.
In order to preserve our unity and not split our ranks, we voted to accept the government’s offer on October 24 and return to work on October 31 in order to continue our struggle while we taught our classes, without giving up our demand for Ruiz’s resignation. HOWEVER, AFTER the teachers agreed to return to work, on October 27, Ruiz’s PRI thugs increased their repression by shooting many people and killing three, including IndyMedia journalist Brad Will.
Why did they attack you after you agreed to return to work?
THIS IS the criminality of Ruiz’s government. Ruiz is continuing to kidnap our members and assassinate us in order to create the impression of violence and chaos, so that they can turn public opinion and international opinion against us.
Ruiz wanted to continue his criminal war against APPO and the teachers, and he wanted to provoke the intervention of the federal government to help crush us. As we speak, we are very worried about Vicente Fox sending in the troops against us. We believe that if the army comes in, it will be to assassinate the Oaxacan people who are rising up for justice and dignity.
Fox is portraying his decision to send in the federal police as a measure to keep the peace, and bring order to a fight between a small group of leftists on the one hand and a small group of vigilantes on the other hand. Is this true?
FOX’S GOVERNMENT is based on repression. In Mexico, there is a climate of repression, of violence, of jailing those who fight for social justice. The miners in Sonora were repressed and assassinated and jailed, as were the comrades from Atenco, from Guerrero, from Chiapas.
This is how this government operates, how it talks, how it discusses politics with the people. They want to create a blank slate based on terror in order to pursue their neoliberal projects, such as NAFTA and the Plan Pueblo-Panama. They want to steal all our natural resources and privatize everything.
DO YOU think there will be actions and strikes in other parts of Mexico to support you?
OF COURSE, yes. Just two days ago, the National Coordination of Education Workers [the CNTE, a powerful dissident, left-wing caucus within the SNTE] met to begin planning, and many other indigenous, anti-neoliberal, student, union and community groups all over the country are taking the first steps to respond to the crisis in Oaxaca.
Oaxaca is a mirror, a reflection of what is happening all over the country and really the whole world.
Our first step is to continue maintaining our unity. Then we must continue our historic fight to win back our rights to democratically elect our leaders, and win economic and social justice for the people of Oaxaca and Mexico.
AFTER NEARLY a month of speaking in California, what is you opinion of the working people and students in the U.S.?
THERE ARE many different types of people. I’ve met with immigrants from Oaxaca, teachers and students, union members, church groups, etc. But they all have something in common--that they are all very concerned about the violence in Oaxaca, and they support our demands for education, health and jobs.
I have a great optimism that we are going to succeed in forming this new unity--a permanent unity here in the United States between students and workers in solidarity with the struggle in Oaxaca. And that you are going to use that same unity to defend your own rights as workers, as immigrants and as students.
We need to form APPOs all over Mexico. You need to form APPOs in California. People all over the world must form APPOs in order to defend our universal rights as human beings against the attacks on our living standards and against repression
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What you can do!
Many well-known left-wing authors and activists have added their name to a letter honoring the memory of independent journalist Brad Will and supporting the struggle of the people of Oaxaca.
“We are extremely alarmed,” the letter reads in part, “to see that rather than cracking down on the violent paramilitaries who have been launching regular attacks on the people of Oaxaca, President Vicente Fox is using these murders as a pretext for escalating violence against the popular grassroots organization of the people of Oaxaca.
Signers include Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky, Mike Davis, Eduardo Galeano, Danny Glover, Naomi Klein, Camilo Mejía, Oscar Olivera, Francis Fox Pivin, John Pilger, Katha Pollitt, Arundhati Roy, Wallace Shawn and Howard Zinn.
To add your name to this letter--as well as for information on the struggle in Oaxaca and on events to honor Brad Will--visit the Friends of Brad Will Website. @
http://www.friendsofbradwill.org/
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-fox10nov10,1,6719472.story?coll=la-headlines-world
November 10, 2006
Mexico's Fox is on a losing streak
Not only was there the TV blooper and the suit by his lawyers, but he's been forbidden to get away from it all.
By Sam Enriquez, Times Staff Writer
Email= sam.enriquez@latimes.com
MEXICO CITY — The very bad week of lame-duck Mexican President Vicente Fox began shortly after midnight Monday with a series of guerrilla bombings, and it's been downhill from there. On Tuesday, Fox was ordered by lawmakers not to leave Mexico on a trip, and has since been captured on television making indiscreet statements and been sued by his own lawyers.
Nobody was hurt in the bombings of a bank building, the country's electoral tribunal and a national party headquarters. But the incidents caught the attention of international investors who until then had figured Mexico's increasingly restless leftist movement was largely benign. The drug war raging along the border and erupting on the Pacific Coast already has money people nervous about doing business here. Add bomb-throwing radicals to the list.
Mexico's lower house voted Tuesday to keep Fox from leaving next week for a trade mission to Vietnam and Australia. Lawmakers said that Fox, whose six-year term ends this month, ought to be home restoring order in the state of Oaxaca's capital city, where thousands of federal police and protesters have been battling for control of the streets.
Lawmakers said maybe Vietnam, where the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum will hold a two-day summit. But they weren't buying a four-day stopover in Australia, Mexico's 32nd-largest trading partner and home to one of Fox's daughters.
"It's great that the daughter of President Fox went to study in another country," said federal lawmaker Erick Lopez Barriga. "… But maybe it would be better for him to make a work visit to Oaxaca; better to go to the border; better that he stay and try to resolve the security problems in our own country."
It was an old story for Fox, who lost his reform battles on taxes, energy and labor in Congress, and he reacted angrily to the humiliation. "We can't allow, in this time of democracy, the president to be kidnapped because of a few people," he said Tuesday night after the vote.
The next morning, Fox's former attorneys filed a lawsuit alleging that he hadn't paid the $3 million in legal bills he ran up while defending himself against charges of laundering money from U.S. donors in his 2000 presidential campaign. Fear of U.S. interests buying a Mexican election makes it illegal to receive foreign donations or campaign abroad.
