Protest art from Oaxaca. I wish we had a few more images to add to the link. Instead, if you'll be near UCLA this year (exhibit runs mid-July until December!), swing by the Fowler Museum and have a look for yourself. Based on what we saw in the streets, cafes, and galleries of Oaxaca from July '07 until May '08, these artworks will leave a mark.
Gracias a JF por la informacion.
The words palabra, caguamon, sombrilla, guanabana.
The names Cuajimoloyas, Jalatlaco, Xochimilco.
The street names Xicotencatl, 5 de Mayo, 20 de Noviembre, Calle de la Noche Triste.
Fresh avocados at 22 pesos a kilo.
The traditional courtyard, an idyllic refuge even in the busy heart of the city.
Street food, street food, street food. And mole. And tacos al pastor. And nieves.
Street musicians. Bus musicians.
Street art. Guerrilla art.
The morning view from our third floor windows out over flat city roofs. The valley and hills to the east as the sun comes up from behind, then the same light striking the hillsides south and west beyond Colonia Aleman, houses on houses layered upwards as on Mediterranean hillsides. Also the rising light on cathedral cupolas and bell towers, all across the city, during the cool, still mornings; these could easily be taken for mosques and minarets beneath the gathering desert sun.
The generous and restorative appeal of evening light, after a withering day, on the green and yellow face of Santo Domingo, stone streets gradually cooling in the aftermath of the setting sun.
The dazzlingly gifted, fat guitar player, and his quiet, skinny companero, who play most weeknights at El Importador on the zocalo.
Tomorrow, we leave all this, and more.
It's been beastly hot here, but Sunday night delivered a big bad thumping lightning and thunder storm, several hours long. Tree branches down, streets flooded with rain. Monday smelled like a whole new city, and then it rained again. Tuesday has been cool, and there are still puddles at intersections and storm drains, reminders of the changing season. Should be nice until the mosquitoes hatch. Which, it's ungenerous to say, is probably some kind of metaphor for Oaxaca.
There's noise this week about a federal bust-up of the Oaxaca State Police. I'll admit first to not having any idea what's going on beyond the little bit I've read, in English, from Nancy Davies. She writes that the army has arrested at least 7 state police officers, including the cousin of Governor Ulises Ruiz, in relation to investigations into events during the unrest in 2006. Nancy points out that local police seem to have scattered during the recent investigation. "14 didn't show up for roll call (on the 26th), 10 asked for their vacation time, [and] 16 are presumed Zetas, which is organized crime." It is unclear how much overlap may exist in these numbers but either way it's fairly interesting. Nancy's post further points out that at least one of the officers arrested was alleged to be involved in kidnappings and disappearances, and documents were seized relating to the severe, police beating of Emeterio Merino Cruz, who was left incapacitated after the attack.
All this is offered without any background information or fact checking, so take it as such. I don't know about the motivation behind this or the forces really at work. On the surface, it seems like a good thing for Oaxaca. Where politics play in Mexico, however, there is reason to be suspicious.
My focus has shifted of late, and my available time is now more likely spent at research for another writing project and not for the blog. It's become hard to dedicate as much time and energy to following up on the course of events in Oaxaca. It's difficult to encapsulate, but my interest in the perpetual turmoil, or perception of perpetual turmoil just beneath Oaxaca's surface, has dulled. Because it's not mine, because these aren't my people, my protests, or my city, the best I've been able to do is occasionally post updates on the nature of events as I see them here. (And who are my people? Which my protests? Where my city?)
My inability to capture, to really understand, or to fairly render the substance or the subjects of my writing about Oaxaca puts me in a mind to remember Graham Greene:
Perhaps no one can write in depth about a foreign country--he can only write about the effect of that country on his own fellow countrymen, living as exiles, or government servants, or visitors. He can only "touch in" the background of the foreign land.
Despite all the fun we've had with my new do, it's not all peaches and cream in Oaxaca. The city, as always, is roiled in contradiction.
By outward appearances things are good. Tourism is up overall, though there's a momentary, post-spring break lull now before the summer season begins in earnest (this from a long time Spanish teacher who tells me that May enrollment is always tranquilo before June and July bring the summer backpackers and vactioners to town). Cafes and galleries are all open, and there's plenty of street art, music, and fireworks to be enjoyed on the weekends.
