Mexican Labor News & Analysis: December , 2006

January 4, 2007

From December 17 through December 21, twenty individuals (including human rights lawyers, journalists, authors, investigators, graduate students, and activists) from the United States and Canada came together in Oaxaca out of concern for what appeared to be serious violations of human rights. Over the course of five days we had the opportunity to meet with a variety of Oaxacans who shared their experiences with us regarding violations of civil and human rights since June 14, 2006.

Some were activists; others had simply been present during mass arrests. We heard numerous, highly credible accounts of beatings, psychological and physical abuse, intimidation, disappearances, killings and attempted murder perpetrated by the municipal, state and federal preventive police forces. Virtually every person who recounted their experiences with the police began to cry while telling us what had occurred. There is no way to convey how deeply moving and profoundly disturbing it was to listen to these accounts. In addition, we were told of threats and attacks on lawyers who were engaged in representing victims as well as against organizations committed to the defense of human rights.

This report provides some background regarding the roots of the conflict based on presentations and discussions in Oaxaca as well as published accounts in the media, and summarizes the testimony received regarding human rights violations.

I wish to thank the many people who took the time to help us understand the situation in Oaxaca and especially those who shared their personal experiences with us, recognizing both the courage and pain implicit in stepping forward. Few names appear in this report in an effort to protect those people in a small way from the repression which continues to exist.

This report does not attempt to formulate or propose political solutions, as these are properly left to those in Mexico. However, it is my hope that many people will take the time to read this report and to do what they can both to support the people of Oaxaca as they walk the path towards a real democracy, and to make the governments of Oaxaca and Mexico aware that the world is watching and that we condemn the violations of civil and human rights which have occurred and will continue to bear witness, to publicize and to assist in the redress of such violations.

A letter to President Calderón, sent on January 4 by the General Executive Board of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) follows, together with information about how to send financial assistance to Oaxaca.

Cultural and political Background

As illustrated dramatically by the last election, Mexico is a country which is deeply divided in terms of politics, culture and race. The more prosperous states in the North with a more mestizo or light skinned population enjoy strong economic ties with the United States and were strong supporters of the conservative National Action Party (PAN). In contrast, the poorer, more indigenous southern part of the country supported the center left alliance which included the Party of the Democratic revolution (PRD), Workers party (PT), and Convergencia.

Oaxaca is one of the largest states in Southern Mexico, with eight cultural and geographic regions, eighty micro-regions, and a population of approximately 3.5 million, according to the 2000 census. It has an ancient and very rich culture, and together with Chiapas, is one of the states with the highest indigenous population; 70% consider themselves indigenous. Oaxaca is home to sixteen indigenous peoples as well as to African groups on the coast. This diversity is manifested in 15 languages plus other dialects, and of the 40% who speak indigenous languages, most are monolingual.

It is the second poorest state in Mexico, with 76% of its people living in poverty or extreme poverty, and many homes lacking basic services such as potable water or even cement floors. Educational levels are low (6.4 years compared to an average of 8 years nationally). The lack of employment, especially in agricultural areas, has created a crisis for many families. One response has been migration, with approximately 150,000 people migrating each year to the North or to the United States. Large Oaxacan communities can now be found in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Texas, Florida, New York and New Jersey, and while many of the earlier migrants were men, today the migration of women has grown to 45%. In one community we visited, the local human rights organization spoke of “phantom communities,” where the young people finish a year or two of high school and then migrate, and where more than half the community has left.

Politically, Oaxaca is also complex. The state is comprised of 570 municipalities, and has long been a stronghold of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which had governed Mexico for 71 years, until defeated in the federal elections of 2000. While the PAN and PRD had made significant inroads elsewhere, until the 2006 election the PRI had maintained absolute control in Oaxaca through a system of local caciques and pervasive corruption.

Opposition was treated harshly by the PRI, whether from social movements, alternative political parties or even media which dared to criticize the existing order, as in the case of the Oaxacan newspaper Noticias, whose offices were occupied. The repressive policies of the previous governor, José Murat, were evident in the election of 2004, where blood was shed both within and outside the PRI. As described in the November 1, 2006 Washington Post, “On election night in 2004, he was trailing [opposition candidate Gabino Cue] when a computer glitch shut down the counting. When the counting resumed, he was on top.” The election was challenged on a variety of bases, and although the electoral tribunal eventually ruled in favor of Ulises Ruiz, the widespread belief in the illegitimacy of the election remains an underlying source of political instability. His credibility was not improved by his approval of the takeover of Noticias, the arrest of leaders of NGOs and social movements and his decision to arrest Cue, the opposition candidate in the race for governor, which generated massive demonstrations, or by unpopular changes to “symbols of Oaxaca,” including the Zócalo. Rather than resolving the demands of civil society through negotiation, Ruiz’ government continued on the path of repression.

However, Oaxaca is also home to a very different sort of political organization - a democratic tradition which was practiced in its many indigenous communities, and is rooted in communal organization. Eighty five percent of the land is held communally, much of it legally recognized by Spain, pre-dating the ejidos created by the Mexican Revolution. Communities made decisions through town meetings in which they selected their own leadership, assigned responsibility for communal work such as building roads, schools, bridges, etc., implemented systems of unpaid civil and religious service as a means of integrating young people and training them to assume responsibility, and organizing fiestas as a way of sharing resources (the term guetza or guelaguetza is the Zapotec word for share). In 1995 the traditional practice of selecting community leaders was explicitly authorized by a state law recognizing governance by “usos y costumbres (customary practices)” rather than political parties, with 418 communities opting to continue their traditional system of governance.

Rural poverty caused by plummeting coffee prices, the lack of government investment in agriculture or technical support for small farmers, erosion and trade policies (all tariffs on corn and beans will be completely eliminated on January 1st, 2008, further exacerbating rural poverty in Mexico) have all contributed to increased migration and changes in the role of women. These, in turn, have created challenges for communities, and especially for women, as physical and psychological violence has increased. Yet, the strength of these communal traditions are clear: some practices have been replicated both in new communities in urban areas of Mexico and in the United States, and are reflected in broader forms of organization, such as the APPO: the Asamblea Popular del Pueblo de Oaxaca.

The Teachers’ Union, Local 22 of the SNTE

The Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE), the Mexican Teachers Union is the largest union in Latin America. As with the other “official unions” it is characterized both by corruption and by close historical ties to the PRI. Its general secretary for many years, Elba Esther Gordillo has been described as the most powerful woman in Mexico. After holding key positions within the PRI, she was removed from her post as congressional coordinator due to her close relationship with the PAN. She officially broke with the PRI this year and went on to form her own political party, which threw critically significant support to the PAN during the recent election. Her son in law, a man lacking experience, was recently appointed by Calderón as Undersecretary of Education, and many who are close to her have received appointments in the new administration in what has been widely viewed as political pay-back. Meanwhile, Gordillo created a new position for herself as President of the SNTE, which has continued to serve as her power base.

The struggle of teachers in Oaxaca began in May, 1980 as a fight to democratize their union, Local 22. SNTE’s General Secretary at that time, Carlos Jongitud Barrios, was Governor of San Luis Potosi, and other national union leaders were senators and deputies. The size of the union made it an important part of the corporativist political system, where the union turned its members out to vote for the PRI and local union leaders were imposed by the Ministry of Education during conventions policed by armed thugs. Thus, democratization of the union meant not simply confronting an employer, but taking on the local and national political establishment.

Large mobilizations in May, 1980 in Oaxaca were followed by the establishment of an encampment in Mexico City. After several months of conflict, intervention by the federal government resulted in recognition of the new leadership by the SNTE (albeit with the condition that the national committee could select the local’s general secretary), wage increases of 22%, a special bonus for rural teachers, and payment of lost wages. The local also developed guiding principles in the form of twenty norms as well as a structure to ensure democracy within the union, a rejection of corruption, independence from political parties, the democratization of education at all levels, among others.

However, it was only after many more years of mobilizations, marches and hunger strikes, at times with the support of parents and popular organizations, that the local succeeded in winning the right to hold its own conventions and govern its own affairs. This was accomplished through a structure which combined local delegate committees and consultation with “pre-conventions” at which the union’s program was debated and approved and officers were elected to various posts based on the number of votes they received. These decisions were then ratified at the formal convention where, according to the union’s constitution, the National Executive Committee participates. In other words, the union was able to create a system which enabled it to function democratically, while remaining within the structure and under the nominal control of the national union.

Local 22 also forms part of the Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (CNTE), a democratic movement within the SNTE. Over a period of fifteen years, rank-and-file teachers in the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, and to a lesser degree in other states, as well as in Mexico City, succeeded not only in creating a mass movement, but more remarkably, in building an on-going national rank-and-file organization. La CNTE played a key role in bringing down the dictatorial regime of Carlos Jonguitud Barrios, head of Vanguardia Revolucionaria, the political machine that controlled the union. In 1989, as part of an agreement between the government of President Carlos Salinas and the various forces within the union, Elba Esther Gordillo became general secretary. Originally introduced as a reformer, she became an authoritarian union leader, and later an important political power broker.

Local 22 is one of the most important locals within the SNTE’s National Executive Committee, which puts it at odds with Gordillo, and at a financial disadvantage, as only a percentage of the dues collected from local members and sent to the national union are returned to the local, a matter of continuing controversy.

It is important to note that many teachers in Oaxaca are themselves indigenous, come from rural areas, and are close to the communities where they teach. As is to be expected in an organization of 70,000 members, various tendencies exist within the local itself, and allegations of corruption and, more recently, undemocratic practices, have badly split the local. Moreover, while many teachers are loved and respected leaders of their communities, others are said to be poorly trained or lazy, and the annual extended strikes which have characterized contract negotiations have also generated criticism.

Needless to say, the government itself has been quick to fan the flames of such discontent. Under these circumstances the overwhelming condemnation of the June 14 attack on the teachers was even more impressive. Nor is it surprising that the teachers’ movement has fractured under intense economic and government pressure for the teachers to settle and return to work, nor that the government has now approved the establishment of a second teachers’ union in Oaxaca – Local 59 – with the blessing of the national union. However, it is equally clear that many teachers remain active in APPO and the movement, and that it is a union which has a long history of militance in the struggle for democracy.

The Emergence of a Strong Popular Movement in Oaxaca

Between 1978 and 1992, the Mexican government, under pressure from the World Bank and USAID, decentralized the Ministry of Public Education (SEP). In 1992 the process culminated in the signing of the Basic Education Modernization Agreement (ANAM), transferring the previously Federal system to the states. Each state created its own Secretary of Education, a development later formalized and solidified by the General Education Law (LGE) of 1993. However each Federal Ministry of Education (and there were several) and each of the 31 governors interpreted the law differently in practice.