The case had been seen as a slam-dunk against Fox, but lead attorney Arturo Quintero won it, with a fine being paid instead by Fox's National Action Party.
"I worked a long time and got very good results," Quintero said in a radio interview.
The president agreed to personally square the legal bill more than a year ago, said Quintero, who added that he still hadn't seen a dime. "It's a private matter between them," said Fox spokesman Ruben Aguilar.
Fox again made headlines Thursday, when Mexican newspapers reported that he told a television interviewer at Los Pinos, Mexico's presidential residence: "I can say whatever stupid thing I want. Really. I'm leaving." The video was posted on YouTube.
It's not that he doesn't care. Fox has spent a fortune — no one will say how much — on government-paid commercials that have been clogging radio and television since September. The spots boast of gains for Mexico under his leadership: more housing, more help for the poor, better healthcare.
The first president elected from an opposition party after the seven-decade rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, Fox wants to be known as the only one in recent history to keep the peso stable and inflation low. Tall and strapping, the 64-year-old Fox is popular and engaging in a crowd. But his image has taken hits.
The list of complaints against him, which begins with poor job growth, is long and includes his failure to settle with angry Oaxacan leftists, his enduring the sabotage of his last state-of-the-union address by losing presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and his inability to stem the corruption, kidnappings, beheadings, dismemberments, body burnings and other grim fallout of the country's drug wars.
As if things couldn't get any worse, there's a cumbia-style pop song, "Fox, Hand It Over and Leave," sharing the airwaves with his publicly funded touts.
The last verse of the Guillermo Zapata song, very roughly translated:
"You're going back to your ranch to milk a vaca [cow], because you couldn't fix Oaxaca."
Carlos Martínez and Cecilia Sánchez of The Times' Mexico City Bureau contributed to this report.
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http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/11/10/america/LA_GEN_Mexico_Oaxaca_Leftist.php
Published November 9, 2006
Wanted Mexican leftist bets Oaxaca rebellion will spread across nation
The Associated Press
Flavio Sosa is remarkably relaxed for a wanted man. As the most visible leader of a leftist movement that has rattled the Vicente Fox administration, chased state police out of this southern Mexican city and challenged hundreds of federal troops — Sosa faces arrest warrants on riot and conspiracy charges. He also has received death threats, no small worry in a city where there have been at least nine political killings since August, mostly of Sosa's fellow leftists.
But sitting in a colonial plaza, just two blocks away from an encampment of police clutching rifles and riot shields, the 41-year-old activist couldn't stop smiling.
"It's no use living my life in fear and being scared every time I go out in the street," he said. "This movement is beautiful. I'm proud to be a part of it."
A former migrant worker, Sosa is one of the founders of the Oaxaca People's Assembly, a leftist front trying to oust state Gov. Ulises Ruiz. The assembly formed in June after Ruiz's police officers violently broke up a protest by striking teachers demanding higher wages.
The assembly accuses Ruiz of rigging the 2004 election to win office and sending gangs of gun-toting thugs against his opponents. But Sosa says the fight goes deeper than this.
Ruiz of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is part of a long line of Mexican politicians who have looked after the rich and ground down the poor, he argues. The Oaxaca unrest, he says, is the beginning of a social upheaval akin to the unrest in Bolivia that culminated in the December election of leftist Evo Morales, the nation's first Indian president.
"Ruiz is just the detonator. We are living through a historic transformation in Latin America," Sosa said. "Our movement shows that Mexico is part of the south, like Bolivia, not part of the north, like the United States."
Sosa's enemies, including Ruiz and Oaxaca's Attorney General Lizbeth Cana, describe the bearded, long-haired activist as a "terrorist," and an "urban guerrilla."
For five months, Sosa and his supporters seized the city center, keeping out state police and driving away tourists from one of Mexico's top destinations. They built barricades, burned buses and took over radio stations to broadcast calls for revolution.
The president on Oct. 29 sent 4,000 federal officers backed by helicopters and water cannons to push the leftists out of the city center. But the violence persisted elsewhere as federal officers clashed with protesters using gasoline bombs and fireworks packed with glass and nails. Last week, 30 people were injured in the confrontations with police.
Sosa claims the fighting is in self-defense. Wanted by Oaxacan authorities, Sosa spends most of his time surrounded by supporters and hasn't slept at home in months. He has asked the church to grant him asylum, citing persecution. Church officials have not responded.
"What are you supposed to do, when your enemies murder and carry out arbitrary arrests?" he asked.
The portly leftist also says Mexico needs a hard kick to bring about change. As a young man in 1986, Sosa dropped out of his university to work as dishwasher in a New York diner.
"I went looking for the American dollar," he chuckled. "It was tough as an illegal migrant and I realized how little we have in my homeland."
Returning to Mexico in 1989, he helped found the Democratic Revolution Party, the nation's largest leftist group, and was elected to congress.
"I had high hopes we could make a difference through the ballot box," he said.
He left the party in 2000 to support former Coca Cola executive Fox in his successful bid for the presidency. In one photograph, Sosa and Fox appear arm in arm, their hands raised making the "V" for victory. Sosa said that Fox was the best bet to end 71 years of PRI rule in Mexico. But he quickly became disillusioned with the outgoing conservative president, saying Fox just looked after rich businessmen and made deals with old power brokers.
"Instead of trying bring about real change, Fox lived with the dinosaurs and ended up trapped in a web of complicity," Sosa said.
Critics say Sosa is an opportunist who allies with the highest bidder. A profile of him in the Mexican magazine Reporte Indigo paints him as a pistol-packing thug who is using the Oaxacan movement to carve out a fiefdom. Sosa laughs at the accusation.
"I wouldn't even know how to fire a gun," he said.
He also points out he is only one of many leaders in the assembly of leftist, trade union, student, Indian and neighborhood groups.
"We are all equal. But my big beard and big stomach have made me become the favorite leader of the press and the police," he said.
Interior Undersecretary Arturo Chavez, whom Fox sent to Oaxaca to negotiate with the leftists, acknowledged they have no chief.
"They are a very hard group to bargain with," Chavez said. "We talk to some leaders but then we are not sure if other leaders agree with them."
