Oaxaca Today, Part 2

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.

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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:

1. guarantee governability in the state and attend to the teachers and social movement demands before there's another uprising; 2. free Flavio Sosa as a way to lower the temperature of the APPO; 3. re-establish normality in the government and re-occupy the palacio gobernmental which was turned into museum by URO and used for private fiestas; 4. deal with the problems of University Autonomous Benito Juarez of Oaxaca (which just suffered an election for rector of the Law School. Each candidate hired his own thugs. I happened to be walking outside the law school building Friday night and saw a couple of hundred armed riot police waiting on the sidewalk. The two who spoke with me said they were waiting for the election results and the explosions. The police actually arrested four known porros (hired thugs), but later released them. Apparently all elections at UABJO are conducted in a similar way, the rival groups represent the faculty, the students, and the union of university workers. The fourth group, hidden from view, is the governor. UABJO is considered to be among the worst public universities in the nation because of corruption and lack of resources.) 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.

I have heard this rumor about the governor maybe leaving town, and have no sense of whether it's any more likely to happen now than was rumored in the past. Davies goes on to cite the candidates vying for the post of interim-governor, since Ruiz still has three years left on his term. By the look of it, things don't exactly improve for Oaxacans if Ruiz takes on the ambassadorship to nowhere. The picks to follow him are pretty grim, and Nancy articulates why in her update. I tend to think the list of names could change a couple dozen times, too, between now and whenever an interim candidate is needed, however this may be naive. Like everywhere, the political community in Oaxaca is deeply entrenched, so you see the same handful of faces vying for the same handful of positions for decades, as is the case with one of Ruiz's would-be successors, a loyalist to former governor Carrasco, who, Nancy argues, is the real force pushing for Ulises to be removed.

On a sidenote: We unwittingly walked by the Law School on Saturday night as well, and had a similar experience of arriving between columns of troops in riot gear with machine guns bordering the entire facade of the building, working at various outposts all around the block, and standing ready at staging areas across the contiguous streets. Also present were the requisite support squads for each candidate, made up largely of youth. A Oaxacan law student friend of mine told me that candidates pay youth, who may not even be students at the law school, to rally on the candidate's behalf, and also promise to deliver the youth their law degrees, regardless whether they are students in the university or not. Incidentally, my friend is not a student at UABJO, but at URSE, a different (and more highly regarded) law school in Oaxaca.

Compromiso Cumplido

At the moment, Oaxaca is in the midst of another in what may prove to be a long series of convulsions. There will be periods of relative calm, interspersed with violence, as the armed elements of state repression battle desperately to hang on to the status quo in the face of massive civic unrest.

--Stan, Oaxaca resident

This quote, taken from a July 20 post on Mexico Premiere, pretty well articulates the state of things in Oaxaca right now. The atmosphere is not scary but is definitely tense. The Guelaguetza, the increased police presence in the city, ongoing government repression, the continuing lag in tourism compared to previous years, the upcoming statewide elections--these are the issues people are talking about everywhere we go. I don't sense panic or fear in the city, but uncertainty and a distinct lack of optimism.

Last night Jenna and I attended a showing of the documentary Compromiso Cumplido, (True to My Pledge), which unflinchingly chronicles the events leading up to last year's ultimate clash between federal forces and civil protesters. You can watch the movie online here, but only en espanol. Unfortunately I can't find a version with English subtitles online. Be forewarned that there are real-life scenes of explicit violence and death.

The film tells the story of escalating violence in the city by recounting the murders--or assassinations--of six victims of last year's violence. Survivors of the dead and many witnesses are interviewed in front of the camera. Victims of harrasment, intimidation and undue arrest tell their stories as well. At least one person interviewed, Flavio Sosa, has been imprisoned since appearing in the documentary.

The film presents a Oaxaca turned upside down. The zocalo (Oaxaca's central square) is no longer a leisurely park flanked by cafes and shops but is transformed into a massive encampment of tarps and temporary shelters for tens of thousands* of teachers with their children and families. Popular tourist avenues are devoid of visitors. Businesses are shuttered.

The streets are populated instead by groups of protesters rallying for change. Fires burn in the streets and messages of resistance appear in spraypaint on every available surface. Helicopters fly overhead, firing tear gas grenades straight down into crowds while columns of police in riot gear stand in ranks behind plexiglass shields, awaiting either instruction or provocation. Civilian patrols track the movements of police and paramilitary groups. Citywide, roads are barricaded against invasion and neighborhoods monitored by teams of civic minded residents attempting to reduce episodes of intimidation, violence and murder presented by the state police and by armed paramilitary groups sponsored by the prevailing political party, the PRI.

The movie is a sobering slap in the face for wide-eyed travelers (like me) who might be tempted to take in the mid-conflict tenor of revolutionary politics with a sort of incredulous awe. For an American, to whom the notion of interactive democracy often invokes yawn-inducing scenes from C-Span, city council meetings in badly lit municipal buildings, or bland, street corner efforts to gather signatures for petitions, the idea of actually doing something is pretty grand. Like, just for instance, effectively and peacefully crippling the economy of a city of more than 250,000 inhabitants. Compromiso Cumplido, however, quickly strips away the varnish left by 80-word news blurbs and glossy photos of inspiring political graffiti and forces a serious reconsideration of the current situation.

Obviously, something has got to change. After watching this movie I am yet more inclined to side against the government. It wasn't really a question for me, but now it's even harder to give anyone with a uniform or a government ID the benefit of the doubt. The questions that remain are what will change?, and how?, and how bad will the situation get for the people of Oaxaca before it gets better? Compromiso Cumplido offers a chilling look at where the city was as recently as 7 or 8 months ago, and makes unavoidably clear the fact that nothing is resolved.

*This originally read "thousands of teachers . . .", but that number is far too small. At the height of the demonstrations upwards of 70,000 teachers and their families were encamped at the zocalo and spilled out into the surrounding avenues.

Revenge of the Guelaguetza

Hermann Bellinghausen hammers the governor and the Guelaguetza in a post-colonial look at one aspect of the current power dynamic in Oaxaca. He also provides some history I didn't know and a few acerbic observations to boot. One of my favorites:

The fact is that the Guelaguetza has turned out to be the major banquet of the political and business power in Oaxaca, hiding behind the typical hypocrisy of creole racism: using the Indian to spotlight the master.

[snip]

And now, to enter the festival, one passes through Ticket Master and/or American Express.

It's not long, and it's worth a read to understand some of the complicated history behind these complicated problems.