In Oaxaca, the PRI governors and their Secretaries of Education, found they had to negotiate with the PAN President, Vicente Fox and his Secretary of Education. Local 22 used its tradition of mass mobilization to get the attention of both. In May of each year the teachers’ union presents its demands and, in accordance with the Federal labor Law, authorizes a strike. This year there were 17 general points, as well as others having to do with shoes, uniforms and school supplies for low income students. As in 2005, the central demand was for re-categorizing the teachers from zone 2 to zone 3, based on the high cost in the area, as had been done with teachers in Chiapas some years earlier.

Dissatisfied with the response of the government, the teachers went out on strike on May 22, and with support from others established an encampment in the zócalo, or main square. The government’s response was a harsh media attack, and after five days an offer of slightly more than half of what had been agreed upon the year before. (We were told by various people that the money was being put into the election, and that Ruiz had promised one million votes to the PRI. If true, it was money poorly spent. For the first time the PRI was resoundingly defeated, losing the two majority senate seats to the PRD and Convergencia, and losing 11 of 13 seats in the House of deputies).

When its offer was rejected by the union, the government continued its media campaign and threatened to file suit against the teachers for having abandoned their posts and with replacing them. Then, on June 14, at 4:00 a.m. armed police, accompanied by dogs, attacked the teachers who were sleeping with their family members and other supporters in the encampment and assaulted them with tear gas. At the same time, they took over the offices and the hotel of the union, detaining a dozen people including those who had been operating the union’s radio station known as “radio plantón.” The police were subsequently supported by two helicopters, throwing grenades of pepper smoke and tear gas which affected not only the strikers, but neighbors and guests in nearby hotels. The tents were destroyed and burned by police in large bonfires. This also resulted in various detentions and disappearances as well as one spontaneous abortion due to exposure to tear gas.

While repression had been common, this sort of attack on sleeping people, affording them no notice or opportunity to leave, was unprecedented. At approximately 8:00 the teachers and other supporters re-grouped and armed mostly with sticks and pipes from the tents confronted the police and by 10:00 a.m. the police fled, leaving the teachers once again in control of the zócalo where, the following day, they re-established their encampment.

The violence of the police attack was broadly condemned by the population, which came together on June 17 - 21 to form APPO, an alliance which has come to include some 365 organizations, with common demands that Ruiz step down, and for an integral reform of the state of Oaxaca. Marcos Leyva, a leader of the NGO sector of APPO explained that the concentration of all demands in one, the destitution of Ruiz, was not directed against him simply as a person, but as the representative of an authoritarian political system that existed in Mexico for more than seventy years and in Oaxaca for even longer.

Leyva shared with us the perspective of NGO participants within APPO, explaining that APPO represents the convergence of various types of movements: social, ecological indigenous. He told us that APPO has two dimensions: “One is a political organization with leadership, internal organization and structure. Another is the dimension of spirituality, community, rebellion, and a spirit of struggle and resistance. This APPO was thirty years in the making. So even if the leadership is crushed, APPO is only an expression of what is underneath.” He also told us that APPO’s contribution is that it is not about leaders. He commented: “Maybe the mistake we made in the 60's and 70's was to think that there was one path. Our path comes from different truths coming together.”

In the months that followed, the movement grew, characterized by mega-marches of tens of thousands of people. On August 1st hundreds of women marched through the streets, and infuriated at the denial of an hour’s air time to express their concerns, took over the state-owned radio and television stations, opening the airwaves to opinion, discussion, and the generation of proposals for what was needed for the reform of Oaxaca’s institutions, musical programs and coordination of the movement.

Barricades were set up to protect the radio station and in neighborhoods after 9 or 10 p.m every evening to protect against the police in civilian dress who circulated in vehicles and engaged in shootings at night. They were erected every evening out of branches, stones, and cars.

Also in August, 1500 people from some fifty organizations came together in a forum on governability entitled “Building Democracy and Governability in Oaxaca,” with sessions covering the design of a new state constitution, creating democracy from below, movement inclusion and respect for diversity. In the closing ceremony, Former bishop Samuel Ruiz observed, “I am still not over my surprise not only for having been honored by an invitation to these events but also by having discovered a completely unforeseen situation which I have never experienced in all the long years of my life, or it might be that we are standing in two time dimensions, the past and the future. In these days we are living something that we are leaving, and cement is being placed beneath something that doesn’t come automatically but is the result of working together, of our construction. But I have seen also in the forum something unheard before, that suddenly in the forum not only is there very direct discussion of issues but it has gone a distance that never was foreseen, not articulated before… including that the future is here…”

The following day, August 18, at least 20 organizations stopped work, allying with unions of the teachers, the road and airport workers, the health workers, local and national unions of Social Security (welfare) workers, malaria prevention workers, and the workers and employees of the Benito Juarez Autonomous University of Oaxaca, the state university where the students in alliance with the movement took over the radio station.

On August 21st, the antennas of the government owned station were destroyed by its own police, leading APPO to take over 13 more stations, subsequently relinquishing all but two. One woman we spoke with explained: “We knocked on the doors of the stations and said that we have to take over this station to tell people what happened. We had the desire to speak and to share. It was necessary to take over the stations, not to incite violence, but to communicate and to defend ourselves.”

Meanwhile, the government started broadcasting through a clandestine station, Radio Ciudadana, naming people and encouraging people to shoot them.

On October 28 four people were killed, including indymedia journalist Brad Will and a teacher, Emilio Alonso Fabian. The following day, the federal preventive Police were sent into Oaxaca.

Then, on November 25th, the federal preventive police in full riot gear responded to provocateurs by firing tear gas into the crowd. The police had encircled the area some six to eight blocks away, so when people ran to escape the police and tear gas, many were picked up who had nothing to do with the march or with APPO.

Men and women were beaten, thrown face down and stacked on trucks. Of the 170 detained that day, 141 were subsequently transported to an airfield where they were taken by helicopter to Nayarit, some 745 miles away, far from their families for whom it was an expensive bus ride from Oaxaca. Of those arrested, 34 were women and five were minors (one 14, one 15), who were taken to the same adult-male facility.

Similar actions were taken against people coming from outside of the city to join the mega-marches; buses were stopped and passengers taken into neighboring fields where they were beaten before being loaded into trucks and taken to jail.

During the demonstration some government buildings were burned, but as pointed out by respected journalist Pablo Matias, “Nobody will believe that a Molotov cocktail was used to destroy documents that it would be useful to the government to have destroyed.” (The federal electoral commission was burned along with a building containing the audit of prior governor Jose Murat. Ironically, a few days before the attack, all of the archives had been moved with the exception of those documents. Physical investigation of the facility confirmed Matias’ conclusion that the fire had been set from within). This was also confirmed by some of the people we spoke with, including a student who described how they had heard some people who were “strangely insistent” about destroying the Hotel Camino real. He said they actually started a fire, but that other people stopped them and put it out.

The following week, some teachers were arrested in their classrooms, and people were dragged from their homes.

On December 3, the APPO issued a communique which called for a mobilization on December 10. It also stressed that the violence unleashed since November 25, “has not weakened our desire to be free men and women. Nor has it made us change our minds about whether our struggle should continue to be a political, peaceful, and mass movement, despite the fact that 17 people have been killed during this stage of the struggle, dozens of people have disappeared and hundreds are political prisoners.” It also announced a new stage of struggle called the “Stage of Peace with Justice, Democracy and Liberty without Ulises Ruiz Ortiz,” in order to “continue the struggle that the APPO is learning to build with patience, perseverance and wisdom.” Referencing the recent Forum of Indigenous Peoples of Oaxaca, where the “original peoples taught us... that the ‘path must be taken slowly,’” the declaration affirms that “is what we are doing now, without losing sight of the common objective, which is the profound transformation of living, working, academic and recreational conditions for our people.”

It is important to note that various guerilla groups have operated in Mexico over many decades and some continue to be active in the central and southern states such as Oaxaca and Hidalgo. One such guerrilla group, the Peoples Revolutionary Army (EPR), operated in Oaxaca. Oaxaca state and local officials have at times asserted and at other times denied connections between the guerillas, the teachers union and popular movements. Some commentators have argued that the EPR had infiltrated and even dominated APPO. No evidence has been brought forward to prove such a claim. The teachers and popular movements have denied EPR involvement, have repudiated violence and as indicated above, continue to call for a peaceful movement to remove Governor Ulises Ruiz.

Some views on the conflict from Oaxaca

We were told by the representative of an NGO: “If the agenda of society is not incorporated, the movement will grow. A major polarization has taken place. Closing off dialog will only leave violence.”

Another activist said to us: “We are engaged in a peaceful resistance. It is hard to resist this level of attack, but the people of Oaxaca have done so. Please take away with you this face of Oaxaca.”

Another person we spoke with observed, “Repression shows weakness because before they could buy people off; but they can’t anymore.”

When we asked relatives of prisoners if they were planning to participate in the march on December 22, one answered: “if you ask if we are afraid, yes, we are afraid, but our indignation and anger are even greater, because this is not the way to treat a people who are asking for justice. And we do not rise up because we are troublemakers, as they call us here, but rather because the people are hungry, the people are needy. Yes, we will participate in the march.” (As translated on Democracy Now, Friday December 22, 2006).

Testimony we heard

The National Commission for Human Rights issued its preliminary report on December 18, in which it concluded that 20 people had been killed, 370 injured and 349 imprisoned since June 2, 2006. We were told that many others have disappeared or are in hiding. The Commission reported that it had received 1,211 complaints regarding alleged violations of human rights due to the “improper use of the police forces, arbitrary detentions, people held incommunicado, disappearances, damage, injuries, threats and illegal raids,” concluding: "The parties [to the conflict] and the Federal Preventive Police, which intervened for the purpose of restoring public order, have used violence repeatedly and excessively. As a consequence, the institutional, social and cultural life of the state has been damaged."

What we heard through direct testimony was from a small number of those affected. I personally heard the accounts of 19 people, and some of our group heard additional accounts which are not included below. All of the people I met with were highly credible. Virtually all, both men and women, began crying while telling us how they had been picked up, beaten, and subjected to psychological torture, clearly still traumatized by what had occurred. Almost all of those who had been involved in the movement in some way made a point of telling us that they had been unarmed and were committed to a peaceful path to social change. Some noted their concern about instigators who acted to incite violence in order to damage the peaceful image of the movement. Others clearly had nothing to do with the movement.

Their stories were recorded and audio and in some cases video tapes of their complete testimony are available. Some of these testimonies have also been official documented by well-respected local, national and international human rights organizations. Here are a few details of their accounts. Unfortunately, these details do not begin to convey the horror of the experiences. Nor did we have the opportunity to speak with victims of who were reported by local human rights groups as having experienced more serious injuries or torture.