The grass-roots nature of the movement empowers its followers, Sosa said, predicting it will grow to a national rebellion.
Three bombs in Mexico City on Monday, which caused property damage but no injuries, were claimed by guerrilla groups in support of the Oaxaca protest movement. Sosa said the assembly had no connection with the bombings, but did not condemn the blasts.
"Fox's ineptitude will bring about a new revolution," he said.
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http://www.stratfor.com/products/premium/read_article.php?selected=Situation%20Reports&sitrep=1&id=280336
November 09, 2006 21 29 GMT
Mexico: Oaxaca's Ruiz Hopes To End Unrest
Gov. Ulises Ruiz of the Mexican state of Oaxaca met with Mexican Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal on Nov. 9 and presented a six-point plan to resolve the ongoing unrest in his state. The plan has not yet been made public but it reportedly concerns reconciliation, structural political reform, economic recovery, security, improved state-society relations and the fulfillment of accords with Oaxaca's teachers' union.
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http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20061109203955148
Oaxaca Solidarity Encampment: One Week and Still Going Strong
Thursday, November 09 2006 @ 08:39 PM PST
Contributed by: Anonymous
Since Thursday, November 2nd, students at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina have been holding a 24/7 encampment to raise awareness about Oaxaca and to provide solidarity with the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO).
In response to an escalation of repression in Oaxaca, including the invasion of federal troops, students stepped up their demonstrations at Guilford last week by creating a solidarity encampment on the college’s front lawn. They have held at least six information sessions on Oaxaca and the popular movement there, as well as a number of short presentations during their classes. Involvement has spread from an original group of 4 students to around 30 active participants. Much support has been expressed by faculty, alumni, and touring perspective students.
Other actions have included movie screenings, a vigil, a potluck, free patches and t-shirts in support of APPO, chalking, petitioning, and creating a general dialogue on the campus about Oaxaca, free market capitalism, and colonialism. Students are already networking with other members of the Greensboro community and are working together to plan actions for November 20th, the day of action called by the Zapatistas. Guilford College students also plan to continue solidarity efforts and direct action after November 20th, when their 24 hour encampment will end. Future events include a faculty panel discussion and other unannounced direct actions.
Guilford students have been publicly expressing solidarity with Oaxaca and the APPO since September, when over 80 letters condemning the Mexican Government and in support of the popular movement were delivered to the Mexican Consulate in Raleigh, North Carolina. Letters were signed by students, faculty, and staff, including the college President Kent Chabotar. Though they were promised a response from the consulate, students never received one. Joining with solidarity actions throughout the world on Monday, October 30, members of the Greensboro community and surrounding areas converged on the consulate and successfully occupied the consul’s office for three hours. Some students explained that after dealing with the consulate, they realized that letter-writing campaigns would never be enough and that immediate direct action was necessary. Their encampment has already lasted for a week and is still going strong.
(pictures coming soon once we figure out formatting)
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http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B1B50A9F4-C5D3-433A-9D8F-A0F68848F6AD%7D)&language=EN
November 9, 2006
Church Steps in on Side of Oaxaca People
Mexico, Nov 9 (Prensa Latina) Leaders of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) were granted protection Thursday, requested from the Catholic hierarchy due to the real threats against them.
Mexico to Ruiz: Govern or Resign
http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={DB0737E3-7A2E-434D-BD59-05B27277727E})&language=EN
Wilfredo Mayaren, legal representative of the Oaxaca archdiocese, said the decision to grant shelter to the APPO leaders is because they are facing “State terrorism and schizophrenic persecution.” He said there are people who believe that they will solve the problem by arresting or eliminating people, and the Church, faced with that situation, must accomplish one of its main missions, which is to help and protect those whose lives are really in danger.
Mayren suggested a dialogue with the movement leaders some time today to ask them to make sensible efforts to find a negotiated solution to the conflict. He reiterated that the Church did see true danger, thus the archbishopric agreed to help them.
Flavio Sosa, Florentino Lopez, and Zemen Bravo demanded protection on Wednesday, due to threats saying they could be “physically eliminated” or arrested by the Ministerial Police or armed groups at the service of the local governor.
The APPO has supported a teachers´ strike and protest since June and demanded the ousting of Gov. Ulisis Ruiz for violence and repression. They asked for protection to be able to continue leading the people’s movement from some church building.
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http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={DB0737E3-7A2E-434D-BD59-05B27277727E})&language=EN
November 9, 2006
Mexico to Ruiz: Govern or Resign
Mexico, Nov 9 (Prensa Latina) Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz was urged to return peace and normality to that southern Mexican state or step down from his post, Secretariat of Government sources said Thursday.
Following an extended meeting with Carlos Abascal, secretary of Government, Ruiz presented a six point plan to recover stability in the control of the state and the city occupied by the federal police. His program includes reconciliation, state reform, economic reactivation, security, redesign of the government structures and advance in the fulfillment of agreements reached with teachers.
The gathering took place a day after Ruiz received the government launched ultimatum exhorting him to achieve a pact that illustrates governability in Oaxaca or leave power.
The governor s initiative does not include his abdication and envisages talks this week or next with the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), the federal government the local society to seek a solution before December 1.
However, authorities and APPO members consider it almost impossible that the social movement and the local government share the same table.
APPO stands firm on the removal of Ruiz, the withdrawal of the federal police and the suspension of arrest warrants.
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http://ogb.wfu.edu/?id=3870_0_8_0_M
November 9, 2006
Crisis in Oaxaca needs to have a swift resolution
By Amit Dorf / Guest columnist
Over the last five months, the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca has seen massive rallies, the closure of roads and government buildings, violent police oppression and most recently bombings. This is the scene of a five month popular uprising.
On May 22, the teachers union of Oaxaca (composed of 70,000 teachers) began their annual strike, which usually leads to small pay increases. This year, however, the government of Oaxaca decided to come down with a heavy-hand. On June 14, Gov. Ulises Ruiz ordered police officers to forcibly break the strike.
