Resistance continues throughout Mexico

Resistance continues in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, where a popular movement has held its ground as well as its demand for the removal of the governor there. As widespread state repression has led to an increasing death toll—17 at this writing—solidarity continues to escalate throughout the country and the world.

Mexico's assault on the people of Oaxaca sparked international protests, like this march in San Diego. WW photo: Bob McCubbin

In a victory for popular forces, federal police who attempted to enter Oaxaca’s Benito Juarez Autonomous University on Nov. 2 were forced back by members and supporters of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO).

The university is a stronghold of the movement and the location of Radio APPO—a main source of information and communication. George Salzman wrote from Oaxaca on Nov. 2: “It was brazenly emphasized on the early Monday [Oct. 30] Televisa/Government version of ‘the news’ that the last powerful transmitter aligned with the people’s movement was to be a high priority target of the so-called Federal Preventive Police.” (narconews.com)

APPO, a coalition of more than 350 organizations, was formed after Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz ordered armed forces in to violently break up a May 15 encampment of teachers in Oaxaca’s central plaza. The teachers were demanding a wage increase, increased educational funding and the resignation of Ruiz.

Laura Carlsen of the International Relations Center reports, “Suddenly there was no middle ground in Oaxaca. Indigenous communities mobilized by their own grievances, students, professionals sick of the pretence of democracy, vendors, and workers, joined ranks with the teachers to demand the ouster of the governor. ... Now they have emerged not just to protest, but to build. Networks of solidarity, autonomous forms of communication, and spontaneous expressions of frustration and hope have come together.” (americas.irc-online.org)

More than 20,000 people marched to Oaxaca’s center on Nov. 5 demanding that the force of 4,000 federal police recently stationed there—occupying the plaza that protesters had held for the last five months—leave the city. A group of about 400 threw stones and bottles at the police—who were heavily armed behind barbed-wire barricades, with water cannons, bulldozers and sharpshooters on the roofs of buildings. Others formed a “human chain” between the police and demonstrators. The AP reported on Nov. 7, “Most of the demonstrators came from farming villages to express their discontent with the grinding poverty that forces them to migrate to the United States.”

That same day, protesters supporting the march in Oaxaca interrupted Sunday Mass at Mexico City’s metropolitan cathedral. Prensa Latina reports that police opened fire at the Benito Juarez Autonomous University, wounding one student.

On Nov. 6, four bombs exploded shortly after midnight, targeting the Institutional Revolutionary Party headquarters, the Federal Electoral Tribunal building and a branch of Canadian-owned Scotiabank. Two other unexploded bombs were found; no injuries were reported.

While some suspect the hand of the Mexican right wing in the bombings, a message from five Oaxacan groups claimed responsibility, declaring, “Those responsible for the social and political violence in our country are the people with power and money who have unleashed a neo-liberal dirty war against the Mexican people.” (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 7)

The Mexican Senate has asked Ulises Ruiz to step down, which he still refuses to do.

Throughout the country of Mexico various struggles for justice are working together in solidarity.

On Nov. 20—anniversary of the Mexican Revolution of 1910—Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) will be sworn in as Mexico’s legitimate president in a people’s inauguration after an election tinged with corruption and fraud. The official inauguration of Felipe Calderón as president is slated for Dec. 1. APPO has announced it will disrupt the Dec. 1 inauguration if troops have not been withdrawn from Oaxaca.

López Obrador has announced his cabinet. According to the National Democratic Convention, it includes such posts as Claudia Sheinbaum in charge of the Defense of National Resources, including Mexico’s national oil industry, from attempts at privatization by foreign companies, and Raquel Sosa to head the Secretariat of Education, Science and Technology, “which will have as its priority the defense of free, secular and public education at all levels.”

They continue: “History has taught us about the criminal actions by the different USA governments aided by their accomplices in countries like Guatemala, El Salvador, Cuba, Chile, Venezuela, the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, to name just a few nations that have suffered the abusive intervention of the White House. ... It is of paramount importance to continue our efforts to counteract the attacks of the retrograde right-wing mafia supported by the powerful corporations and banking institutions.”

The PRD has announced it will again call for a Senate vote to remove the Oaxaca executive and judicial powers, and will release a new report on human rights violations by the Ulises Ruiz government. (Prensa Latina, Nov. 6)

Meanwhile, the Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) Sixth Commission issued a call Oct. 31 for nationwide actions in solidarity with the people of Oaxaca, including the partial, total or symbolic closure of Mexican highways, streets, and airports; and a national general strike on Nov. 20.

Protests also continue throughout the United States.

The U.S.-based International Action Center released a statement on Nov. 3 that condemned the paramilitary attacks in Oaxaca and added: “We also blame the government of the United States for its complicity by silence regarding this great crime. This is no surprise because it is the same government which has declared a war against the Mexican people, whether in Mexico or in its Diaspora, by approving $2.2 billion to construct an apartheid wall between the two countries. The United States is the true culprit in this situation through the robbery of the Mexican people, which began with the theft of their land and has continued with economic impositions (policies) like NAFTA which have destroyed the economy that sustained thousands of families, forcing them into exile and particularly into emigrating to the U.S. ... We send our firm solidarity to the people of Oaxaca from the heart of the empire.”