POLITICAL CONFLICT IN OAXACA 2006
Dr. Ronald Waterbury
Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
City University of New York
Dr. Ronald Waterbury
Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
City University of New York
2006 was Oaxaca's annus horribilis. From the third week of May onward, the city center was occupied -- first by thousands of striking teachers and their families encamped in the zócalo, then by hundreds of other organizations that rallied to the teachers' support after the government attempted to forcibly oust them, and finally by thousands of federal anti-riot police and their metal barricades and water canons sent in to restore "order." All of this generated negative press as well as official travel warnings from several countries, including the US and Canada, resulting in a precipitous drop in tourism and devastation to the Oaxacan economy.
However, looking through a longer historical lens reveals that only the magnitude of the 2006 events was exceptional. In fact, manifestations of discontent go back a long way. The causes of that discontent -- the poverty, inequality, and injustice suffered by much of the population -- have also been present for a long time, and conditions appear to have worsened in recent years. Today Oaxaca ranks at the bottom or near bottom of virtually every socioeconomic indicator, including income, housing, health, educational attainment, and literacy. Where Oaxaca does rank near the top in Mexico is in the gap between rich and poor and the rate of emigration.
For the last 70 years of this dismal history, Oaxaca has been under the authoritarian domination of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which, to many Oaxacan political analysts, has contributed more to the problem than to its solution.
Throughout this period the populace has been far from acquiescent, and mass protests forced state governors out of office in 1947, 1952, and 1977. Although no governor has fallen since 1977, protest actions have become more frequent and more intense. There are several reasons for this increase. One is that over the last 30 years there has been an explosion of civil society. Literally hundreds of organizations now exist that espouse a range of political ideologies and advocate a myriad of causes: human rights, women's rights, indigenous rights, labor conditions, community development, regional autonomy, and so forth. Another reason is simply Oaxaca's inexorable relative economic and political stagnation. In many other regions of Mexico economic conditions have improved, at least marginally, but not in Oaxaca, except for a privileged few. Similarly there has been at least an opening towards greater democracy at the federal level and in other regions of Mexico, but not in Oaxaca where the PRI clings tenaciously to power in what some pundits have termed a "Jurassic Park of political dinosaurs."
It was to this powder keg that the governor put a match on June 14, 2006. Before dawn he sent in state security forces to forcibly dislodge the protest encampment that striking schoolteachers and their families (including children) had been maintaining in the zócalo since mid May. In what has become a rite of spring, every May for the last twenty-plus years the Oaxaca section (Section 22) of the National Educational Workers Union (SNTE) has gone on strike demanding better wages and working conditions for themselves and better schools and services for their students. Every year to attain these goals the teachers organize marches, picket government buildings, and set up a protest encampment in the zócalo. And every year the government negotiates with the union's leaders, deals are made (allegedly often involving under-the-table transactions), and after a period of time (one to several weeks) the teachers return to work until next May when the cycle starts all over again. (The contract is only for one year.)
This time, however, Governor Ulises Ruiz broke with the tacit rules of the game and rather than negotiate seriously he decided to crack heads, a decision that turned out to be a colossal blunder. On June14 not only did the teachers counterattack and rout the poorly trained and outnumbered police, the Governor's action outraged a vast sector of the populace and served as a catalyst for uniting the numerous and previously factious civil society organizations into the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO).
A few days later APPO sponsored a "megamarch" that drew hundreds of thousands of people in what was the largest public display of opposition in the state's history. That was followed by several months of escalating protest actions involving marches, camp-ins, take-over of public buildings, and the commandeering of radio and TV stations. The PRI-government, perhaps wary of another debacle, responded not with open police repression but by employing agent provocateurs and fielding armed gangs (often police in civilian clothes) who, among other actions, roved the streets at night in pickup trucks harassing protestors' encampments. Neighborhood organizations affiliated with APPO countered these "mobile death squads," as the protestors called them, by barricading strategic street intersections throughout the city. One result of these nocturnal skirmishes was a virtual nighttime curfew on the general population of the city. Many business and restaurants closed early to allow their employees and customers to get home before the barricades went up (usually around 9 PM).