Get beyond the main blocks of the centro, however, and things are slightly different. Shots were fired this week between rival gangs at the UABJO, the big, ever turbulent Benito Juarez University in Oaxaca City. You may remember this account of elections for the director of the law school, which involved some 200 police in riot gear. It seems now that the fighting is between the former general director of the Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales and the man who attempted to replace him. It's harder to follow then the election results coming out of Zimbabwe, and fighting broke out on campus this past Tuesday. Police responded with gas and carted people away.
On a different, and fairly disturbing note, two indigenous radio show hosts were reported murdered Wednesday in the Triqui town of San Juan Copala read an English article here). Here's a blurb from the Oaxaca Study Action Group which summarizes the events, though I can't vouch for accuracy:
Two indigenous triqui women who worked at the community radio station La Voz que Rompe el Silencio (The Voice that Breaks the Silence), in the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala (Mixteca region), were shot and murdered while on their way to Oaxaca city to participate in the State Forum for the Defense of the Rights of the Peoples of Oaxaca. Three other people were injured.
. . . According to prelimary reports, the women had left the station, which is part of the Network of Indigenous Community Radio Stations of the Southeast (Red de Radios Comunitarias Indígenas del Sureste), around 1:00 PM. They were travelling in a truck on their way to Oaxaca city, but were ambushed on the outskirts of the community Llano Juarez.
The two community radio activists were supposed to coordinate the working group for Community and Alternative Communication: Community Radio, Video, Press, and Internet, at the State Forum for the Defense of the Rights of the People of Oaxaca, which was to begin today (Wednesday) in the auditorium of Seccion 22 of the teachers union in Oaxaca.
The hills are burning west of Oaxaca. A band of fire has been aggressively advancing along the mountainside since midday. So far it's on the sparsely populated part, as best I can see. Perhaps there are homes in jeopardy on the other side, the side we can't see and never think about. Farther south, and closer to the city, there are definitely homes that could be in danger if the blaze blows the other way. Flames were visible in the daylight, even. I cannot even venture a guess at the distance between our apartment and the hillside, but I would not be surprised to learn that it is 10-20 miles. Then again, maybe it's only five. How can you tell these things from the porch rail?
My friend Santiago says it's not an accident. There are two villages up there in the mountains that have political differences; this is one of the ways these things get settled. Somebody started the fire with a specific purpose, and probably due to the extreme dryness and steady winds today it has spun out of control. Maybe tomorrow, Santiago says, we'll hear about the gang battles between the village politicians. In the meantime we watch fire consume the night, we stand back, we wonder, and we worry for the desert and the homes that dot the hillside.
Things are quiet in Oaxaca, if you don't count the heavily armed police helicopter circling the city, presumably looking for culprits or clues as to the daylight disappearances of two wealthy politico/empresario (politician/businessman) types over the long weekend.
Nancy Davies posts the following:
A helicopter has been circling overhead for three consecutive days with
armed (armed with what? I don't know what weapons but surely either high powered arms or tear-gas launchers) [sic] Abductions took place on both Friday and Saturday, and I assumed that the chopper was trying to locate a car (Is that silly? Yeah.) The kidnapped men were taken by the same m.o., which was that hooded men entered on Friday a restaurant and on Saturday an auto sales place, and simply hauled away their targets, both of whom are men with money (why kidnap a poor person, eh?) but I do not know if they are wealthy by the sweat of their brows or by some other method -the first one was a former PRI legislator and the uncle of former governor Diodoro Carrasco, so that's a clue.
I truly believe that Oaxaca is ungovernable. My own opinion, for what it is worth --and I think that what has happened, is that the APPO and the
teachers opened the lid on what has been underneath simmering along. It is total corruption, free impunity to break all laws, repression and/or authoritariansim over the distant pueblos, buying votes, etcetera. Once the lid was off, although URO has done all he could to break Section 22, break the PRD, break the social movement --in other words, to regain control, I believe it is a hopeless task. Although he can destroy more, and install more repression, the box is open, the cows are out of the barn, whatever metaphors you choose, violence and agitation are rampant. Some of it is instigated by people who see a chance to improve their situations, and some of it is instigated by "bad guys" who are threatened with loss of control (and hence loss of income).
A couple days ago I posted an update from Nancy Davies on the efforts of Section 59 of the teachers' union to recoup backpay promised by the government since 2006 when the teachers of Section 22 went on strike. The irony, as Nancy pointed out, is that the strike-breakers are now every bit as disillusioned with the governor as the original Section 22 strikers were back in '06.