As an immediate outcry against this, over 300 grassroots organizations, including unions, indigenous and peasant groups and students came together to form the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca. An organization created to unify the voices of many people and groups who joined in to resist the oppression of Governor Ruiz and recreate democracy from the ground up.
This popular movement attracted hundreds of thousands of people from throughout the state who joined in with the APPO. The colonial city of Oaxaca transformed to a place of popular resistance over the last several months, as people occupied the streets and thousands from outside the city set up temporary living stalls. Many locals from the city spent their days preparing meals for those who had traveled far from their homes.
The demonstrators occupied a number of radio and television stations, public buildings and erected barricades throughout the city. For months, the people of Oaxaca had turned the city into an autonomous zone, with the governor himself being forced to leave as he had no access to government offices.
Then, on Oct. 27, local government officials fired on a crowd of protesters, killing three: Esteban Zurrita and Emilio Alonso Fabian, two locals involved in the demonstrations, and Brad Will, an American journalist who had been following the protests. Will’s video camera continued recording as he was shot. Even though this was not the first killing of protestors, the media attention and outcry brought the attention of the federal government.
Mexican President Vincente Fox, facing increasing internal and external pressure, decided to send in the Federal Preventive Police to end the unrest.
On Oct. 29, more than 4,000 federal riot police stormed Oaxaca to remove striking teachers and other protesters from the central square, clear barricades and attempt to replace order. Armed with light tanks, submachine guns, riot shields and helicopters, the federal police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the demonstrators. At least three more people were killed and dozens injured and imprisoned.
Over the next several days, conflict continued as the PFP removed barricades and secured more areas, while the resistance rebuilt barricades. Protestors threw rocks while police bulldozed through barricades, carrying rifles and shooting water cannons laced with pepper spray and tear gas.
On Nov. 2, Mexico’s Day of the Dead holiday, the PFP attempted to clear barricades surrounding the Autonomous University of Oaxaca Benito Juarez, which houses the radio station Radio Universidad, one of the last reporting outlets and strongholds for the APPO, but failed and the police were forced to withdraw.
The violence to date has led to the death of at least 17, hundreds of injured, and hundreds of imprisoned or missing persons.
APPO says it is willing to re-establish dialogue with the government, but that the resignation of Ruiz is non-negotiable.
The protesters accuse Ruiz of rigging the last elections and of repression and corruption. Ruiz is a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which dominated Mexican politics for 71 years until Fox took power in 2000. However the PRI stronghold still exists in Oaxaca.
Millions worldwide have demonstrated solidarity, such as the Zapatistas, which closed down major roads on Nov. 1 and are campaigning for a nation-wide shutdown on Nov. 20. APPO has also coordinated six “mega-marches,” the most recent of which took place on Nov. 5.
Caravans of supporters came from all throughout Mexico to join in the peaceful march, which attracted hundreds of thousands and covered miles of highway. APPO has maintained its stance of peaceful resistance, in its struggle for democracy.
It has long been a fear of the government that the revolutionary, anti-globalization mentality of the Zapatistas would spread outward as is witnessed in this recent uprising.
This is a movement without leaders, in which the people themselves have organized with amazing courage and amazing capacity. The people of Oaxaca are not only trying to replace their governor, but to take control of their government. To take control over their lives. It is an amazing example of popular resistance versus instituted power.
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Amit Dorf is a senior political science major from Weaverville, N.C.
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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N09308883.htm
09 Nov 2006 20:56:05 GMT
Oaxaca coffee exports unaffected by protests
Source: Reuters
OAXACA, Mexico, Nov 9 (Reuters) - A violent political crisis in the Mexican coffee-growing state of Oaxaca, which has seen protesters hijacking cars and trucks, does not threaten bean exports, the state coffee council said. The council said output was set to rise this harvest.
Large parts of Oaxaca's pretty capital of the same name were seized months ago by protesters who built street barricades, chased out police and closed government buildings in a bid to oust the state governor. Federal police have since gained control of the city's colonial center, but protesters still dominate some neighborhoods and frequently hijack trucks and buses to strengthen their roadblocks.
Coffee council head Fortino Figueroa said the harvest beginning in the next few weeks would not be affected by the crisis, which has seen at least a dozen people killed, most of them protesters.
"The critical problem in Oaxaca is limited to the city, it is not in coffee growing zones and has not affected the coffee," he told Reuters.
Workers said the coffee council is one of the few government offices not closed by the protesters, who accuse state Gov. Ulises Ruiz of corruption and repression.
Oaxaca exports 80 percent of its coffee outside Mexico, but Figueroa said most exports go either via the neighboring state of Veracruz or along the Pacific coast, without passing through the capital.
Coffee output in Oaxaca, a mountainous southern state with numerous microclimates, plunged when many farmers abandoned the crop in the wake of a price crisis at the start of the decade.
Bad weather also helped push output down to around 295,000 60-kg bags in the last two harvests, from an average of 345,00 bags in previous years.
The industry has been hurt by a wave of migration from poor rural areas to the United States, leaving many farms without the labor needed to harvest or tend crops. But Figueroa predicted a better crop this year. He said regular rainfall had helped flowering and the coffee trees he had seen on farm visits were laden with ripening berries.
"The sun and rain have been favorable and wind damage is low, which gives us the chance to raise the harvest to 300,000 or even 345,000 bags," he said.
Most of Oaxaca's coffee is grown on small family farms in indigenous regions. Some is sold via cooperatives to Fair Trade and organic roasters. The coffee is washed in small mills and sun-dried on farm patios. The parchment is removed in regional dry-mills.
Figueroa said the coffee council was pressing ahead with a program to help farmers certify their coffee as organic or shade-grown despite the protests, which have frozen the activities of many government offices.
Oaxaca's most famous coffee is Cafe Pluma, grown in the foothills above the state's Pacific coast surfer hangouts.
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http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20061108151446352
Thursday, November 09 2006 @ 10:47 AM PST
Worldwide Direct Action to Take Place in Support of Those Struggling in Oaxaca on November 20
Contributed by: Anonymous
On November 20, blockades will be set up to show the Mexican government we mean business. We are calling upon YOU to join in these blockades. That could mean blockading the consulates’ websites, jamming their phone lines with calls about the conflict in Oaxaca, occupying the offices of the consuls, or shutting down the roads around the consulates in whatever way you see fit.