Throughout all of this, both sides beseeched the federal government to intervene.
In support of the embattled governor, the PRI-controlled Oaxaca State Legislature formally requested the federal government to use force to restore law and order.
In opposition, APPO and the teachers' union, in negotiating sessions with the federal Secretariat of Governance, urged the Fox administration to remove the governor. However, President Fox, a member of the right-of-center National Action Party (PAN), refused, claiming that although previous presidents had installed and removed governors, doing so is not within the legal prerogatives of the presidency. Attention then turned to the Federal Senate where there does exist a legal route for removal of a governor: the Senate can oust a governor if his government is unable to function -- technically if "power has disappeared" in the state. And indeed, a multi-party investigative commission of the Senate did declare the state of Oaxaca ungovernable. However, the full senate, in a self-interested alliance between the PAN and PRI blocks, voted not to remove Ruiz.
So it was in the strategic interest of both sides to escalate the level of turmoil: the APPO to prove ingobernabilidad, and the PRI state government to prove a total breakdown of law and order that could spread to other states. The resulting violence reached a high point on October 27 when, in simultaneous assaults on several APPO barricades, PRI operatives wounded 23 persons and killed three. Among the dead was American independent journalist Bradley Will. Although the international press had been gradually increasing its coverage of the social unrest in Oaxaca, it was still sporadic and rarely made the front page. But the death of Brad Will, including powerful photographs, was transmitted around the world by all the major news agencies.
The dramatic events of October 27 finally forced the federal government's hand, and two days later thousands of well-equipped and trained Federal Preventive Police (PFP) pushed their way through heavy street resistance and took control of the city. In the ensuing weeks, several skirmishes between the PFP and protestors followed, culminating on November 25-26 in a fierce street battle in which several buildings were gutted by fire (at least some allegedly by PRI agitators) and hundreds of APPO leaders and sympathizers were arrested and removed to distant jails around the country.
The very next day the local government deployed brigades of people to scrub down the streets and repaint buildings, and Governor Ruiz, who over the months of upheaval had refused pleas from many quarters for his resignation, declared that Oaxaca had been restored to normalcy and that his government would sponsor the reforms for which the populace was clamoring - a pledge most people consider disingenuous at best.
However, looking through a longer historical lens reveals that only the magnitude of the 2006 events was exceptional. In fact, manifestations of discontent go back a long way. The causes of that discontent -- the poverty, inequality, and injustice suffered by much of the population -- have also been present for a long time, and conditions appear to have worsened in recent years. Today Oaxaca ranks at the bottom or near bottom of virtually every socioeconomic indicator, including income, housing, health, educational attainment, and literacy. Where Oaxaca does rank near the top in Mexico is in the gap between rich and poor and the rate of emigration.
For the last 70 years of this dismal history, Oaxaca has been under the authoritarian domination of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which, to many Oaxacan political analysts, has contributed more to the problem than to its solution.
Throughout this period the populace has been far from acquiescent, and mass protests forced state governors out of office in 1947, 1952, and 1977. Although no governor has fallen since 1977, protest actions have become more frequent and more intense. There are several reasons for this increase. One is that over the last 30 years there has been an explosion of civil society. Literally hundreds of organizations now exist that espouse a range of political ideologies and advocate a myriad of causes: human rights, women's rights, indigenous rights, labor conditions, community development, regional autonomy, and so forth. Another reason is simply Oaxaca's inexorable relative economic and political stagnation. In many other regions of Mexico economic conditions have improved, at least marginally, but not in Oaxaca, except for a privileged few. Similarly there has been at least an opening towards greater democracy at the federal level and in other regions of Mexico, but not in Oaxaca where the PRI clings tenaciously to power in what some pundits have termed a "Jurassic Park of political dinosaurs."