Today Section 59 is at it once more. I've just come from the zocalo, where two dozen or so teachers from Section 59 are encamped on the stone plaza, lying on sleeping bags, blankets, and cardboard boxes amid a raft of signage announcing their hunger strike in the face of a lying and unjust government.
Just so everybody understands: Section 59 teachers were recruited by the state government--promised money, school improvements, and what have you--to report to work and to denounce Section 22, in 2006, when Section 22 protested against the government's tactics of first ignoring teachers' complaints and then committing human rights violations amid the escalating, state sanctioned violence as the government attempted, repeatedly, to break the strike over a period of five and a half months. (See here and here for background.) As the situation in the capital deteriorated, Governor Ruiz needed some friends from the teachers' union on his side; thus Section 59 was given plenty of incentive and public visibility. And now they don't feel they've been dealt with squarely.
Their demands include immediate payment of all promised salaries, an opportunity to buy lands on which to develop schools (I have no idea where this comes from; perhaps it was mentioned at one point as an incentive to get them to work when their brethren were striking), and, if I understand correctly, which is never a guarantee, immediate action by the government to resolve the current condition of a government "held hostage" by the political maneuverings of Section 22. I mentioned all this to Jenna today, and her response was "They're gonna starve!"
It's true, too. There's something preposterous and beautifully ironical to Section 59 teachers camping out in the zocalo to demand their due. This is exactly how the conflict of 2006 began. First the teachers camped out and were ignored. Then the government laid the early morning bum-rush on the encampment, and the teachers fought back. Then* the governor called up Section 59 to help save a little public face and maybe put a good spin on things, which didn't really happen. And now Section 59 is crying foul?
Seriously. You couldn't make this up any better. If the two dozen or so teachers of Section 59 who are in the zocalo tonight are serious, then they better get ready for the long haul. All this reeks of a publicity stunt, but who knows. Maybe they've finally seen how Ruiz treats his people, and they're determined to protest the abuse. I'm not saying that's how it is. Just maybe one explanation.
*A dramatically stream-lined version of events
I'm two days late on this. Ricardo Rodriguez Silva, regional commander of the Oaxaca state police, was gunned down Friday afternoon while having his shoes shined in the popular Llano park.
According to La Jornada, two men stepped out of a truck at the northwest corner of the park and fired on Rodriguez with automatic rifles. The shoeshine was also injured as a result of the attack. A Oaxacan friend told me last night that some 20 bullets were fired, though I cannot confirm this.
Emails from the Oaxaca Study Forum suggest that the killing is drug related. The La Jornada article mentions the discovery, hours before the shooting, of the bodies of three narcotraffickers outside the offices of the Procuradora General of Oaxaca, killed and dumped in some sort of act of reprisal between drug gangs. "Las autoridades presumen que pudo haberse tratado de un ajuste de cuentas entre narcos." I'd be lying if I said I understood the connection between the bodies and the Llano shooting. Perhaps it is merely offered as an aside, falling under the category of drug related violence on Friday afternoon.
The article also mentions--and I again do not understand--the trafficking of Central Americans into Istmo de Tehuantepec, located at the border between Oaxaca and Veracruz. Perhaps somebody can help me with the translation:
Según versiones extraoficiales, el jefe policiaco, quien se desempeñó por varios años como comandante de grupo de la PME en el puerto de Salina Cruz, ofrecía protección a grupos dedicados al tráfico de personas, principalmente centroamericanos, a su paso por el istmo de Tehuantepec.
From Tuesday, March 4:
The highways were blocked today in Oaxaca around the government offices by the teachers of Section 59 (PRIistas) who are pissed because they abandoned Section 22 at the behest of URO [Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz] and with the support of Elba Gordillo, SNTE [the teachers union] national president. They were promised salaries for teaching during the Section 22 strike,* and now URO won't pay them that money.
So not only is 22 on strike, [but] so is the governor's strike-breaking breakaway union.
. . . and out like a lamb. I'm speaking of February, however, not March.
February arrived in Oaxaca in the immediate aftermath of the killing of police chief Alejandro Barrita Ortiz, an assassination that stunned Oaxaca for its bald violence and the unfortunate deaths of two innocent bystanders. One of these was Vicky Galan Rodriguez, a beloved athletic organizer whose work toward healthy lives for youth, families, and the community at large will much be missed.