Worldwide Direct Action to Take Place in Support of Those Struggling in Oaxaca on November 20
On October 27, paramilitaries in Oaxaca, Mexico murdered Indymedia journalist Brad Will. He is one of dozens who have lost their lives at the hands of pro-government forces while participating in the largely nonviolent resistance to government oppression in that region. Mexican president Vicente Fox used Brad’s death as a pretext to send 4,000 federal police into the city of Oaxaca; these forces are systematically brutalizing the population.
The people of Oaxaca have not backed down – through days of courageous fighting, they have managed to protect their radio station at the university, repelling machine gun wielding armored police with only sticks, stones, and hope. On November 5, tens of thousands marched through the streets of Oaxaca, calling for the federal police to leave.
The only reason that hundreds more have not yet been killed in Oaxaca is that the Mexican government fears the response that would engender in Mexico and across the world. Those who have organized solidarity demonstrations at Mexican consulates can congratulate themselves on helping, however slightly, to deter the Mexican government from ordering a bloodbath.
That bloodbath will still take place, however, unless we continue to escalate the pressure upon President Fox’s government to withdraw federal forces from Oaxaca. The EZLN has announced that it will help coordinate a nationwide shut-down on November 20. This must be matched with international actions to show that the world has not taken its eyes off Oaxaca, that on the contrary, the mobilization in support of those who struggle there is only gathering momentum.
On November 20, blockades will be set up to show the Mexican government we mean business. We are calling upon YOU to join in these blockades. That could mean blockading the consulates’ websites, jamming their phone lines with calls about the conflict in Oaxaca, occupying the offices of the consuls, or shutting down the roads around the consulates in whatever way you see fit.
If we do not show Vicente Fox that paramilitaries and federal forces cannot brutalize Oaxaca with impunity, the blood of an entire murdered resistance movement will be on our hands. Now is the time to act in solidarity with those who struggle in Oaxaca, in solidarity with the Zapatistas who have called on us to support them, and in solidarity with all who struggle against government and capitalism across the world.
Actions are already being planned in cities around the US. Please plan actions in yours.
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http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={F776843F-A928-4E07-B8A8-D7E82F2B5610}&language=EN
November 9, 2006
Oaxaca Leaders Ask for Refuge
Mexico, Nov 9 (Prensa Latina) While the removal of Gov. Ulises Ruiz is still in the waiting, leaders of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), are pending Thursday an refuge request to be honored by catholic officials of that Mexican state.
Flavio Sosa, Florentino Lopez and Zemen Bravo said that the demand is founded on latest threats that they could be killed or detained by the ministerial police or groups working for the local governor.
As relatives and friends of APPO leaders have been also harassed and menaced by the local government, they asked for refuge in any building of the church to continue leading the popular movement from there.
Likewise, the popular assembly announced its action plan for the next days, which includes a siege-rally around the transition residence of president-elect Felipe Calderon, taking cashboxes along nationwide roads and surrounding the federal police headquarters.
With those measures, the social movement seeks the resignation of Oaxaca governor, withdrawal of the federal police, release of political prisoners and the presentation of missing people.
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200611/s1784342.htm
Thursday, November 9, 2006. 9:10am (AEDT)
Violence forces Mexican President to cancel Aust visit
The outgoing President of Mexico, Vincente Fox, has been forced to cancel a trip to Australia because of increasing violence in his country. Mr Fox has only three weeks left in office and planned to spend some of that time in Australia talking trade but Congress voted overwhelmingly to block his departure from Mexico, citing political upheaval.
Conflict between police and demonstrators in the southern city of Oaxaca has been running for six months, leaving about 15 people dead.
This week three bombs exploded in the capital. No one was injured but guerrilla groups claimed responsibility, aligning themselves to the Oaxaca demonstrators who are demanding the resignation of the state governor. Two grenades also exploded in a resort on the Pacific coast ahead of the visit by the President-elect.
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http://www.playfuls.com/news_10_2952-Earthquake-Shakes-Mexican-State-Of-Oaxaca-Causes-No-Damage.html
11:31 PM, November 8th 2006
Earthquake Shakes Mexican State Of Oaxaca, Causes No Damage
by News Staff
An earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale shook the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca on Wednesday but caused no injuries or damage, authorities said. The quake occurred at 1618 GMT and had its epicentre near Miahuatlan, in the south of the state and close to the Pacific coast, the National Earthquake Service reported.
The state of Oaxaca is currently in the middle of an intense political conflict that has been ongoing for five months and killed at least 11 people. Protestors have demanded the resignation of hardline Governor Ulises Ruiz, and federal police have been deployed to the state capital, the historic city of Oaxaca.