1. A student leader was detained by police wearing civilian clothing when leaving a movement radio station. He was hit on the head with a pistol, which left a gash in his face. He was told to write a false confession that he had a pistol and coke and was kicked and hit until he did so. He was also given the names of three activists and told to write that two had burned trucks and the third was the boss of the other two. He heard someone take off his belt and was asked if he had ever been fucked and how it felt. They subsequently sprayed something on his back which he understood they were going to set on fire, although they did not actually do so. Six days later he was finally released on bond and charged with theft.

2. The director of a boys’ boarding school was kidnaped near the university. He was hit and subjected to abusive language, and eventually taken to a military base. Although he wasn’t blindfolded, when he raised his head he was hit. He was accused of being the brother of Flavio Sosa and hit. He was kept on his knees with his hands tied, which was very uncomfortable. They kicked him four or five times and put a gun to his head. Eventually he was put on a helicopter and taken to a prison. While in flight, police threatened that they would open the back of the helicopter. He told us that he knew that he wouldn’t be killed but that others were really afraid, and that for him the hardest part was that his son was also picked up. He still has problems with his kidneys and ribs. He was detained for eight days.

3. A fifty year old widow was detained as she left her place of employment where she worked as a maid. She had just been paid and her money was taken and she was tied up and put with other women in a truck. It was really cold and one of the police said: “Die old ladies, there are lots of garbage cans where we can throw you.” Although she wasn’t beaten, both her sister and nephew were. She was detained for 21 days and told us that many women were still there. She said many didn’t speak Spanish, only Mixteco, and had only gone out to buy school supplies.

4. A mechanical engineering student had gone with his family to participate in the march and establish a plantón. Although the march was peaceful, police began to fire rubber bullets and both police and people in civilian clothing on roofs began to throw tear gas. The police were beating people, his friend had fainted, and the only air was near the police. The police were beating them, so he thought the best thing to do was to turn himself in. The police took his money, cell phone, bag and shoes and threw him on a pile of people. The police started kicking the soles of their feet, saying it was to keep them awake. Those on the edge received the worst treatment, as they were stepped on and their hair and ears were pulled. They were put in trucks, and questioned by police who kicked them, whatever they answered. The police also stood on top of them and jumped on them. They were asked who their leaders were, and told that they would be left in condition so bad that nobody would recognize them. It was unseasonably cold, so in the cell four slept in one bed to stay warm. Early the next morning they were taken in buses and a military truck to the airport. The plastic handcuffs were tied to tight he is still having problems with the circulation in his hand. At one point they pushed him so hard that the plastic broke, and when he got off the bus, the police hit them, kneed them and knocked him over. He told us that there were a lot of dogs and the police shook them to make them angry. He was released three days before he spoke with us, after having been in jail for 21 days. He concluded by saying that when he went back to his school he was told that he should go thank the government for getting him out, but he said, “How can they hit me like that and then have me thank them? But will there be consequences if I don’t...”

5. A 40 year old housewife, the mother of the young man above, told us how the march was peaceful, but that some students came by asking that they go farther down to create a greater presence so that the police wouldn’t start anything. But then the police started throwing teargas and clubbed her son twice with a baton and she threw herself on him to protect him. Her story was similar to that of her son, but she also said that the women had written up a document about bad treatment and when one of the women asked a guard about it, he responded: we ask the questions, you don’t have the right to ask questions, and didn’t give her dinner.

6. Florina Jiménez Lucas, a secondary school teacher with three children, was participating with her husband in the August 10 march when her husband was shot and killed. She permitted an autopsy to prove that her husband was not drunk, and it showed that he had been killed by nine bullets shot from different angles from above. She spoke about subsequent attempts at intimidation, taxis following her, how her door bell was rung at midnight and after that she heard footsteps on the roof, and that there were callers asking for her husband who hung up before she could take the phone from her children. She said that it was hard to return to the marches because for her daughter it meant that she, too, would disappear. When asked where she got her strength she said, “Sometimes I don’t know...but if we don’t struggle, they will always treat us like this.”

7. Around 600 people were going to Oaxaca by bus for the fourth march when they were stopped by the federal highway police. They were taken down one at a time and threatened and beaten. Their cell phones and cameras were taken from them. Molotov cocktails were found, which the person we spoke with believes to have been planted by the police. He was photographed with a gun that did not belong to him. Although he kept insisting on the right to make a phone call, he was not permitted to do so. He was interrogated, asked who paid him, financed him, what organizations he belonged to. He was subsequently told that the charges against him included robbery of the buses and having weapons: sling shots, marbles and Molotov cocktails.

8. A university student who was arrested affirmed that they did not have weapons, only papers, and that these were illegal arrests. He said two people were arrested for having union credentials, another for being the group’s spokesperson, one for wearing a Tai Kwan Do jacket, and that he believed that he was arrested for objecting, for having papers where he had written something about what was going on in Oaxaca, and for having UNAM identification. He said that some 200 armed Federal Highway Police stopped them, and hit them for three hours. They put blankets over them and kicked them, he explained, in order not to show marks. They brandished loaded weapons and told them they had three seconds to run. He said they suffered “physical blows and also with words.” When they were transported by helicopter, the police kept threatening to throw them out of the back of the helicopters and asking if they could fly.

9. A farm worker said they thought he was a soldier because of his hair cut, and that they were divided into groups based on how they dressed and talked. He was hit with a gun and after being taken to the offices of the preventive police was photographed with a gun.

10. A teacher spoke of having two friends turn up badly beaten.

11. Another person spoke about how frightening it was to have guns put to his head and to be threatened with being thrown out of a helicopter.

12. A woman spoke about how the police touched her breasts.

13. A few weeks earlier someone from the community was picked up, beaten, interrogated and then released.

14. A single mother of three described how she and her son, who is asthmatic, were sleeping in the barricades when the police attacked, hitting people and throwing tear gas. She said, “We were being hit. My son was turning purple. I thought he was going to die.” She said many violations occurred that night, with several women suffering miscarriages, but that the women didn’t want to talk about it. She and her son were able to get out and someone opened their door and fortunately there was a doctor who saved her son’s life.

15. We were given this account by a friend of the victim: he had gone to work and his friend went to a meeting. Afterwards his friend was shot by three men in a truck. He was hit by fourteen bullets, but four did the most damage. They leave, thinking he is dead. There were more than 200 bullet holes in the truck (we were given a xerox of the photograph of truck). He was a leader of his community and active in APPO and CODEP. He has had two operations, but needs two more.

16. Pablo Madhouse, a veteran reporter was caught up in the violence, along with a group of international journalists. He was visibly embarrassed that he began to cry while telling us what he saw on November 25: “I have seen attacks by the EPR, various people killed in land disputes, but this was different. I felt impotent, terrified. We didn’t know what to do... The international reporters had never seen anything like it. They were terrified. I think they left the next day. We could hear screams for five blocks... The city was all lit up. There were abuses, excesses.”

17. A bus driver had his window broken by a tear gas cannister. He was surrounded by police, and beaten on his legs and head, pushed on the ground, dragged, and verbally abused. He was then put on a bus with five other people, who were made to sit for about and hour with their hands on their heads while they were kicked and beaten. They were then stacked in the back of a truck, where the police sat on top of them, kicking them and making fun of them. He told us that the police threatened them, saying “your time is up” and “we are going to throw you out of a helicopter.” He vomited and was crying. It was only after he was put in jail that he received medical attention, food, a shower and a blanket. He remained in jail for over a month.

18. A woman told us of her brother, who was picked up with a friend getting in a taxi, after he had gone shopping. For more than a week he was unable to communicate with his family. He had been taken to Nayarit, where he was beaten, but fortunately not too seriously. Many were seriously beaten, she told us, some with internal injuries. Her brother remains in jail at Tlacolula.

19. Another young woman told us of her boyfriend: he was from another state, and had come to ask for her hand, as they were planning to marry on January 6th. On November 25th they had gone to the park and wanted to return to her house. There was no transportation because of the march, so they went downtown to catch a bus. When they got to Santo Domingo, people started yelling, “Run, run, the federal police are coming!” She told us that the police were throwing tear gas and they were choking, so that they couldn’t run. Her boy friend fell and some people helped him up. But the police got closer and they couldn’t move fast enough and captured him. She told of searching for him for two days in hospitals and on the lists of the detained. Almost a month later she saw him for the first time. He told her that he had been beaten, that the prisoners had been put on top of each other and driven around for three hours. When they were moved to Nayarit, they were still being beaten and were told that they would be put in a common grave and burned. It was only after he got to Nayarit that the beatings and threats stopped. He is still in jail.

The Failure to Curtail Impunity

The November 18, 2006 issue of the Economist cites attorney Bernardo León, an advisor to president Fox regarding judicial reform, for the following statistics: “Mexico has some 400,000 police in hundreds of different forces. On average, policemen have spent just six years at school, have received only two weeks training and are paid just $370 a month for the job...35% of them use drugs, and two-fifths leave each year.”

This dismal picture becomes even bleaker when one considers the testimony regarding plain-clothed bands of police acting as vigilantes. Moreover, a recent raid by the Federal Preventive Police on the headquarters of Oaxaca’s State police (PME) resulted in the confiscation of 341 weapons used by agents in crimes which were attributed to APPO sympathizers. Eight vehicles which had been reported stolen were also confiscated, and four police agents and one functionary from the Procuraduría General de Justicia (the state attorney general’s office) were detained. On December 12, two state police filed complaints with the CEDH (the State Human Rights Commission) alleging, according to La Jornada, that they “were aware of a verbal or written order to kill them, to punish them by mutilation, infamy, scourges, sticks and torment, but also to be judged without being heard or tried by a court,” for passing information to the PFP. While this makes it appear that the PFP is taking steps to address problems with the state police, it should also be remembered that very serious violations of human rights occurred under their watch, including those of November 25th.

General Ardelio Vargas is commander of the Federal Preventative Police and is also in charge of the Federal Investigative Agency (AFI), the Mexican counterpart of the FBI, an unprecedented concentration of police powers. Vargas was close to the new Attorney General, Eduardo Medina Mora when he headed up the CISEN or national security intelligence service.

The National Commission for Human Rights issued its preliminary report on December 18, in which it concluded that 20 people had been killed, 370 injured and 349 imprisoned. The report was criticized by the press and human rights groups for failing to recommend any actions. The import of this was later confirmed for us at a meeting with the Under-secretary for Human Rights of the State of Oaxaca, who conceded that there had been violations of human right, but said that her office could do nothing until some other entity issued recommendations for action.

More than six months after the conflict began, no such recommendations have issued.

Conclusion

We heard numerous, highly credible accounts of beatings, psychological and physical abuse, intimidation, disappearances, killings and attempted murder perpetrated by the municipal, state and federal preventive police forces. In addition, we were told of threats and attacks on lawyers who were engaged in representing victims as well as against organizations committed to the defense of human rights.