Since early February, when pickups full of heavily armed police spent a couple days screaming around the city on high alert, things have definitely calmed down. There have been incidents outside the city, as Nancy Davies chronicles here, and it should be noted that all is not calm now between the teachers and the government. The teachers have undertaken a semi-permanent strike, refusing to work Fridays and instead demonstrating in the streets, staging a weekly march from one end of the centro to the other. Except for traffic congestion and increased idle time for public school kids on Fridays, this has seemed to have little effect on the ongoing, unresolved conflict over teachers' salaries, school conditions, the removal of Governor Ruiz from office, and the release of political prisoners. I list these items in this order because, remember, the unrest of 2006 began with the teachers and snowballed into a greater, statewide political and economic upheaval. But as long as the teachers are making a stronger showing in the streets than the APPO, that's the order I'll continue to rank these demands.
February got busy for me on the teaching front. While I have had my head in English language textbooks and student essays, Nancy Davies writes that the struggle between political parties is being carried out largely in the pueblos but with skirmishes here in the city. I haven't seen any of this, but in a recent informal update posted to the Oaxaca Study Action Group (available at Yahoo! Groups), she remarks on violence at the local Abastos market, an area known for being both colorful and rough:
I read the article about Brad Will's family, and I have to say that if their efforts can shed a little light on Oaxaca's particularly corrupt governmental practices then maybe some good can come from the tragedy of Will's death. They'll have to have a mighty torch, however, and some help from either the U.S. State Department or the U.S. mainstream media, to make much progress down here.In my opinion, the situation here is extremely volatile. The daily battles seem to come down to PRI vs PRD, or PRI vs Convergencia, or PRI vs campesino populations. Again, in my opinion, this is because the social movement opened spaces for others: campesinos who won't accept the domination and theft any more, and political parties which scent an opportunity to step in. I'm betting on Convergencia to come out ahead simply becuase there are too many examples of PRD non-aid to the movement and corruption. Convergencia has not yet had a true opportunity to betray anybody, hence is "clean". Events as of today's (print version) *Noticias* include a battle at the Central de Abastos, various student street blockades, a note which makes me very uneasy regarding sale of ejido lands, a note regarding the parents of Brad Will who say they feel "disilusioned" on Mexico's justice system -I feel bad for them, too.
Earthquake? I didn't notice an earthquake . . .
Seriously, though. I was walking rapidly when it hit, so maybe I was bouncing too much to feel it. I did see all the telephone poles swaying, and the steel, shop-front doors started loudly drumming up and down the street. I thought a really big wind was coming up. Weird, I thought. Windy. Even though I didn't feel any big wind. But I didn't realize the earth was trembling beneath my feet.
So is that a sign of too much coffee, or not enough?
To understand current events in Oaxaca, and their implications, I rely heavily on those with more experience here, more understanding for the complexities of the politics, both at the state and federal levels, and a (much) better grasp of the Spanish language. To this end, as you have seen on this blog, I give a lot of attention to the Oaxaca Study Forum and to the Oaxaca Study Action Group. Still, sometimes, the information doesn't all come clear at once.
Today the OSAG provides some clarity on what has turned into a tricky point. Was Alejandro Barrita Ortiz, the police official killed in Oaxaca last Wednesday, an officer of the civil service or not? (Click here for more background.)
Bob Stout posts an answer:
The bank police are trained police, part of the law enforcement system. Individual businesses pay the government, state or municipal, for their services. In Oaxaca they participated in the June bust up of the Section 22 sit in, various actions in October and November, and the November 25th assault.
Richard Grabman wrote:Thanks, Nancy [Davies]. Your first post suggested you were talking about "seguridad privada" -- "rent a cops" -- or, in this case, hired guns. Policia industrial -- or the equalivalent (my familiarity is with DF, not Oaxaca) are civil servants, even if their posts and duties are for the benefit of private concerns.
I'm a reliable one for blogging what I think in the heat of the moment, hitting the publish button, and the next day wondering whether I actually believe what I've most recently written. Things being a little hot in Oaxaca right now (not a lot hot, just a little), you can imagine that I've had plenty to try and wrap my brain around. So it's only natural that I've spent a chunk of time today hashing over what I wrote last night.