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http://ww4report.com/node/2745
Wed, 11/08/2006
Torture in Oaxaca; Amnesty demands info on detained
Submitted by Bill Weinberg
Amnesty International has officially called upon the Mexican government to release the names of those detained by federal police in Oaxaca, and the charges they face. The arrested now number above 80. Many are being held incommunicado and there are growing reports of human rights abuses. (El Universal, Nov. 7)
The Zapateando blog reports the particularly horrific case of Blanca Canseco Mendez, a teacher with the local Section 22 union, and Jaime Rojas Guzman, a science student at the National University (UNAM) who traveled to Oaxaca to participate in the Section 22 State Assembly. The pair were detained the morning of Nov. 4 at an army roadblock on the outskirts of the city and brought to a military camp where they were interrogated and severely beaten by Military Intelligence agents. The torture lasted all day and into the night. Then they were stripped naked, bound, photographed and videotaped, and placed in a military helicopter. They were flown around for two hours, accused of being "subversives" and "senderistas," and repeatedly threatened with being thrown overboard into the sea. They were finally turned over to the state prison (CERESO) at Etla, where they continue to be held, apparently without charge. After the intervention of National Human Rights Commission, alerted by their families of the disappearances, relatives were allowed access to them at the prison, and they related their ordeal. (Zapateando, Nov. 7)
Meanwhile, the Secretariat of Defense has "energetically" protested the "kidnapping" of two soldiers who were detained by protesters Nov. 4 during the street fighting near the Oaxaca state univeristy. The soldiers were turned over to the military after two hours, following the mediation of the Red Cross, which affirmed that they had not been maltreated. Protest leaders said they were detained for being informants. (La Jornada, Nov. 6)
In Mexico City Nov. 5, some 40 supporters of the Oaxaca protesters forced their way into the national cathedral where mass was being celebrated by Mexican Archbishop Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, who had recently expressed his support for the federal intervention in Oaxaca. With their hands painted red to simulate blood, they chanted slogans like "Norberto is blessing those that rape and kill in Oaxaca." They were finally removed by security officials. (La Jornada, Nov. 6)
After 509 hours without food, 17 Oaxacan protesters ended their public hunger strike in Mexico City Nov. 6, bowing to pressure from freinds who had expressed concerns about their health. Four other hunger strikers had broken their fast days earlier, citing health concerns. (El Universal, Nov. 7) Immeditately, six federal deputies (conrgessmen) began hunger strikes to take up the Oaxacans' demand for the state governor to step down. The deputies are Rey Morales, national coordinador of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD); Marcela Merino, Lenin Lopez Nelio, Temistocles Munoz, Adriana Luci a Cruz (all PRD), and Mariano Santana of the Workers Party (PT). (La Jornada, Nov. 7)
All sources archived at Chiapas95
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/~hmcleave/chiapas95.html
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http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3688
Oaxaca Fights Back
Laura Carlsen, IRC | November 8, 2006
Editor: John Feffer, IRC
In regional lore, Oaxacans have a reputation for being like the tlacuache. A recurring figure in Mexican mythology, the tlacuache plays dead when cornered. But woe to the enemy who thinks the battle is over. The small but fierce creature merely awaits a more propitious moment to fight back.
The Oaxacan protest movement burns slow, but deep. Oaxacan teachers, who mobilized for a pay raise last May, consciously built on years of protest against social inequality in their state. On June 14, the state government goaded the Oaxacan tlacuachewhen it attempted to evict protesting teachers from Oaxaca's central plaza. Oaxacans responded by forming the broad-based Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO). The federal government confronted the growing movement on October 28 when it sent thousands of federal police to occupy the city. The murders, wounding, and disappearance of the protestors have only deepened the resolve of the movement as a whole.
Although the stage was set for confrontation, the movement continued to insist on non-violence. They lay down in front of advancing tanks and distributed flowers to riot-geared cops. On November 2, a crucial battle took place when the police attempted to retake the university. Inside the university, the radio station that has been the backbone of the protest organizing over the past five months was under siege the entire day. Radio APPO did not cease to broadcast and the people did not cease to defend it, despite the grossly uneven odds against them.
“Our eyes are burning with tear gas, but at least now we can see the government for what it really is,” a young woman commented over the air in a voice filled with urgency and determination. “We're not budging.”
People all over the world heard her. Radio APPO streamed through the computers of listeners who followed the battle for the university in blow-by-blow accounts. They instantly activated networks to plan their own protests. Within days, demonstrators gathered in front of Mexican consulates and embassies in the United States and Europe, calling for an end to police repression of the movement. People whose names are well known throughout the world wrote and published letters, and people whose names have been printed only in phone books signed petitions. In a small town in Italy, hundreds of young people gathered to discuss North-South cooperation and declare their solidarity with Oaxaca, and in New York several protesters were arrested in front of the Mexican consulate. The Zapatista Other Campaign mobilized a binational roadblock on the Mexico-U.S. border. The list of actions worldwide goes on and on.
Both houses of the Mexican congress and the secretary of the interior, who is charged with domestic policy, have called for Oaxacan Governor Ulises Ruiz to step down. Despite the breakdown of governance in the state, he has refused saying it is his duty to hold on to his job. On November 5, the movement mobilized tens of thousands of people in a march through Oaxaca. In the pre-dawn hours of November 6, bombs exploded in the offices of the electoral tribunal, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and an international bank. No one was killed or injured, but the tension rose several notches. Several guerrilla groups claimed responsibility for the acts, demanding the resignation of the governor, freedom for political prisoners held following police repression in the town of Atenco, and investigation of the charges of electoral fraud.
The APPO immediately condemned the bombings and repeated that it has no relations with guerrilla groups. It has continued to try to negotiate a peaceful settlement of its demands. In the turbid political atmosphere following Mexico's presidential elections on July 2, Oaxaca's conflict has now catalyzed a series of events that threaten Mexico's stability.
Why Oaxaca?
The mountains of Oaxaca became the refuge of pre-Columbian civilizations that were never fully conquered. The history of resistance and persistence that developed there permitted the survival of cultures that bucked a colonizing mentality and rejected tacitly or explicitly the wholesale imposition of colonial political systems. At the same time, to subjugate the rebels required some of the nation's most brutal forms of repression. Many of these remain fundamentally intact to this day. The governor, whose resignation has become the principal demand of the current Oaxacan insurrection, has inherited the mantle of this centuries-old tradition of repression.
Oaxaca is a land of many peoples. The state encompasses 16 languages within its borders and has the nation's largest number of municipalities (570), in large part due to the determination to preserve and strengthen local self-government. Even in Oaxaca City, where fighting between police and protesters has transformed the urban landscape, diversity precludes any easy characterization. Mixtecos converge with Martians (the local name for the city's large population of foreign artists, writers, pensioners, and NGO workers), tourists with beggars, the rich with the poor.
This diversity, which in another context could fragment a social movement, has become the wealth and collective strength of Mexico's most important social justice rebellion in recent years. Oaxacan teachers have drawn on over 26 years of experience in the democratic teachers' movement. Section 22, the group of Oaxacan teachers organized in the National Education Workers Union (SNTE by its Spanish initials), has long been a stronghold of the democratic faction of the union. For years its leaders have been elected from this dissident faction and have become leaders in Oaxaca's social movements beyond the union as well.