It was clear to us from what we heard and observed that grave violations of human and civil rights have occurred and that the intervention by the Federal Preventive Police greatly exacerbated the situation. Many of the serious violations occurred between the time that victims of such violence were picked up and the time they were taken to prison. The horror of that limbo was captured by Yésica Sánchez Maya: “There is a moment when nobody knows where they are, when nobody knows why they have grabbed them and where they have taken them. This is completely terrifying, not only for the families, but for us, as well, because we don’t know if they can kill them, if they can torture them. The real fear is not the detention in itself, but the real fear is what happens in the space of darkness, where nobody knows if you can guarantee your life or safety.” (As translated on Democracy Now, Wednesday December 20, 2006).

However, it is also clear that the violence against the population in the city and countryside continues as illustrated by the brief disappearance, beating and subsequent release of three APPO leaders on the evening of December 18th.

We therefor urge the governments of Mexico and Oaxaca to take immediate steps to resolve this situation, including:

We left Oaxaca deeply concerned about the violation of civil and human rights, the suppression of free expression, the criminalization of dissent, and the targeting of defenders of human rights.

1. The release of all prisoners still being held at Tlacolula, Miahuatlan or elsewhere;
2. An immediate halt to all physical and psychological violence and intimidation by all police as well as by those persons without uniform who have been engaging in serious violations of human rights;
3. A full and fair investigation of all abuses which have been alleged;
4. Respect for Mexican law and the constitution, as well as for international law;
5. A serious effort to reach a political solution and to resolve the issues which have been raised through negotiation and dialog rather than through repression.

Time Line

May, 1980: Formation of Movimiento Democrático Magisterial, later forming part of la CNTE.

August 2004: Ulises Ruiz Ortiz takes office as governor; many believe that outcome was due to electoral fraud.

November, 2005: Érika Rapp Soto, Finance Secretary is expelled from Local 22 along with some 200 teachers who were members of a commission charged with investigating acts of corruption, after charging General Secretary Enrique Rueda Pacheco and other union leaders with establishing bank accounts with union funds outside union control and establishing a company in the name of Ruedas’ sister in law and brother and contracting with it for books, computer, video and other school supplies. The group subsequently established the Consejo Central de Lucha (CCL). A subsequent investigatory commission exonerated Rueda.

May 1, 2006: teachers submit contract demands

May 15: Union denounces Government’s unwillingness to negotiate, declares statewide strike with planton (encampment) in Zocalo to commence 22 May if deadlock continues.

May 22: teachers establish Plantón (encampment) in Zócalo, the historical center of the city, in response to an inadequate response from the government. Teachers and supporters begin to

arrive from throughout state. In a few days the zócalo and about 56 surrounding blocks are occupied by encampment. Traffic and business impeded.

May 22: Radio Plantón, the encampment radio, begins broadcasting.

May 23 - June 1: strikers increase pressure, blockade airport access on 1 June.

June 2: First mega-march - 80,000 people marched in support of teachers. Ruiz insists they return to classes by June 5.

June 7: Second mega-march

June 8: Teachers’ commission headed by Gen. Secretary Rueda travels to Mexico City for meeting with federal government in attempt to resolve conflict.

June 14: Ruiz sends in State police who evict teachers and destroy radio Plantón. People rallied to their defense and re-occupy Zócalo. Students take over Radio Universidad, immediately start to broadcast in support of strikers.

June 16: Teachers begin negotiations with Secretary of the Interior

June 16: Third mega-march

June 17 - 21 formation of APPO, an alliance which includes some 365 organizations, with a common demand that Ruiz step down.

June 28: fourth mega-march

July 2nd: PRI loses

July 17: Guelaguetza cancelled July 22: Radio Universidad attacked

July 24: Guelaguetza Popular takes place

August 1: Women march and after being refused air time, occupy government owned radio and TV station, channel 9.

August 4: Women occupying station denounce gunshots

August 8: Radio Universidad put out of commission after equipment destroyed by sulfuric acid. August 9: Following an increasing number of violent attacks by Ulises-aligned PRI agents, FM 96.9 broadcasts a call for a ‘red alert’ and for strengthening the road barricades. Three killed and four injured in group coming to join plantón August 10: March of some 20,000 people; José Jiménez Colmenares killed

August 16 -17: APPO Forum entitled “Building Democracy and Governability in Oaxaca,” with some 1500 people to develop plan for transformation of institutions and agenda.

August 18: At least 20 organizations stopped work, allying with unions of the teachers, the road and airport workers, the health workers, local and national unions of Social Security (welfare) workers, malaria prevention workers, and the workers and employees of the Benito Juarez Autonomous University of Oaxaca, the state university where the students in alliance with the movement took over the radio station. August 21: police destroy antenna at Channel 9; APPO calls for more barricades, especially to protect stations; APPO takes over 13 more stations, subsequently relinquishing all but two. Government starts broadcasting through clandestine station, Radio Ciudadana, naming people and encouraging people to shoot them. Taken off the air after said to go after Gabino Cue, the opposition candidate for governor who had run against Ruiz.

August 22: Lorenzo San Pablo Cervantes, an architect is killed at barricades of Radio La Ley August 29-September 20: Members of APPO travel to Mexico City for talks with the Minister of the Interior, Carlos Abascal. Abascal makes several offers to address education and social equity issues in Oaxaca, but APPO insists that Ulises Ruiz resign or be removed from office first. Talks stall on September 20.

Sept 1: The movement holds its 5th mega-march.

September 21: The teachers union and the APPO initiate a march of over 4000 people to Mexico City where they will set up an encampment outside of the Congress. Protesters walk over 300 miles, passing through four states, before arriving in Mexico City in early October.

September 24 - 30: Increasing violence against the movement, marines disembark at Salina Cruz and Huatulco ports. APPO declares ‘red alert’ beginning 28 Sept. Military flights and helicopters over Oaxaca City on September 30. October 9-10: Rueda negotiates with government and recommends approval

October 14: SNTE delegate assembly rejects recommendation

October 14: armed men open fire on a barricade in the streets of Miguel Aleman neighborhood.

October 17: Alejandro García Hernández shot by vigilantes after letting an ambulance through the barricades

October 19: Senate rejects removal of Ruiz; thousands march in Oaxaca.

October 19-20: SNTE consultation on two points denounced by unionists as confusing and mis-leading

October 20: gunshots heard at the house of artist Francisco Toledo during the night.

October 21: Full delegate assembly of SNTE agrees to hold new local assemblies on October 23 and 24

October 26: Local SNTE delegate assembly vote to go back to work with three conditions.

October 28: State troops sent in and in the most violent act in all five months of social conflict, 4 people are killed, including journalist Bradley Roland Will and a teacher, Emilio Alsonso Fabian. October 28: U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza issues a statement regretting death of Will and calling for restoration of law and order. President Fox authorizes dispatch of Federal Preventive Police (PFP) to Oaxaca.

October 28: SNTE Delegate assembly cancelled and call for mobilization.

October 28: Media announces teachers going back to work October 30.

October 28: Government issues final ultimatum and APPO calls for people to leave barricades. October 29: 4500 agents of National Preventive Police begin entrance to Zócalo; after a tense day of advances and retreats they take control of the main square; the APPO retreats to the university.

October 29: major demonstration in Mexico City

October 30: 200,000 march in Oaxaca

October 30: both houses of Mexico's Congress pass resolutions urging Ruiz to resign; including entire PRI caucus in senate which calls on Ruiz to“strongly consider stepping down.”

October 30: UN special rapporteur for indigenous rights issues statement

November 1 and 2: 80,000 teachers with la CNTE in five states strike in solidarity

Nov 1: la otra campaña and others block roads throughout Mexico

Nov 2: federal preventive Police attack Radio Universidad but forced to retreat after 7 hours.

November 5: Sixth mega march

November 9: Gueletao declaration of the Zapoteco, Mixe and Cinanteco Peoples of Oaxaca’s Sierra Madre

November 17: Constitutional convention of APPO.

November 20: At end of three weeks of PFP occupation, with growing tensions, a major confrontation occurrs. Provocations by both PFP, provocateurs and some supposed adherents to the APPO. Tear gas, rocks, slingshots, home-made incendiary rockets, numerous injuries and arrests. Ends with standoff.

November 25: The movement holds its 7th mega-march, intending to non-violently ‘surround’ the PFP in the zócalo. Again major provocations from opposing forces. Heavy fighting as PFP and other armed state and federal agents surround central part of the city, seizing many prisoners, with many injured. Encampment at plaza of Santo Domingo is demolished. Various government buildings are torched by supposedly unidentified arsonists. The city is effectively placed in a state of siege. 149 detained; 141 subsequently transferred to Nayarit, 138 with serious charges; 3 soccer players subsequently released. Amnesty International has reports of 60 others in federal high security prison and Oaxaca state prisons of Etla, Mihuatlan and Tlacolula.

November 28-29: Indigenous Peoples of Oaxaca hold their planned forum, after earlier declaring themselves aligned with the APPO. Meeting in the sanctuary of The Church of the Poor, surrounded and harassed by armed state agents – some masked – with Bishop Emeritus Samuel Ruiz participating, they produce a strong declaration of intent to continue the struggle.

November 29: After relinquishing the final protective barricade for Radio Universidad, the station facilities are formally returned to the University administration, in preference to having the PFP invade the university compound and seize them violently.

November 26 - December 9: Numerous arrests by PFP and other federal and state police units, with hundreds of arrest warrants issued for prominent individuals involved with the APPO, the teachers and civil society. High level of terror – many people go into hiding initially. Some emerge later despite the fear.

December 1: judge frees two men photographed shooting at the protesters, widely believed to have killed Will and three others, citing a lack of evidence

December 3: Communique from APPO.

December 4: In one of his first acts after assuming office, President Felipe Calderón has delegation of APPO leaders who have come to Mexico City for negotiations with his government arrested on charges which include kidnaping, violent robbery, injury, deceitful damage, arson, sedition and attack on public means of communication.

December 10: The movement holds its 8th mega-march. Despite widespread fear, between 10 and 15 thousand march, including some with outstanding arrest warrants. Negotiations with the new ‘hard-line’ federal administration to prevent violence to marchers succeeds. The mood seems to be one of quiet determination.

December 12: Two state police filed complaints with the CEDH (the State Human Rights Commission) alleging, according to La Jornada, that they “were aware of a verbal or written order to kill them, to punish them by mutilation, infamy, scourges, sticks and torment, but also to be judged without being heard or tried by a court,” for passing information to the PFP. A raid by the Federal Preventive Police on the headquarters of Oaxaca’s State police (PME) resulted in the confiscation of 341 weapons used by agents in crimes which were attributed to APPO sympathizers. Eight vehicles which had been reported stolen were also confiscated, and four police agents and one functionary from the Procuraduría General de Justicia (the state attorney general’s office) were detained.