Yesterday I suggested that while narcotrafficking is the easy guess for an attack on the scale of what happened Wednesday morning at El Tequio--bad men, machine guns, multiple vehicles squealing away from the scene of the crime--it wasn't the only guess. While everything I read from the few who were writing pointed at narcotrafficking, even though the government wasn't really pushing this story yet, I wanted to take a moment to think about other possibilities.
The two or three that came to mind were the EPR (People's Revolutionary Army), a small but widely known terrorist organization; angry or vengeful victims, wronged by the deceased, Alejandro Barrita Ortiz, or their families, seeking reprisals; or splinter groups spun out from the unresolved conflict of 2006 who wanted to make a strong statement (the strongest) about the current state of unrest in Oaxaca. This last I saw as a possibility because of the coincidental announcement that Flavio Sosa would face new charges in Oaxacan courts, even though the federal government has told the state to let this one go.
Today I talked myself out of all those stories. Of course it has to be narcotrafficking. First of all, people who know more than I do about Oaxaca tell me so. Secondly, the officer killed was at the top of a division of police who would certainly have everything to do with narcotrafficking in Oaxaca, and you don't get to the top of that division by playing the straight and narrow. Most likely the guy got in too deep, got in trouble, and got what you get when you play those games. Lastly, do I really think a small band of guerrillas , who usually blow up oil pipelines, are really taking on the role of assassins? (Could be--I actually don't know much about the EPR). For that matter, do the friends and families of victims of repression in 2006, or small time anarchists, have access to so much firepower? I mean, AK-47s, 9mms, .380s . . . It seems like a lot.
Well, there you go. I was satisfied with my answer. Then I came home from work today and checked my email, and I discovered that both Ronald Waterbury and Nancy Davies, two of the voices I count on to keep me informed, were also questioning the narcotrafficking story. In a correspondence on the Oaxaca Study Forum listserv, Ronald Waterbury agrees with other readers that there may be many ways this thing actually falls out, and that, in the end, we may never know who is responsible. Similarly, Nancy Davies writes that
Upon hearing yesterday that armed men drove into the popular sports park El Tequio and killed a police director and his bodyguards with a barrage of gunfire before driving away again, my first thought was "narcotrafficking." Apparently I'm not the only one who assumed that. Ronald Waterbury at the Oaxaca Study Forum seems to think the same thing. I received a link from him in my inbox today, along with a note that read "La narcoguerra ha llegado a Oaxaca": the drug war has arrived in Oaxaca.
The officer who was killed, Alejandro Barrita Ortiz, was head of the powerful Policía Auxiliar, Bancaria, Industrial y Comercial. This branch of the police force, I was informed by a student, protects banks and businesses where large sums of money frequently change hands. Though many security services are privatized, police guards are posted with assault rifles in bank lobbies and powerful business centers. These are the officers who stand guard at the doors of the bank when the armored truck pulls up and private guards remove or deliver the money.
Given Barrita Ortiz's role as head of the division, and given the slope of the playing field in Mexico, my first assumption was that Barrita Ortiz was probably corrupt, and when you talk about banking, business, and government in Mexico, the conversation eventually comes around to drugs.
In the first report I read yesterday, from El Enimigo Comun, the suggestion was made that the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) had taken responsibility for the killing:
I'm still learning more about this. Early yesterday morning the director of an "obscure police agency" was killed at a popular sports park near the airport. 3 others are dead and 1 injured. Initial reports differed as to who the other victims were.
Articles appeared immediately yesterday in La Jornada, out of Mexico City, and Noticias and El Imparcial here in Oaxaca. El Imparcial reports that Alejandro Barrita Ortiz, director of the Auxiliary Police for Industry & Commercial Banking (Policía Auxiliar Bancaria Industrial y Comercial; please correct my translation if I have that wrong) was killed along with two escorts (bodyguards), and that a local sports promoter, Vicky Galan Rodriguez, was the fourth victim. La Jornada refers to Galan Rodriguez as an "athletic instructor."
More to come.
CORRECTION:I say below that we walked by the law school on Saturday night and saw hundreds of police in riot gear patrolling the University election. That actually took place on Friday night, January 25.
_________
In a follow-up to her informal update last week, which I republished here, Nancy Davies offers the latest on what's happening at the federal level regarding Oaxaca and Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. She summarizes an article by Luis Ocejo Martinez from Sunday's Noticias, stating that we now know Ruiz did indeed meet with Secretary of Government Juan Camilo Mourino, and that the expectations for Ruiz run as follows:
The big number 5 is that Governor Ruiz consider accepting an ambassadorship to some foreign country. This was slipped into the conversation as a measure to re-establish governability, and Ocejo offered no further details about this federal government proposal, except that it seems genuine. Rumors of such offers abounded under Fox, too, along with URO's refusal.