Oaxaca's rebellion also has roots in the battles of the indigenous communities for autonomy and, since the 1970s, for the restoration of communitarian forms of self-government, collective work, and identity. Added to the mix has been the anger of a new generation of high school and university students sick of getting short shrift from governments impoverished by structural adjustment and corruption. And as a final ingredient in a recipe for rebellion, citizens sensitized to the injustice expressed in daily life rose up against a disputed gubernatorial election that seemed to doom their society to more of the same or worse.
Leading Edge
The significance of the Oaxacan movement to Mexico is obvious. It is the first challenge to a federal government with little legitimacy or credibility, elected amid charges of fraud last July. Although Felipe Calderon takes office on December 1, the rules of Mexican politics dictate that all major, and especially very visible, decisions like the repression of the Oaxacan movement must at least be approved by him. The government's decision to send in federal police is in part based on a desire not to pass on a problem to a weak president who lacks the political capacity to resolve it.
The frustrations that led to the formation of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) exist throughout the country. Elections that fail to reflect the popular will, inequalities that sunder communities, brutality and corruption that flourish with impunity—no region is immune from the kind of social unrest that gave birth to the Oaxacan movement. Many Mexicans openly celebrate each victory of the Oaxacans, and each day they maintain the resistance. Knowing this, the government seeks to repress the movement without conceding political ground, so as not to provide a dangerous precedent in a system that relies on the complacency of the political and economic have-nots.
But why do other people care? Does Oaxaca have a meaning beyond an inspirational tale for those who aspire to a more just world?
If the movement for global justice were a territorial battle, Oaxaca would be a tiny point on a very large map, of little consequence except to the people involved. But symbolic battles, although very real for the combatants themselves, are the true terrain of the movement for global justice. They offer an opportunity, even when lost, to defeat the myths that uphold the system.
Oaxaca is the South of the South. It is the truth to the lie that Mexico has joined the First World by grabbing onto the coattails of the United States through the North American Free Trade Agreement. The failure of this integration strategy in Oaxaca and other southern states in Mexico was so obvious that even a recent World Bank report felt obliged to address the issue. Its conclusion—“the southern states did not benefit from NAFTA because they were not prepared to reap the benefits of free trade”—was foregone and surprised no one who has studied the Bank's blame-the-victim logic. If forced to do an evaluation of globalization in general, defenders of neoliberalism would no doubt castigate the entire global South for this supposed failure. Needless to say, it is of little consolation to the hungry, the displaced, the disenfranchised, and the discarded.
The Oaxacan rebellion is proof that for many people, even physical preservation can become secondary to fighting for a conviction. With only the raw material of their own lives in their hands, they have set out to mold a different future. Although demands today center on the governor's resignation and fair pay for teachers, the new forms of organization and consciousness created will endure long after this movement and become the seeds of future movements.
They will also be the seeds of popular rebellions in other places. The Oaxacan rebellion is a reminder that an evaluation of the consequences of free trade and globalization is indeed overdue — and that the World Bank has no right to be the evaluator. The people who have suffered the consequences should evaluate the system. Too often in the North, the reports of protest and rebellion around the world are seen as disparate battles or isolated complaints and not as part of a growing consensus that something is gravely wrong. Those who live in countries that do “reap the benefits of free trade” — not through “preparation” but through the design of the system — have a responsibility to get the message.
What could have been a local conflict has detonated a national confrontation and contributed to the revival of violent factions. The government's lack of political will has blocked real negotiations. It has failed to respond to Oaxaca's valid demands and open up talks on the reforms needed to assure Mexico's peace and stability. Instead, the country is now perilously close to the opposite.
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Laura Carlsen is director of the IRC Americas Program in Mexico City, where she has worked as a writer and political analyst for the past two decades. The Americas Program is online @
http://americas.irc-online.org/ .
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http://ww4report.com/node/2742
Oaxaca: siege continues; solidarity builds across Mexico
Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Mon, 11/06/2006 - 18:41.
There have now been 84 "arbitrary detentions" by the Mexican federal police in Oaxaca, according to the Miguel Augustin Pro-Juarez Human Rights Center (PRODH), which has dispatched a team of investigators to the besieged city. The group also reports 59 "disappearances," in which the whereabouts of the detained is unknown, since the city was occupied by 4,000 Federal Preventative Police on Oct. 29. (La Jornada, Nov. 5)
Despite the massive federal police presence, paramilitary attacks continue in the city. Student supporters of the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) reported that in the pre-dawn hours of Nov. 4, the transmitter of Radio Universidad came under fire from two passing trucks. (Noticias de Oaxaca, Nov. 5) The Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca-Ricardo Flores Magon (CIPO-RFM) reports that paramilitaries have repeatedly attacked their offices since the federal police entered the city. The CIPO-RFM office is in the Santa Lucia del Camino suburb, near where New York Indymedia journalist Brad Will was killed on Oct. 27. (CIPO-RFM communique, Oct. 31)
The federal prosecutor's office (PGR) says it will investigate paramilitary activity in Oaxaca, and has discussed the issue with both APPO leaders and Gov. Ulises Ruiz. (La Jornada, Nov. 5)
APPO says it is willing to re-establish dialogue with the government, but that the resignation of Ruiz is not negotiable. It has also set the immediate release of "political prisoners" and withdrawal of the federal police as pre-conditions for a return to the table. (APPO communique, Nov. 5)
Protests in support of APPO are spreading across Mexico. On Nov. 5, as thousands converged on Oaxaca City from throughout the country for the APPO "mega-march," maquiladora workers in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, blockaded the international bridge leading to Brownsville, TX. Workers also rallied in front of the municipal palace in Mazatlan, Sinaloa. The actions were organized by the Maquiladora Pro-Justice Coalition. (La Jornada, Nov. 5)
In Chiapas, the Maya Catholic pacifist group Las Abejas announced it is organizing a caravan to Oaxaca City to support the APPO. (Las Abejas communique, Nov. 5)
In Mexico City, Zapatista delegates presided over a meeting in solidarity with APPO in the Palacio de Bellas Artes. (Enlace Zapatista, Nov. 2) Zapatista Comandante Zebedeo met with APPO hunger strikers in the capital's Hemiciclo a Juarez plaza. (Enlace Zapatista, Nov. 2)
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All sources archived at Chiapas95
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/~hmcleave/chiapas95.html
More information at:
Enlace Zapatista
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/
CIPO-RFM
http://www.nodo50.org/cipo/
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http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=23f18c218cae72863e7f324cfd2bad97
In Oaxaca Crisis, Mexico City Explosions are a Dangerous Escalation
New America Media , News Analysis, Louis E. V. Nevaer, Nov 08, 2006
Editor’s Note: Activists in Oaxaca took their fight with their governor to Mexico City yesterday when they claimed responsibility for three bombs which exploded there, causing minor damage. One man sustained injuries. President Vicente Fox has condemned the attacks but New America contributor Louis E. V. Nevaer says that he’ll be forced to act.