December 16: After three weeks in detention, 43 prisoners including 17 professors, were released from the medium security prison San Jose del Rincón, Nayarit. They arrive in Oaxaca the next day after a trip of some 20 hours. The state government is reported to have paid for their bail. December 18: National Commission for Human Rights issues preliminary report in which it concluded that 20 people had been killed, 370 injured and 349 imprisoned.

December 18: Three APPO leaders, activists kidnaped, beaten by local police and released four hours later.

December 18-19: Leaders of APPO and Local 22 accuse each other of betrayal.

December 19: Charges of sedition, criminal association and property damage added to charges against jailed APPO leader Flavio Sosa Vivavicencio.

December 20: 91 of the 95 Nayarit detainees were moved back to two state prisons in Oaxaca, and subsequently 11 were released. On 21 December 80 remained in custody.

December 22: The EZLN declared Dec. 22 the International Day of Mobilizations for Oaxaca; the date also marks the anniversary of the massacre of 45 indigenous campesinos in Acteal, Chiapas, in 1997. Marches in Oaxaca, Mexico City; solidarity activists and others held demonstrations in 37 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Peru and the US, to demand respects for Oaxacans' human rights and the removal of Gov. December 22: The National Council of the SNTE unanimously approves the creation of Local 59 in Oaxaca. The Consejo Central de Lucha (CCL) claims 5000 members and says it expects to have 10-15,000 more. It is critical of both Rueda and APPO, and claims to be independent of Gordillo.

December 27: House of Deputies approves 4 billion pesos for the re-zonification of teachers throughout the country, including one billion for Oaxaca. Rueda Pacheco announces that Local 22 will contribute 400 million pesos more from dues.

December 31: press conference held in which five former prisoners clarify that they were forced to sign letters which allege that Yésica Sánchez Maya, president of the Mexican League for the Defense of Human Rights had incited them to violence and coerced their support of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) in order to obtain their release from prison.

Human Rights and Other Resources and Reports

Below you will find the letter sent to President Calderón by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), expressing concern about the violation of civil and human rights in Oaxaca. Please feel free to use it as a model or draft your own. Below that you will find information about how to make tax deductible contributions or to participate in delegations to Oaxaca.

LETTER SENT BY THE UNITED ELECTRICAL, RADIO AND MACHINE WORKERS OF AMERICA (UE)

Below you will find the letter sent to mexican President Felipe Calderón by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), expressing concern about the violation of civil and human rights in Oaxaca. Please feel free to use it as a model or draft your own.

You can either Fax your letter to President Calderón to 011 52(55)5277 2376 or you can paste your letter into the web site at: http://contacto.presidencia.gob.mx/ The format is very easy: first name, last name (father's), last name (mother's if you use one), e-mail address and text. Then simply click "enviar."

In any case, please emails copies to: Licenciado Francisco Javier Ramírez Acuña [fespinosa@segob.gob.mx], Dr José Luis Soberanes Fernández [correo@cndh.org.mx], Lic Genaro Garcia Luna [blanca.medina@ssp.gob.mx], Lic Genaro Garcia Luna [oficialia.mayor@ssp.gob.mx], Ulises Ruiz Ortiz [gobernador@oaxaca.gob.mx], Dr Jaime Perez Jimenez [quejas@cedhoax.org], Dr Jaime Perez Jimenez [correo@cedhoax.org], Carlos de Icaza [mexembusa@sre.gob.mx], LIC. ROSA LIZBETH CANA CADEZA [procuraduria7@oaxaca.gob.mx], TNTE. JOSE MANUEL VERAS SALINAS [dgspoaxaca@hotmail.com], LIC. JORGE FRANCO VARGAS [sriagral2@oaxaca.gob.mx], LIC BULMARO RITO SALINAS [presidencia@congresooaxaca.gob.mx], Ambassador Antonio O. Garza Jr [embeuamx@state.gov]

(You will find their complete names and titles in the cc portion of the letter below if you wish to be more selective).

January 4, 2007

Presidente Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa
Residencia Oficial de los Pinos
México DF

Via Fax: 011 52 (55) 5277 2376

Dear President Calderón:

We are writing to you on behalf of the 35,000 members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) to urge you to take immediate steps to address the situation of impunity which continues to exist in Oaxaca.

Our Director of International Affairs recently had occasion to travel to Oaxaca and had the opportunity to speak directly with some of the many people whose civil and human rights were violated by the Ministerial and Federal Preventive Police or by plain clothed police over the past months. She has reported to us that she heard numerous, highly credible accounts of beatings, psychological and physical abuse, intimidation, disappearances, killings and attempted murder. Many of the serious violations occurred between the time that victims of such violence were picked up and the time they were taken to prison.

Also of grave concern are the threats and attacks against organizations and lawyers committed to the defense of human rights. One disturbing example is the continuing campaign against Yésica Sánchez Maya, president of the Mexican League for the Defense of Human Rights. The most recent development involves letters from recently released political prisoners alleging that she had incited them to violence and coerced their support of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO). These same inmates declared in a Dec. 31, 2006 press conference, that they were forced to sign the letter in exchange for their release from prison.

In addition, we are aware that one of the first acts of your administration was to arrest Flavio Sosa and other APPO leaders who had traveled to Mexico City to engage in dialogue with Lic. Francisco Javier Ramírez Acuña, and that neither the state nor national commissions responsible for ensuring the protection for human rights have issued any recommendations to ensure that human rights are protected, despite the fact that they have been documenting such violations for over six months.
With all due respect, we would encourage you to take steps to resolve this situation through negotiation and dialogue and to ensure respect for civil and human rights. We are deeply concerned that what appears to be a policy of harsh repression will only exacerbate the situation by forcing more radical forces in what has to date been a largely peaceful movement to resort to more violent forms of protest. This would no doubt make it even more difficult to address the underlying problems of poverty or corrupt government by the PRI over many decades, not to mention the impact on business and tourism in what is one of the most beautiful regions of Mexico.

We therefor urge you to engage in a serious effort to reach a political solution and to resolve the issues which have been raised through negotiation and dialog rather than through repression. In doing so, we would encourage you to release all prisoners still being held in connection with this conflict, to ensure an immediate end to all physical and psychological violence and intimidation against both the population and defenders of human rights by all police as well as by those persons without uniform who have been engaging in serious violations of human rights, and a thorough, impartial and rapid investigation of allegations of violations of civil and human rights in order to identify those responsible and ensure that justice is served.

We appreciate your careful attention to these serious issues and look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

General Executive Board of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE)

(names and titles omitted due to length).

cc: Licenciado Francisco Javier Ramírez Acuna, Minister of the Interior
Dr. José Luis Soberanes Fernández, Presidente de la CNDH
Lic. Genaro Garcia Luna, Minister of Public Security
Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, Governor of Oaxaca Dr. Jaime Perez Jimenez, President of the Oaxaca State Human Rights Commission
Carlos de Icaza, Ambassador of Mexico in the U.S.
Lic. Jorge Franco Vargas, Secretaria General de Gobierno
Lic. Rosa Lizbeth Cana Cadeza, Procuraduria General de Justicia
Tnte. Jose Manuel Veras Salinas, Director de Seguridad Publica
Lic. Jorge Franco Vargas, Secretario General de Gobierno
Lic, Bulmaro Rito Salinas, Presidente de La Gran Comision de la Camara de Diputados
Ambassador Antonio O. Garza, Jr.

TO MAKE TAX DEDUCTIBLE CONTRIBUTIONS:

Rights Action provides funds to victim-support organizations and individual victims, for the following needs:

- survival needs of families whose money-earners have been killed, illegally jailed and/ or incapacitated by torture;

- travel, communication and food costs incurred by family members and friends of the disappeared and illegally detained who are frantically and bravely looking for their loved ones in hospitals, morgues and jails, and then working hard to ensure that they are no longer tortured and that they are released from their arbitrary detentions;

- investigation and reporting, and transportation and communication costs of family-support, religious and human rights organizations that are at the forefront of denouncing and trying to put a stop to the State repression.

HOW TO MAKE TAX-CHARITABLE DONATIONS:

To make TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS to the "Oaxaca Emergency fund" in the USA and Canada, make checks payable to "Rights Action" and mail to their US or Canadian office:

CANADA: Rights Action, Box 73527, 509 St. Clair Ave W., Toronto ON, M6C-1C0;
UNITED STATES: Rights Action, Box 50887, Washington, DC 20091-0887.

*** Be sure to write "Oaxaca Emergency Fund" on the check memo line and, preferably, in a cover letter.

CREDIT CARD DONATIONS: Donations can be made by credit card - go to www.rightsaction.org.

*** Be sure to write "Oaxaca Emergency Fund" in the "on behalf of" box.

FOR TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS OF STOCK, contact: Grahame Russell,
860-352-2152, info@rightsaction.org.

FOR INFORMATION OR TO PARTICIPATE ON A DELEGATION:

2nd EMERGENCY HUMANITARIAN DELEGATION TO OAXACA (MEXICO)

WHEN: February 10-16, 2007

VICTIMS OF ONGOING REPRESSION IN OAXACA ASK FOR CONTINUED INTERNATIONAL PRESENCE & ATTENTION

IF INTERESTED, CONTACT: info@oaxacasolidarity.org.

COST: US$540 ($90/day), that covers room & board, travel, trip planning and hosting, translations, etc. Delegates are responsible for their own travel arrangements and costs to and from Oaxaca.

WHAT: The RODH (Red Oaxaqueña de Derechos Humanos/ Oaxacan Human Rights Network) has again invited the Oaxaca Solidarity Network and Rights Action to continue with their work increasing the international presence and awareness about the situation in Oaxaca, by organizing educational delegations to Oaxaca to learn about development, environment and human rights issues in Oaxaca, and to develop and build on international solidarity and activism efforts.

Contact: "Oaxaca Solidarity Network" or view www.oaxacasolidarity.org>.

After a tumultuous year in which the red and black flags of civil insurrection unfurled on the barricades and the rancor of "los de abajo" ("those from below") took fire, newly sworn-in president Felipe Calderon and his transnational backers are banking on fading the color scheme to a ubiquitous gray in 2007. Their success will be measured by the fight-back of a popular resistance that has surged from the bottom in many parts of the country during 2006.

"Unprecedented" became a cliché in Mexico 2006 as social and political turbulence crested in anticipation of the presidential elections. By spring, striking steelworkers were being gunned down and militarized police under the command of Calderón's new attorney general brutalized angry farmers in San Salvador Atenco in one of the most egregious violations of human rights ever witnessed on Mexican screens. The teachers rose in Oaxaca.