Oaxaca defies categorization. On the surface a sleepy, postcolonial capital, the city exudes a laid back, as you like it, touristy-yet-authentic appeal. Scratch the surface, though, and you won't be sure what you've found.
Bus prices went up over the holidays, from 3.5 pesos to 4.5 pesos, roughly 10 cents in US dollars. What strikes me isn't the actual, one peso price increase, but the percentage increase. Oaxaca's mass transit fares just jumped approximately 30%! No wonder a handful of student gangsters decided to test their mettle last week protesting the rate hike. Not sure they went about it the right way at all, hijacking a couple buses and involving police in a standoff on the campus of the Universidad Autonomo Benito Juarez, but there are others in Oaxaca with similar sentiments.
Also in Oaxaca these days, the holiday cheer has worn off and demonstrations take place on a regular basis. Some of the marches are so poorly executed that it's hard to tell what the cause is. A rag-tag group of sixty or seventy demonstrators, talking and laughing, strolled past parque Llano last week, half of them holding banners and posters at their sides rather than in full view for public consumption. Something about something, no doubt, important to someone.
As long as we're on about demonstrations, albeit of a different stripe, the lawyers are all vying for positions on the UABJO (Universidad Autonomo Benito Juarez) board, and it's pretty ugly to watch. The noise on the Alcala is unbearable (candidates blasting the centro with their slogans) and accounts of bitter fighting have been splashed all over the papers.
Things have been quiet since the new year, on the whole, but that's bound not to last. I just received this most interesting rundown of events regarding Governor Ruiz, the federal government, and Oaxaca's ongoing political woes, as told by Nancy Davies, via the Oaxaca Study Action Group:
Mouriño was pissed off because there was a demonstration in front of the Bucareli government offices in DF. The federal government wants no return of the open conflict in Oaxaca. Mouriño said URO had better demonstrate governability in the state, and (my favorite part) return his office to the Palacio de Gobierno which he abandoned in May of 2006.
Former governor Diódoro Carrasco Altamirano has been stirring up the fire against URO, leaking to the federal functionaries some facts about his government, and claiming that Ruiz has no contact with the former governors of Oaxaca; he lacks interaction with representatives of the APPO, and, if I am translating correctly, had some cheek to run for governor (and may have been elected via fraud).
Needless to say, URO denies the meeting with Mouriño, and the scolding. An article written by Pedro Matías appears in *Noticias* January 24, page 8A with the headline: " 'No me reuní con Mouriño', dice URO". Translated: "I didn't meet with Mouriño", says URO". Anything which URO denies I suspect to be true. Matías interviewed URO and Ulises reported that he had requested assistance from the Secretary of Government in May, 2007, but there's no record of that request being received. In fact, in the entire article, it reads to me like URO is whining; claiming all he did and tried to do to resolve the conflict. For example, he says he did have dialogue, with the
APPO and its civil organizations.
Matías also interviewed the secretary of Section 22, Ezequiel Rosales Carreño, who declared, "If the gentleman (referring to Mouriño) is accustomed to people coming bowing down with petitions in hand, that's not the case with Oaxaca." The popular movement had asked for interviews and gotten no reply, Rosales says. "The actions of the teachers are going to continue until we have replies to our demands and if the gentleman doesn't want mobilizations he has to attend to the demands of the workers." He added that the Secretary of Government attends to party leaders, to businessmen, to deputies, to senators, to structural reforms; but he pays no attention to the people of Mexico.
Mouriño was appointed to the post of Secretary of Government just this month, so most of what transpired regarding the movement in Oaxaca preceded him. Thus he may be taken aback to see the APPO and Section 22 literally banging on his door. The APPO decided to go to Mexico to hand in to the Supreme Court their accusations against URO on January 24, and clearly their presence in Bucareli set off alarms.
One must assume from history that the PAN is not concerned so much for the people of Oaxaca as it is for the peace necessary to induce foreign investment along the Plan Puebla Panama corridor. Foreign investors don't like local protests and road blocks, and even less do they like unions. Calderon may be thinking he has to placate the social movement for now, and perhaps eliminate it at a more convenient moment.