New York City – The explosions that rocked Mexico City yesterday afternoon luckily didn’t hurt anyone, but they raised the stakes in the campaign to remove Oaxaca state Governor Ulises Ruiz.
Radical students, who have clashed with police on the university campus in Oaxaca City, vowed not to relent their campaign against their governor until he resigns. Ruiz for his part has vowed to remain in office – despite calls from President Vicente Fox, a non-binding resolution from the Mexican Congress, and his own party leaders – not to remain in office.
The standoff resulted in federal forces occupying Oaxaca City last Sunday. Ruiz’s provocateurs incited violence that left three people dead, including an American activist who was documenting the standoff. For Fox, that violence and the explosions yesterday bring Oaxaca’s troubles to his doorstep, during the final three weeks of his six-year term.
Mexicans have historically cringed from political violence. The Mexican Revolution of 1910-1917 resulted in a bloodbath, and the political system that emerged in the decade afterwards centered on the consolidation of power of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which would rule uninterrupted for seven decades. “El que se enoja, pierde,” meaning, “He who loses his temper, loses,” was the maxim under the PRI. More a political machine than an ideological party, the PRI was flexible enough to provide room for conservative businessmen and communist ideologues alike. “During most of the twentieth century Mexicans sought to resolve their conflicts internally, going to many extremes to avoid any semblance of violence,” said Robert Brenner, a European diplomat who’s worked in Chaipas and is knowledgeable about Mexico. “Mexicans managed to accommodate conflicts and change in a remarkably peaceful environment.”
The paradox of democracy is that it’s impossible to dictate things. Although Fox, the Mexican Congress and PRI party officials wish Ulises Ruiz would just resign and leave the scene, no one can order him to do so.
“If only this man would take the next plane to Paris and stay there in permanent exile,” said Raquel Romero, director of human rights organization Mesoamerica Foundation. This is a reference to Porfirio Diaz, the Victorian dictator who was deposed at the beginning of the 20th century and lived out the last of his days in luxurious solitude in France.
For Mexicans, especially for Oaxaca’s civilian and student activists – that Fox cannot simply order Ruiz to resign is especially frustrating. His predecessor, Ernesto Zedillo, was able to order recalcitrant governors – collectively known as the “dinosaurs,” since they were seen as creatures from Mexico’s pre-democratic past – to resign one after the other. In 1995 when Victor Cervera came to office, through electoral fraud, enough power (and outrage) had been diffused sufficiently throughout Yucatecan society that by 2001, for the first time in modern history, the PAN’s Patricio Patron was elected. A charismatic young man, who established his credentials as mayor of Merida, the state’s capital city with more than a million residents, he embarked on a modernization program that includes posting the state’s finances on the internet, for anyone to scrutinize, catapulting Yucatan State from the 19th century to the 21st, in 36 months.
Other southern states have not fared as well, despite Zedillo’s heavy-handed methods. Despite two “interim” governors in Tabasco State – Jose Maria Peralta (1987-1988) and Manuel Gurria (1992-1994) – the PRI’s hold on this oil-rich state continues unchallenged, to the detriment of the Tabascan people. In neighboring Chiapas, democracy has had a tougher time still: President Zedillo went through four “interim” governors in six years before he quieted the unrest. It took the election of Pablo Salazar, of the left-of-center Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, in 2000 before the Maya peoples began to feel confidence that state government would address their needs.
The standoff between the people of Oaxaca and their governor Ulises Ruiz will escalate in ways detrimental to the PRI. By refusing to step aside, Ruiz has broken the cardinal rule of Mexican political culture: The interests of the individual never stand in the way of social peace. This is the equivalent to Al Gore not ceding to Bush or Richard Nixon refusing to leave office. Radical students who claim responsibility for the bombings in Mexico City and the grenade attack in the Pacific resort of Ixtapa – hours before Mexico’s president-elect Felipe Calderon’s arrival – have forced Fox’s hand. The direct affront in the nation’s capital – and where Mexico’s president-elect was traveling – means that federal authorities will be unable to let Ruiz remain as governor of Oaxaca.
“The stakes have been raised in an unprecedented way,” Brenner, the U.N. diplomat said. “Ruiz is now persona non grata in the Mexican political system.”
Radical students have placed the PRI’s credibility on the line: One way or another they must find a way for Ruiz to agree to resign, preferably by boarding the next flight to Paris.
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Related stories:
Oaxaca’s Unrest Echoes America’s Civil Rights South
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=2f4790ed23757da1c614104c02f06ff4
Oaxacans Debate their Governor's Future
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=0ffdd97834ee34154b19819dc382c0d2
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Links from Domingo, Nov 5, 2006= Aztlannet_News Report
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November 3, 2006= Oaxaca Video Collective Needs Your Support.
http://elenemigocomun.net/368
Contact Email= justin@riseup.net
BRADLEY: In Memoriam
http://video.indymedia.org/en/2006/11/551.shtml
October 31, 2006= Mexico: The last moments of Bradley Roland Will + Video Link
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Aztlannet_News/message/25995
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2006/10/30/mexico-the-last-moments-of-bradley-roland-will/
Video= Mexican government killed american journalist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o22L-xEVRqY
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Be for real! Love La Raza Cosmca! Venceremos!