The stealing of the election from leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in July drove millions into the streets in the largest political demonstrations ever recorded on this side of the border. Tens of thousands of protestors encamped in the capital blockading major thoroughfares for seven weeks.

Meanwhile, the upsurge in Oaxaca boiled over into urban warfare with death squads in the employ of tyrannical governor Ulisis Ruiz trolling the state capitol with a license to kill. Massive police repression in Oaxaca five days before Calderón's coronation produced hundreds of political prisoners. The first bombings by radical groups in six years sent shivers through Mexico City.

The drama culminated in the pandemonium of Calderón's surreal investiture during which the military had to be called out to protect the congress of the country while López Obrador's supporters scuffled with rightwing legislators on the floor of the Chamber of Deputies.

2007 will have a hard time topping its predecessor.

The first months of Felipe Calderón's governance are a crucial test for the right-winger who at least a third of the electorate does not accept as the legitimate president of Mexico. To establish a modicum of credibility, he has embarked on a calculated strategy that combines the Hard Hand ("mano dura") of the military with the high gloss of the media.

At the top of the embattled president's agenda was the deployment of 7000 troops and police to his home state of Michoacán in which hundreds of victims have been slaughtered in recent years as narco gangs battle for turf in the vast hot lands south of Uruapan where marijuana plantations flourish on remote hillsides and tons of cocaine pour in through the port of Lázaro Cárdenas.

True to the Calderón formula for taking control of a country that has been bordering on ingovernability, the troops were followed into the dope fields by embedded reporters from the national and international big press. Mexico's two-headed television monopoly ran the raids as top story night after night reinforcing the new president's authority although the operation netted meager bounty - the relatives of a few mid-level narco lords were arrested and a handful of gun sills killed in firefights. Michoacán is far from the U.S. border, control of which is the real source of narco violence in Mexico.

Such ballyhooed offensives in the narco wars are often counter indicative. The industry is destabilized and the cartels stirred up. When a capo goes down, another pops up to claim the turf. Every Mexican president wears a narco lord around his neck - for Calderon's predecessor Vicente Fox, the "capo de sexenio" was "El Chapo" Guzmán, boss of the Sinaloa cartel, who escaped from a maximum-security prison in the first months of his presidency.

Whichever capo the new president gets attached to could determine which way Calderon's head might roll - much like the now-legendary five bloody heads that narcos rolled out on the dance floor of a popular Uruapan night club on the eve of the July election.

The new president has duplicitously hidden his hard hand behind his back while preaching reconciliation in Oaxaca, withdrawing Federal Preventative Police (PFP) from that troubled state and redeploying them to Michoacán. The move turned policing Oaxaca back to Ruiz's Ministerial Police which is held responsible for widespread violence and the killing of at least 20 supporters of striking teachers and the Oaxaca Peoples Popular Assembly (APPO) since last May, including U.S. Indymedia reporter Brad Will. Not 24 hours after Calderon had removed the PFP, Ruiz's goons kidnapped APPO spokesperson Florentino López.

The Federal Preventative Police is now commanded by General Ardelio Vargas, a close confederate of new Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora when he headed up the CISEN or national security intelligence service - General Vargas also commands the Federal Investigative Agency (AFI), the Mexican FBI, an unprecedented concentration of police powers in the hands of one man.

While Calderon's Interior Secretary Francisco Ramírez Acuña, whose human rights record as governor of Jalisco was tarnished with torture, begins to release some of the 200 prisoners taken in PFP repression last November 25th in Oaxaca city, others are hustled into custody. Flavio Sosa, former director of López Obrador's Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in Oaxaca, and a prominent leader of the APPO, has been locked down in the nation's most fearsome penitentiary and loaded up with sedition charges by Attorney General Medina Mora, the first political prisoner of the Calderon regime. The PRD and López Obrador have not been active in his defense.

In order to govern Mexico, Felipe Calderon must split the PRD and neutralize Lopez Obrador. The new president launched a revived get-AMLO putsch when his finance minister, former World Bank heavy, 300-pound Augustín Carstens submitted a 2007 budget that slashed funding for universities and government support for culture, two sectors in which the left leader has widespread support. The budget cuts will advance
Calderón's neo-liberal strategy of privatizing both areas.

The new president also sliced 10% from his own salary but increased the military budget by 30%. Social budget allocations are just 10% of foreign and domestic debt service, a recipe for disaster.

Felipe Calderón is poised to retaliate directly against his old nemesis López Obrador who was anointed the "legitimate president" of Mexico before hundreds of thousands of true believers in Mexico City's Zócalo plaza this past November 20th. Reforma, a PAN-oriented national daily, recently published a deliberately leaked memo indicating that 34 arrest warrants are currently pending against the leftist, most filed during his years as Mexico City mayor but several stretching back to 1996 when López Obrador led Chontal Indian farmers in shutting down oil drilling platforms in his native Tabasco. Should the left leader, who is currently trekking the nation shoring up his bases, become too much of a thorn in the side of Calderón's rule, Interior Secretary Ramírez Acuña has the discretion to activate the arrest warrants.

Despite the new president's veiled threats to remove AMLO from circulation, Calderón is not adverse to co-opting the leftist's social programs, proposing pensions for elderly Mexicans and universal health care for poor children, two basic planks in López Obrador's campaign platform, even while failing to insure an adequate social budget.
The new president is deeply indebted to the two-headed television monopoly for crafting the illusion of his still-disputed victory in the fraud-marred July 2nd elections and he has sought to reward their support. One of the first acts of Calderon's new Secretary of Communication and Transportation was to veto a bid by General Electric, Telemundo, and Mexican pharmaceutical tycoon Moisés Sada for a license to launch a third national network. Curiously, soon after the license request was drawn up, both TV Azteca and Televisa aired investigative reports on how the Sada family was price-gouging consumers, the details of which the Calderon government has promised to probe.
Calderón's rightist PAN party won the TV moguls' hearts when just weeks before the presidential election, the PANistas pushed through a law - the so-called "Ley Televisa" - that gave Azteca and Televisa exclusive concessions over the entire electro-magnetic spectrum for the next 40 years.

Much as when he ran for president, Calderón is once again flooding the TV screens with slickly produced "infomercials" trumpeting his early "accomplishments" in office.
As the designated business agent for the transnationals who put him in Los Pinos, the Mexican White House, the new president has to deliver the goods. During the campaign, Calderon repeatedly pledged to the business "community" that he would open PEMEX, the nationalized oil corporation, to private investment. Such an initiative would require a constitutional amendment that can only be achieved by an alliance with the once-ruling PRI, now a minority party in the new congress. Calderón's support for Oaxaca tyrant Ulisis Ruiz, a PRI honcho, seems to be the quid pro quo that could cement the deal in 2007.

The new president inherits an economy in serious stagnation and prospects for improvement in the next 12 months are not bright. Growth averaged out to less than 3% per annum during Fox's six years in office, the lowest among major Latin American economies.

Felipe Calderón campaigned as the "Jobs President" but there are not enough McDonalds' and Wal-Marts littering the landscape to provide new jobs for the more than a million young job seekers who enter the labor market each year. Annual wage hikes proclaimed by Calderón's economic cabinet total out to 19 cents USD a day which will not much increase workers' buying powers in 2007 - the price of tortillas, a staple of the brown underclass, has doubled in six years of PAN governance.

Meanwhile, the agricultural sector - roughly 27 million Mexicans, a quarter of the population - is collapsing under NAFTA pressures. Over a million farm families (6,000,000 Mexicans) have been forced off the land, primarily by the dumping of cheap NAFTA corn on this side of the border, and jumped into the immigration stream during the Fox years - 2.4 million citizens took refuge in the U.S. during his "sexenio." For Felipe Calderón, the devastation of the agriculture sector will only get darker - all tariffs on corn and beans will be completely eliminated as of January 1st 2008, greatly aggravating the conditions of the campesinos.

Out migration is a traditional safety valve for frustrated young Mexicans but that option is fast being extinguished by draconian U.S. immigration enforcement, including the construction of 700 miles of border wall. Threatened massive deportations of Mexican workers from El Norte, who now send $16 billion USD home annually in remissions, would effectively shut down the Mexican economy.

With such dour prospects just down the pike, Felipe Calderón is dependent upon a lame duck U.S. president's diminishing clout in his congress to pass a guest worker program to absorb the pressure building on the border.

Mexico annexed its economic and political future to Washington when it inked NAFTA 15 years ago as George Bush's intelligence czar John Negroponte once predicted when he was ambassador to this distant neighbor nation. Now when Washington sneezes, Mexico comes down with Ebola fever. Any instability up north in 2007 - a new terror attack, a presidential impeachment or assassination, a devastating defeat in Iraq or the eruption of a new war in Iran, all not unlikely scenarios for the coming year - will send seismic shock waves south and set bilateral relations on a shaky footing in Calderón's first year as Mexican president - much as 9/11 wrecked relations with Washington during Fox's initial months in office.

As the pendulum swings left in Latin America, Felipe Calderon is Bush's last gasp hope for the triumph of neo-liberalism south of the border but the new president is already perceived as the White House's water boy in Latin America and among a majority of his own citizens and establishing credibility requires that he put some distance between his person and Washington.

Whereas Vicente Fox managed to alienate all of the new left leadership on the continent, particularly Hugo Chavez who dubbed him "an imperialist puppy," Calderón is moving to tamp down the tone - his attendance at Daniel Ortega's inauguration in Managua and the 15th anniversary of peace accords in Salvador in January, the Mexican president's first foreign foray, seems designed to soften the disaffection of the Latin left. But Calderon's testy accusations that Chavez was financing Lopez Obrador's campaign so disaffected the Venezuelan strongman that diplomatic relations between Latin America's two largest oil producers will probably not be revived very soon.

As the neo-liberal impositions dig in 2007 and objective conditions grow more onerous for the 73,000,000 Mexicans - three quarters of the population - living in and around the poverty line (a quarter of them in extreme poverty), the strength of the popular resistance that surged in 2006 is suddenly a question mark in 2007. In Oaxaca, the APPO appears exhausted and at odds with allies in the teachers’ movement, on the defensive and reduced to rescuing its political prisoners.

López Obrador is broke and continues to ply the provinces, playing to an ever-shrinking audience to promote the legitimacy of his shadow presidency and government, which are just that - shadows of what might have been.

The Zapatistas' Other Campaign is on hold as Subcomandante Marcos tries to recover from the bruising he took when he balked at joining the post-electoral struggle. The armed movement -- five tiny Marxist-Leninist "focos" -- calls press conferences to challenge Calderón's credentials but are a perfect demonstration target for the new president's hard hand.

