I have been putting off writing more about events in Oaxaca because a) things have been quite complicated and tense there during the past few weeks, and it's been hard to stay on top of it, and b) Allie and I (with the help of a friend who is a video editor) have been busy making a little film of footage from our trip. We showed it to a group of folks in the neighborhood last night. They bought some copies and contributed more funds to our Radio Planton equipment account, so things are looking good as far as a new transmittor for the station! I will post the video once I figure out the technology involved. (I am not good at these things. If you know how to upload video online, please offer some help!!)
At the moment, what's going on is essentially this:
1. The APPO (Popular Assembly of the peoples of Oaxaca) continues to demand the resignation of the state governor. It is also trying to become more organized and to develop strategies for representing Oaxacans and future reform (I'm not sure how much progress is being made on those fronts). If the governor does resign, it will be interesting to see how the diverse groups that form the APPO work together once their one unifying goal is accomplished. It seems unlikely that the federal government will be very happy about allowing the APPO to become the authority in Oaxaca should the governor step down, nor will the APPO readily accept another PRI governor.
2. Teachers--5000 of them--are marching from Oaxaca City to Mexico City, passing through numerous communities. They have been met with a great deal of support along the way, with community members bringing them food and teachers from Cuernavaca and Michoacan joining in the march. The other teachers remain in the encampments in Oaxaca City.
3. The (ex) governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, is asking for federal military intervention in Oaxaca. The city is surrounded by tanks and state police, and planes and helicopters have been flying overhead. The navy is also stationed on the coast. Teachers and members of the movement see this as an attempt to intimidate the people into abandoning their struggle, and they have expressed great fear of a violent intervention. Yesterday, the Interior Secretary met with representatives and downplayed the possibility of the use of force, but he has also mentioned the possibility of a "peaceful" intervention, which sounds a bit bizarre. This issue has interesting implications for the national (PAN) government: because of its narrow victory (if it WAS a victory??) in the national elections, the PAN will need the support of the PRI party to achieve a majority vs. the PRD. The PRI is backing Ruiz and military intervention, while the PRD is all for his dismissal. This puts the PAN in an awkward position.
4. A teacher was killed yesterday in Oaxaca City. He was not a member of the movement, but rather opposed it, belonging to a group that received money from the state to divide the movement. The AP report suggests that he was killed by APPO members for this opposition, but independent journalists in Oaxaca suggest that, while nobody can be sure, it looks like the work of government-affiliated provacateurs. Independent filmmaker Jill Friedberg writes,
"While there are some aggressive folks in the APPO and Seccion 22, they are not in the practice of killing people. The only documented "violence" carrried out by members of the movement has been the use of sticks, rocks, molotov cocktails, etc. to defend themselves from attacks by heavily armed police and/or government thugs. While it's impossible to prove who killed the teacher, it certainly does look and smell like an attempt to create a level of violence and chaos in the state that justifies the intervention of federal police.
This isn't the only example. The night before last, while filming in the barricades near Radio La Ley, I was told by some teachers that they had spotted heavily-armed men a few blocks from the barricades. We drove over there, and sure enough, there were at least 20 guys (not in any kind of uniform) with very big guns and big trucks, only three blocks from the barricades."
The AP report is one of many examples of how quick the press has been to label the movement as violent, while downplaying the presence of paramilitary groups. If, that is, they cover the situation in Oaxaca at all. If you want to keep up with what's going on, I would suggest looking at:
Narconews (mostly foreign journalists reporting from Mexico)
La Jornada (Spanish daily news)
Oaxaca Study Action Group (on-line discussion group)
The Economist had a recent article that gives a fairly accurate summary of the conflict to date, one of the few reasonably comprehensive pieces I have seen in the mainstream press (Thanks Jennifer for forwarding it):
Sep 28th 2006 | OAXACA
From *The Economist* print edition
The governor v most of the people
NORMALLY the streets of Oaxaca, a city of some 250,000 people in southern Mexico, are full of tourists. They come to enjoy the nearby Zapotec ruins of Monte Albán and the city's colonial churches, Indian markets and art galleries. But Oaxaca, designated a world heritage site by the United Nations, is today a much sorrier sight.
For the past four months, it has been in the grip of a bitter political conflict that one local politician calls "a low-intensity urban war." The Zócalo, the main square, is permanently occupied by several thousand protesters; more are camped out around the city. *They have seized several radio stations and public offices.* Many streets are blocked by barricades of parked buses or corrugated iron. Angry graffiti, in red and black spray-paint, disfigure many historic buildings.
Not only has this conflict driven off the tourists; it also threatens to complicate the handover of national power on December 1st from Vicente Fox, the current president, to Felipe Calderón, the narrow victor of Mexico's hotly disputed July election.
The conflict, in which five people have been killed so far, began with a strike over salaries by the state's militant teachers, an annual ritual. Matters escalated in June when Ulises Ruiz, the state governor, sent his police force to evict the strikers from the Zócalo. The police, who are accused of handing out beatings, on this occasion received one. The teachers were promptly reinforced by a newly-created Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), a motley collection of more than 100 community and political groups, ranging from moderate to far-left. Their demand now is the ousting of Mr Ruiz.
While Mexico has become a democracy over the past decade, Oaxaca, one of its poorest and most Indian states, has failed to follow suit. Mr Ruiz belongs to the most authoritarian wing of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which governed Mexico for seven decades until Mr Fox won the presidency in 2000. The PRI continues to govern Oaxaca as if in perpetuity, despite well-founded claims by a united opposition coalition that Mr Ruiz's election by a margin of 2% in 2004 was fraudulent.
Mr Ruiz has ruled in a high-handed manner. One of his first acts was to vacate the government palace in the Zócalo and "remodel" the square, ripping up ancient trees. He has united much of the state against him: in the federal election, the PRI lost a Senate seat and nine seats in the lower house to the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). "Oaxaca is the Mexico of the 1970s, in which there is no allowance for citizen demands or political rights," says Marcos Leyva of APPO.
The protesters want the federal Senate to exercise its power to oust the governor. But many in the PRI and the ruling conservative National Action Party (PAN) are loth to do so. The PRI, upon which Mr Calderón will depend for a congressional majority, appears to see Mr Ruiz's fate as a bargaining chip. The PAN fears the precedent of yielding to protests that have gone a long way beyond the law. "We respect the sovereignty of the states," says Mr Fox.
This week protesters armed with clubs and pistols staged a room-by-room search of a city-centre hotel after rumours that Mr Ruiz was inside. The governor claims, without proof, that a shadowy guerrilla group lurks behind the protests; his opponents counter that the state government has organised paramilitary bands.
According to the Chamber of Commerce, the conflict has caused losses of some $300m; in the formal economy alone, 162 businesses have closed with the loss of 350 jobs. The governor wants federal police or troops to restore order. The government has readied plans to that effect. Mr Fox is resisting, doubtless fearing a bloodbath. "We must explore every possibility of dialogue before taking any other action," the president insists.
But understandably, Mr Calderón wants Mr Fox to settle the matter before December 1st. In Oaxaca, illegitimate authority and the absence of political channels for dealing with grievance are radicalising protest. Tackling the latter but not the former will not bring peace.