It was to this powder keg that the governor put a match on June 14, 2006. Before dawn he sent in state security forces to forcibly dislodge the protest encampment that striking schoolteachers and their families (including children) had been maintaining in the zócalo since mid May. In what has become a rite of spring, every May for the last twenty-plus years the Oaxaca section (Section 22) of the National Educational Workers Union (SNTE) has gone on strike demanding better wages and working conditions for themselves and better schools and services for their students. Every year to attain these goals the teachers organize marches, picket government buildings, and set up a protest encampment in the zócalo. And every year the government negotiates with the union's leaders, deals are made (allegedly often involving under-the-table transactions), and after a period of time (one to several weeks) the teachers return to work until next May when the cycle starts all over again. (The contract is only for one year.)
This time, however, Governor Ulises Ruiz broke with the tacit rules of the game and rather than negotiate seriously he decided to crack heads, a decision that turned out to be a colossal blunder. On June14 not only did the teachers counterattack and rout the poorly trained and outnumbered police, the Governor's action outraged a vast sector of the populace and served as a catalyst for uniting the numerous and previously factious civil society organizations into the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO).
A few days later APPO sponsored a "megamarch" that drew hundreds of thousands of people in what was the largest public display of opposition in the state's history. That was followed by several months of escalating protest actions involving marches, camp-ins, take-over of public buildings, and the commandeering of radio and TV stations. The PRI-government, perhaps wary of another debacle, responded not with open police repression but by employing agent provocateurs and fielding armed gangs (often police in civilian clothes) who, among other actions, roved the streets at night in pickup trucks harassing protestors' encampments. Neighborhood organizations affiliated with APPO countered these "mobile death squads," as the protestors called them, by barricading strategic street intersections throughout the city. One result of these nocturnal skirmishes was a virtual nighttime curfew on the general population of the city. Many business and restaurants closed early to allow their employees and customers to get home before the barricades went up (usually around 9 PM).
Throughout all of this, both sides beseeched the federal government to intervene.
In support of the embattled governor, the PRI-controlled Oaxaca State Legislature formally requested the federal government to use force to restore law and order.
In opposition, APPO and the teachers' union, in negotiating sessions with the federal Secretariat of Governance, urged the Fox administration to remove the governor. However, President Fox, a member of the right-of-center National Action Party (PAN), refused, claiming that although previous presidents had installed and removed governors, doing so is not within the legal prerogatives of the presidency. Attention then turned to the Federal Senate where there does exist a legal route for removal of a governor: the Senate can oust a governor if his government is unable to function -- technically if "power has disappeared" in the state. And indeed, a multi-party investigative commission of the Senate did declare the state of Oaxaca ungovernable. However, the full senate, in a self-interested alliance between the PAN and PRI blocks, voted not to remove Ruiz.
So it was in the strategic interest of both sides to escalate the level of turmoil: the APPO to prove ingobernabilidad, and the PRI state government to prove a total breakdown of law and order that could spread to other states. The resulting violence reached a high point on October 27 when, in simultaneous assaults on several APPO barricades, PRI operatives wounded 23 persons and killed three. Among the dead was American independent journalist Bradley Will. Although the international press had been gradually increasing its coverage of the social unrest in Oaxaca, it was still sporadic and rarely made the front page. But the death of Brad Will, including powerful photographs, was transmitted around the world by all the major news agencies.
The dramatic events of October 27 finally forced the federal government's hand, and two days later thousands of well-equipped and trained Federal Preventive Police (PFP) pushed their way through heavy street resistance and took control of the city. In the ensuing weeks, several skirmishes between the PFP and protestors followed, culminating on November 25-26 in a fierce street battle in which several buildings were gutted by fire (at least some allegedly by PRI agitators) and hundreds of APPO leaders and sympathizers were arrested and removed to distant jails around the country.
The very next day the local government deployed brigades of people to scrub down the streets and repaint buildings, and Governor Ruiz, who over the months of upheaval had refused pleas from many quarters for his resignation, declared that Oaxaca had been restored to normalcy and that his government would sponsor the reforms for which the populace was clamoring - a pledge most people consider disingenuous at best.