Will peoples' resistance recover the initiative in the new year? For the popular movements, 2007 will be all about "ni modo" i.e. there is no way to change Calderón's hold on power so we might as well allow ourselves to be co-opted by his handouts, and "sí se puede" ("yes, we can"), a skew which views 2006 as a gateway to the next revolution. The outcome of this debate down at the broad base of the Mexican pyramid will determine the shape of the year to come.

**John Ross will be on the road in the southwest, south, Midwest, and Atlantic coast from February through April with his latest opus ZAPATISTAS! Making Another World Possible--Chronicles of Resistance 2000-2006. Write him at johnross@igc.org for suggestions of possible venues and dates.

Mexico’s new president, Felipe Calderón, wants it known that he will be a tougher and more decisive president than his predecessor, Vicente Fox. He is determined to get that message out as quickly and forcefully as he can. It remains to be seen how consistently he can follow up on his intentions, but at this point, some 30 days into his governance, he seems pretty determined to rule from the hard right.

It’s not that he will discontinue the Fox policy of bringing selected members of the opposition into his government and/or good graces. Along these lines he has already reached out to Elba Esther Gordillo, the skillful infighter who has been the General Secretary of both the National Teachers Union (SNTE) and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Calderón reached out to her because she had done two enormous favors for him. First, motivated by her longstanding conflict with PRI presidential candidate Roberto Madrazo, she helped Calderón get elected by swinging the support of several key PRI governors in his direction. Second, since the election, she has done her best to undermine Oaxaca’s militant Section 22 of the SNTE, helping Calderón demonstrate his “strong hand” in his efforts to quell Oaxaca’s explosive popular movements. In return, he has rewarded several of her loyalists with cabinet posts having little political power but large budgets. This is the kind of "outreach" we can expect from Calderón. He will keep it up as long as there are no policy issues at stake. Gordillo, for example, known to Mexicans who follow politics as "The Schoolteacher," was reportedly not consulted in the drawing up of Calderón's initial austerity education budget.

Avoiding Drift

In terms of real policies, the initial signals tell us he is determined to avoid Fox’s policy drift. Come what may, Calderón is determined to extend a welcoming hand to private investors, a punishing hand to social dissenters and criminals (who he seems to regard as one and the same), and a very minimal hand to the purveyors of public services like health and education.

Just 11 days into his presidency, Calderón announced that he was sending federal troops and police to Cárdenas’ beleaguered Michoacán to begin the battle against powerful drug gangs who, until now, have carried on a chaotic reign of terror with pretty much total impunity. Ruthless violence between rival cartels in Michoacán has taken hundreds of lives over the past year.

“We are looking to take back the spaces that organized crime has seized,” announced his Interior Secretary, Francisco Ramírez, last week. “The battle against organized crime has just begun.”

But since the U.S.-promoted Drug War began in the early 1980s, its successes in Mexico (and elsewhere) have been minimal. Indeed, each seemingly successful crackdown has produced what Mexican law enforcers call a “cockroach effect,” the movement of illicit production and trade from a heavily policed area to one that is friendlier to the industry.
Effective crackdowns, by removing the industry’s leadership, have also spawned movements of traffickers upward rather than outward, as underlings and competitors engage in brutal competitions to replace slain or captured cartel chiefs.

Mexico’s drug enforcers have compellingly told their U.S. counterparts that police and military action alone cannot break up the illicit multi-billion dollar industry. Until U.S. demand and Mexican economic need are brought under control (or the flow of drugs is decriminalized and regulated), Mexico’s ruthless, illicit drug trade will flourish, even if its leaders enjoy shorter and shorter life spans.

The crackdown, however, seems to have motives that go beyond the drug war itself. The new administration may well be signaling that whether it is confronting civil unrest, labor conflicts or criminal activity, it will increasingly rely on police and military force to establish the conditions for law and order, no matter what the disorder is all about. Beyond the futility of the Drug War, that’s the ominous part of the first 30 days of the Calderón government.

Felipe Calderón is determined to present himself as tough enough to crack down on disorder and to balance his fiscal budget by imposing austerity on the public sector (except on that part of the public sector that enforces the government’s toughness). He wants to restore law and order to those areas beset by criminal violence or social protest (two activities he has deliberately conflated), and he wants to maintain macroeconomic stability by cutting federal spending, even while raising military and “security” expenditures.

A Neoliberal Cabinet

His intentions have been signaled by his cabinet choices: even his best, most competent choices will contribute to a politics of polarization as he attempts to rule from the right. While the heavy-handed (or “firm-handed,” take your pick) former governor of Jalisco, Francisco Ramírez Acuña, the new Secretary of the Interior, has drawn the most criticism for his repressive past, it is probably more significant that Calderón has chosen a team of neoliberal technocrats for his “economic cabinet.”

Curiously, many of those who fear the heavy hand of Ramírez have praised Calderón’s economic choices, especially the appointment of the experienced financial functionary, Agustín Carstens, to be Secretary of the Treasury. Maybe this is because the discourse of economics seems so technical and bland. But the polarization embodied in Carstens’ appointment will soon become apparent.

In fact, the appointments of Ramírez and Carstens go together. The repressive law enforcement many expect from Ramírez is typically a necessary complement to the deregulatory, neo-liberal economic policies we can expect from Carstens. The one enforces as the other excludes and divides.

Carstens was a Treasury undersecretary in the early years of the Fox government, and a mid-level officer of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from 2003 until he left the job to join Calderón’s transition team this October.

His career reflects his undergraduate training at the Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM) and his graduate training in economics at the University of Chicago, both of which prepared him to see the world as one in which competitive, unregulated markets are always efficient and produce “optimal” outcomes, a world in which private investment is always the key to economic development. His career at the IMF reflects a neo-liberal belief in a single world economy in which the most important actors are sovereign private investors, unregulated by any sovereign states.

His advocates hope he will draw more foreign investment to Mexico by privatizing as much of the energy sector as possible, by breaking up the Telmex near-monopoly of the telecommunications sector and by further deregulating labor markets, i.e. breaking what’s left of union power and doing away with as many labor protections as possible
It’s hard to work up much sympathy for billionaire monopolists like Telmex owner Carlos Slim, but corporate power in general has little to worry about from Carstens. Mexico’s neo-liberals put the trade union sector at the top of the list when they talk about “monopoly power.” And IMF-style deregulation has more typically gone after the protective labor-market regulations that have managed to keep at least some working people out of the most extreme forms of poverty.

Carstens is also an advocate of managing inflation by keeping the chief cost of doing business, wages and salaries, under control. This means limiting the power of trade unions even more than he may want to limit the power of industrial monopolies.
He has also been an advocate of fiscal reform, keeping the fiscal budget balanced by increasing the intake of the federal government and/or reducing its expenditures. Raising corporate income taxes, however, conflicts with the neo-liberal goal of keeping national profits high in order to attract private investors. This leaves the regressive value added tax as the only reliable way to balance the budget. Any way you look at it, he is an advocate of redistributing income upward. All this suggests the need for a tough law-and-order Secretary of Governance.

The Toughness Begins

By arresting many of the key leaders of the Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO), in early December, the new Calderón government has signaled it’s intent to treat the APPO as a criminal organization, inaugurating the firm hand of law and order against the social movements of Oaxaca.

One of those still under arrest is Flavio Sosa, known as the APPO leader most open to dialogue and compromise, and most determined to keep the armed supporters of the movement at bay. He was taken into custody along with his brother and two other APPO leaders by agents of the Federal Preventative Police (PFP) and the Federal Agency of Investigation (AFI) just after they had come to Mexico City to begin a “dialogue” with the new Secretary of the Interior Francisco Ramírez. They were charged with various counts of robbery, pillage, assault and arson. The “dialogue” with Ramírez was then postponed.

PRD Federal deputy Juan Guerra questioned the Kafkaesque nature of the events. “How can the Secretary of the Interior say that he wants to build dialogue and accord if what he does after sending for a leadership commission is simply to put them in jail?”

Over the past seven months, the federal government — first under the indecisive Fox and now under the apparently determined Calderón — has suggested it had under consideration two broad options for restoring peace and civility to Oaxaca: dialogue and repressive force.

On the one hand, it might recognize the validity of the social struggle that, under severe provocation, has burst into violence, and begin a serious dialogue with the leadership of the principal dissident group, the APPO.

Such a dialogue would touch on issues of education (the unrest began last May with a teachers’ strike), health, housing, and the creation of decent work opportunities. It would also deal with the APPO’s demands that Oaxaca’s corrupt and brutal governor, Ulises Ruiz, be removed from office, that federal police be withdrawn from Oaxaca City and — now — that Sosa and over 150 other “political prisoners” be released from jail. (Over 140 Oaxaqueños were arrested on November 25 during a police attack on an APPO demonstration. Most are still being held in a federal prison in the state of Nayarit.)

On the other hand, the federal government might unambiguously side with the tough law-and-order approach of Governor Ruiz, treat the mobilized members of APPO as common criminals and restore order with the overwhelming use of police power. With the arrest of Sosa and his compañeros, that seems to be the direction in which Calderón wants to go. With each attempt at repression, the stakes have risen and the conflict has sharpened. APPO was born after Ruiz’s state police violently broke up a demonstration of striking teachers last June. The removal of Ruiz from office became the group’s principal demand. After Vicente Fox sent the PFP into Oaxaca in late October, the withdrawal of the federal police became the APPO’s second main demand. (Their job done, they are now being withdrawn.) With the arrest of Sosa and other activists, the freeing of political prisoners has become the third principal demand.

Sosa now refers to himself as “the first political prisoner of the regime of President Felipe Calderón.” The well-known Oaxaca painter and social activist Francisco Toledo has organized the November 25 Liberation Committee, among whose members are the writers Carlos Monsiváis, Elena Poniatowska and a representative of the Archdiocese of Oaxaca, to support relatives of those detained both within Oaxaca itself and in the state of Nayarit. Who benefits from this cancellation of dialogue? The same people who benefited from last month’s small bombs planted around Mexico City: those on either side of the conflict who seek to heighten the tensions between a hard-right government and its political opponents. PRD spokesperson Gerardo Fernández Noroña has characterized Sosa’s arrest as “the criminalization of the social struggle.”

And that’s a huge part of what the repression is about: rule through social polarization. After all, though the intolerable social conditions that reign in much of Mexico are just beneath the surface of the conflict, the demands of the APPO have never been very radical: better conditions for teachers and schoolchildren, more responsive social programs, the removal from office of a repressive governor, and, now, the release of the political prisoners. But Felipe Calderón has let it be known that his first priority in Oaxaca, as in the nation as a whole, is to draw the line against social disorder.
He may not be able to follow through as completely as he would like, but Calderón, his soft tone of voice notwithstanding, has used his first month in office to signal his desire to rule decisively from the hard right.

*Fred Rosen is a political columnist for the Mexico edition of the Miami Herald. This article is adapted from a series of columns he has written for the Herald over the past month.

