Oaxaca and Mexican stability
President Fox ordered federal police to break up the demonstrations in Ozxaca. The death of a New York filmmaker and the decision of the Mexican senate not to try to remove PRI governor Ruiz may have been the deciding factors in Fox's decision. (See this blog from October 21: Unrest and Stalemate in Mexico for more details.)However, pressure is building on Governor Ruiz to resign [see El Universal (Mexico), Ruiz should consider resigning]. The situation and Fox's attempts to end the crisis may threaten the stability of Mexico's regime.
In an Associated Press report picked up by many U.S. newspapers (including the Washington Post cited here), Mark Stevenson reported on October 30, that Police Wrest Control of Mexican City
"Federal forces stormed Oaxaca and pushed protesters and striking teachers out of the city center they had occupied for five months, leaving the colonial city resembling a battleground, with riot police and burned vehicles lining the streets...
"Teachers had agreed to end a strike that closed schools across the southern Oaxaca state, but it was unclear if the police presence would undermine that deal...
"The protests began in May as a teacher's strike in this southern Mexican city of roughly 275,000. But the demonstrations quickly spiraled into chaos as anarchists, students and Indian groups seized the central plaza and barricaded streets throughout the city to demand Ruiz's ouster...
"Protesters accused Ruiz of rigging his 2004 election and using thugs to kill or crush political opponents."
The next day a Houston Chronicle article on 31 October reported Protesters regrouping in troubled Oaxaca
"Some of the barricades torn down by federal police went back up Tuesday as protesters regrouped, and at least one federal official acknowledged that this city besieged by striking teachers and anarchists remained outside government control..."
Meanwhile, Reuters (UK) offered the idea that Oaxaca crisis threatens incoming Mexican president
"Violent street protests and a stubborn state governor who refuses to step down could make life very difficult for Mexico's incoming president unless peace is forged quickly in the chaotic tourist city of Oaxaca...
"President-elect Felipe Calderon, who takes over from Fox on Dec. 1, is likely to inherit the Oaxaca crisis as well as face separate protests led by his left-wing rival who alleges massive fraud in the fiercely contested July election. "'This is very costly for Calderon. Oaxaca is not going to be resolved in the next month,' said Soledad Loaeza, a political analyst at the Colegio de Mexico. 'It is a very difficult situation, very complicated.'
"Fox finally ordered in federal police after gunmen apparently linked to local officials shot dead three people on Friday, including a U.S. journalist. "Those murders dramatically increased the pressure on Ruiz. His own party dropped its support for him, joining a call by the federal Congress for him to resign. "Ruiz has flatly refused to back down but many now believe his position is unsustainable...
"If the governor holds on, the protests are almost certain to continue. And even if he steps aside, Fox's government will still need to restore order to Oaxaca, persuade striking teachers to go back to their classes and control the more radical leftist groups operating in the city.
"Calderon has backed the decision to send riot police to Oaxaca and, after campaigning on a platform of law and order, might take a firm stance in the state. "But it is a challenge he would rather not face from his first day in office as his main rival in the presidential election, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has vowed massive protests of his own. "Juan Camilo Mourino, who heads Calderon's transition team, has urged Fox to end the crisis before handing over. 'We see Oaxaca as the main problem facing the nation, without a doubt,' he said in September."
The San Jose Mercury News reported on November 1 that the crisis was continuing, but may be easing. Whether that means the threats to Mexico's stability are less severe remains to be seen. The Zapatistas in Chiapas can continue a low-level insurgency for years because the region is rural and isolated. Mexican leaders don't want that kind of instability to continue in a popular tourist region like Oaxaca.
Oaxaca protests persist despite police arrival
"Protesters erected barricades, blocked a major highway and burned vehicles Tuesday, dashing hopes that calm would return to the city of Oaxaca two days after hundreds of federal police arrived to restore order.
"At least one federal official acknowledged the government had not gained complete control of the capital city of 275,000, which has been under siege for five months by striking teachers and leftist anarchists demanding the resignation of Gov. Ulises Ruiz.
"In a sign that tensions had diminished somewhat Tuesday morning, columns of federal police in riot gear began allowing residents and business owners to pass through the city's central square, or Zócalo, which had been the protesters' center of operations since May..."
posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:53 AM
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Painting Over Signs of Strife to Tidy Up for the Tourists
"There is a new smell in the air here, competing with the aroma of mole sauce that routinely wafts through Oaxaca. It is the smell of paint fumes.
"Work crews are everywhere, retouching the colonial facades that give Oaxaca its charm and draw tens of thousands of visitors a year...
"Just weeks ago, Oaxaca was a wreck... Angry protesters confronted riot-equipped police officers around the charming central square.
"The protests... are continuing sporadically, but officials have begun trying to scrub away the evidence of what occurred.
"Not everybody agrees on the best approach...
"'There’s always a debate about everything in Oaxaca,' said Jorge A. Bueno Sánchez, director of the botanical garden...
"Still, Francisco Toledo, a noted Mexican artist who pours much of his wealth into buying up historical properties and preserving them, said the damage that protesters had left was not as bad as that committed by skateboarders who wore down the limestone with their boards, and drunks who threw bottles at historic artifacts.
"'The city was not well taken care of before this,' Mr. Toledo said. 'Now it’s worse.'
"Claudia López Morales, an architect active in restoring Oaxaca’s historical structures, is philosophical about the effects of the protests that remain visible. 'Some of this damage will always be visible, and maybe that’s not bad,” she said. “What happened is part of our history.'...
Jesús Sánchez Alonso, an economics professor at the Oaxacan Technological Institute who sympathizes with the protesters, says the real cleanup that Oaxaca needs is of its corrupt and arrogant politicians.
“The government doesn’t want to change things,” he said. “They want to paint. They want cosmetic changes.”
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