[We publish here the proclamation of Andrés Manuel López Obrador as part of our series of documents of the labor and social movements in translation. – Ed.]

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Zócalo, México D.F.

November 20th, 2006

We have constituted a cabinet with honest men and women who are committed to the majority of the population as well as the legal and legitimate minorities. They are six men and six women who will accompany me in the management of the government. This team will formulate a series of diagnoses on the main problems of the country and will propose solutions and recommendations.

Therefore, as of today we announce the first 20 measures of this people’s government:

1. We will initiate a process for the renovation of public institutions. Together with the commission created to this end by the National Democratic Convention, we will call for a national debate and will promote a referendum for the elaboration of a new constitutional framework.

2. We will defend the right to information and will demand that the communications media is open to all expressions of society. Particularly, we will be watchful of the decision made by the Supreme Court regarding the claim of anti-constitutionality presented by a group of Senators against the so-called Televisa law.

3. We will address the grave migration problem, insisting on the need to change economic policies in order to generate employment in our country. We will oppose the construction of the border wall and will protect Mexicans who have been obliged to go to the US to work from maltreatment, discrimination and human rights violations.

4. We will permanently denounce any injustice and will watch the performance of public prosecutors, judges, magistrates and ministers who are dedicated to “legalizing” the robberies carried out by the strong against the weak and to guarantee that white collar delinquents are treated with impunity.

We reaffirm that without justice is not possible to guarantee public security, nor tranquility or social peace. We also say that it is not possible to confront organized crime if the law is not equally applied and only one band is punished and another one protected.

We reiterate that we will not allow the army or paramilitary police forces to be used to repress the inconformity of the people who struggle for justice and liberty.

From here we will express again our solidarity with the humble and dignified people of Oaxaca who are victims of repression, and demand the resignation of Ulises Ruiz, that sinister and despotic governor, as well as the withdrawal of the Federal Preventive Police and the punishment of those found responsible for murder.

5. We will send to the legislators of the Frente Amplio Progresista a bill to elevate to constitutional rank the fight against corruption, and make national austerity effective. It is indispensable to consider the traffic of influence, the conflict of interests, nepotism and to carry out business deals under the protection of public powers as grave offenses. Also, a limit to the wages and benefits of high-ranking officials of the three powers of the Union must be defined and at all governmental levels. As an example, it is unacceptable that a Court minister is receiving, at present, around 500,000 pesos a month (roughly 4,500 USD). Also, it will be proposed that the pensions of the ex presidents are cancelled. Never again shall we have a rich government and a poor people.

6. We will not allow more taxes on the poor and the middle classes while tax privileges to the powerful and influential are maintained. Consequently, we reject VAT charges on medicines and food, and any other form of regressive tax reform. On the contrary, we will promote in the Congress the performance of an audit of the Ministry of the Treasury (Secretaría de Hacienda), in particular the SAT, since the privileged in Mexico simply do not pay taxes, or when they pay them they have them refunded.

7. In the coming days, a project on the expenditure budget for 2007 will be sent to the legislators of the Frente Amplio Progresista, which proposes the reorientation of public spending to education, health, employment creation and the well-being of the population. It must be remembered that the Chamber of deputies has the exclusive power to approve the public budget and that our legislators can do a lot to reduce the waste, government spending (gasto corriente), the payment of Fobaproa (Savings Protection Banking Fund) interests and to guarantee increased resources for the countryside, public universities and to states and municipalities.

8. The day after tomorrow (22 November, 2006), due to the importance of confronting the economic monopolies linked to the (political) power that with impunity hurt the popular and middle classes’ economy, we will present to the senators of the Frente Amplio Progresista an initiative for a law on competitive prices, establishing rules pursuant to Article 28 of the Constitution to put an end to the excessive charges on goods and services in our country. It is unacceptable that Mexicans have to pay 223% more than people in the US for gray cement; 260% more for wide band internet; 312% more for cell phones; 65% more for fixed line telephones; 230% more for national long distance calls; 116% more for high consumption residential electricity; 131% more for commercial electricity; 36% more for high tension electricity; 5% more for magna gas; 18% more for premium gas; 178% more for a Banamex classic credit card; 115 more for the Bancomer visa card; 116% more for basic cable TV; 150% more for home credit; and 26,000% more for bank fees for shopping in department stores with cards. All this not withstanding that the minimum wage in Mexico is 90% lower than in the US. We cannot allow this to continue. If this law on competitive prices is approved, millions of Mexican consumers will be able to save more than 10% of their earnings.

9. We will create the truth commission to investigate the Fobaproa fraud, the governmental rescue of road building enterprises, development banks and sugar mills; we will also review all the credit contracts and the construction of public works in Pemex and the Electricity Federal Commission (CFE) carried out under the so called PIDEREGAS.

10. We will protect national producers from the non-discriminatory and limitless opening up of external trade. Particularly, an action plan will be created in order to prevent the application in the year 2008 of a clause of NAFTA that allows free imports of maize and beans, since it means a definitive blow to 4 million peasant families.

11. We will defend the constitutional right to a fair wage. Today, 16 million Mexicans, out of 42 million working age Mexicans, receive less than 30 pesos per day (less than approximately US $2.75). Presently, diverse social, labor, and academic organizations have initiated a campaign to defend the minimum constitutional wage, originally conceived as an instrument to guarantee the basic needs of workers’ families.

We announce our support for this campaign in favor of a fair and dignified remuneration to all the workers in the countryside and cities.

12. We will struggle so that the workers in the informal sector of the economy, the day laborers in agriculture, domestic workers and street vendors, among others, enjoy legal protection and have the right to social security.

13. We will defend the autonomy of trade unions and will promote their democratization. In particular, we will struggle for the respect for the right to free and secret voting in the elections of trade union leaders.

14. We will not allow the privatization of the electric industry to take place, nor the oil in any of its modalities. Oil does not belong to the State and much less to the government; it belongs to the nation. And our country is not for sale, but to be defended.

15. We will defend the national patrimony. This means the national resources, archeological zones, the ecosystems, the woods, water resources and culture.
In this moment an initiative for a law on the incorporation of municipalities and states to the management of Mexico’s historical patrimony is being discussed in the Deputies Chamber. This initiative would eliminate federal responsibility for archeological zones and natural reserves and permit their privatization. The legitimate government will not accept this counter-reform and will join the citizens and civil organizations in their actions to protect the nation’s patrimony.

16. In the Congress we will promote the establishment in the Constitution of a Welfare State, which shall provide protection and a dignified life to all Mexicans, from the cradle to the grave.

We will insist, as in the Federal District, for a universal pension for food to be given to all elderly people of the country; support to all persons with a disability and grants to single women so that their children do not abandon school.

17. We will promote compliance with the San Andrés Larráinzar accords that guarantee the economic, social, political and cultural rights of the indigenous peoples.

18. We will work to avoid the rejection of young people who wish to study in public universities. We will never accept the privatization of education, desired by the political right, as if it was some merchandise that can only be bought by those who have economic resources. Education cannot become a privilege. Education and culture are fundamental for the country’s development. The State is obliged to guarantee access to culture and to free and quality education at all school levels.

19. We will make effective the right of Mexicans to health. Today, more than half of the population does not have access to government health care programs. The right to health is not guaranteed, either because lack of money to pay for medical attention and medicines, or because of the lack of available services where people live.

The so-called Popular Insurance is pure demagoguery, because it is not insurance nor is it popular. In the health centers there aren’t any medicines. All they do is hand out prescriptions and charge a 6% of the family income to be affiliated.

The legitimate government will work to guarantee medical services and free medicines for all Mexicans who lack social security.

We will advocate increasing investment in hospitals and health centers; to dedicate increased resources to the supply of medicines and medical supplies, and to hire the doctors and nurses needed to provide health services. Likewise, we will see that the IMSS and ISSSTE count with enough resources to reverse their state of deterioration.

20. We will help millions of Mexicans who live in popular neighborhoods, villages, towns and rural communities without public services and with decayed housing with all we can. We will seek alternatives to provide for the installation of water, electricity, drainage services and paving, and will insist on the right of humble people to receive credit for housing with interest rates that are equivalent to the annual increase of the minimum wage.

“The legitimate government shall be the organized people”

Mexican Labor News & Analysis

December , 2006, Vol. 11, No. 12

Contents for this issue:

Report on the Human Rights Situation in Oaxaca, Mexico
ACTION ALERT
A Year of Unprecedented Turmoil
Felipe Calderón: Not Like the Old Boss
First 20 Measures of the Legitimate Government of Mexico

Report on the Human Rights Situation in Oaxaca, Mexico

Introduction

Cultural and political Background

The Teachers’ Union, Local 22 of the SNTE

The Emergence of a Strong Popular Movement in Oaxaca

Some views on the conflict from Oaxaca

Testimony we heard

The Failure to Curtail Impunity

Conclusion

Time Line

Human Rights and Other Resources and Reports

ACTION ALERT

LETTER SENT BY THE UNITED ELECTRICAL, RADIO AND MACHINE WORKERS OF AMERICA (UE)

TO MAKE TAX DEDUCTIBLE CONTRIBUTIONS:

FOR INFORMATION OR TO PARTICIPATE ON A DELEGATION:

A Year of Unprecedented Turmoil

Felipe Calderón: Not Like the Old Boss

Avoiding Drift

A Neoliberal Cabinet

The Toughness Begins

First 20 Measures of the Legitimate Government of Mexico

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Zócalo, México D.F.

November 20th, 2006

Support MLNA & UE cross-border work:
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Mexican Labor News & Analysis

December , 2006, Vol. 11, No. 12

Contents for this issue:

Report on the Human Rights Situation in Oaxaca, Mexico ACTION ALERTA Year of Unprecedented Turmoil Felipe Calderón: Not Like the Old BossFirst 20 Measures of the Legitimate Government of Mexico

Report on the Human Rights Situation in Oaxaca, Mexico

Introduction

Cultural and political Background

The Teachers’ Union, Local 22 of the SNTE

The Emergence of a Strong Popular Movement in Oaxaca

Some views on the conflict from Oaxaca

Testimony we heard

The Failure to Curtail Impunity

Conclusion

Time Line

Human Rights and Other Resources and Reports

ACTION ALERT

LETTER SENT BY THE UNITED ELECTRICAL, RADIO AND MACHINE WORKERS OF AMERICA (UE)

TO MAKE TAX DEDUCTIBLE CONTRIBUTIONS:

FOR INFORMATION OR TO PARTICIPATE ON A DELEGATION:

A Year of Unprecedented Turmoil

Felipe Calderón: Not Like the Old Boss

Avoiding Drift

A Neoliberal Cabinet

The Toughness Begins

First 20 Measures of the Legitimate Government of Mexico

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Zócalo, México D.F.

November 20th, 2006

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