Mexico & Nafta - November 2006 ( ISSN 1741-444X)

On 29 October the federal government sent in about 5,000 federal police to retake control of the centre of Oaxaca. The centre of the city had been controlled by radical protesters since mid-June. The protesters, the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO), did not oppose the Policia Federal Preventiva (PFP) smashing through barricades in city streets and evicting them from the centre of the city.

Politically, the comparatively peaceful end to the confrontation in Oaxaca strengthens Elba Esther Gordillo. She is the leader of the teachers' union, the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE), which started as a strike by 60,000 teachers employed by the state government for higher pay. This strike then broadened into a near insurrection aimed at forcing the resignation of the state governor, Ulises Ruiz, from the Partido Revolucionario Institucional. 

When Gordillo ordered the teachers back to work in mid-October, the whole protest movement began to disintegrate. So her action was decisive in ending the confrontation. Following it, fissures opened up between moderates and radicals in the teachers union which led to splits inside the APPO. Very soon, the radicals' attempts to force the moderates to remain loyal to the overall protests became counterproductive.

The virtually bloodless end to the uprising in Oaxaca is a belated success for President Vicente Fox. Fox ordered the operation to retake control of the city centre on 28 October. The peaceful denouement is also a triumph for the interior minister Carlos Abascal, who resisted pressure to use force to end the strike earlier. Fox's and Abascal's relief will not be unalloyed. Their decision to send in the PFP followed an outbreak of violence on 27 October in which three people, all supporters of the APPO, including one US citizen, Bradley Roland Will, were killed. A fourth person died when an ambulance was unable to get her to hospital before she died.

The 29 October operation, which began at 3pm local time, was a massive display of federal force. The government has yet to say how many men were involved: Ruiz said that at least 4,500 members of the Policia Federal Preventiva were deployed. Police officers wearing riot gear and carrying shields were led by armoured bulldozers and backed by water cannons, police helicopters and soldiers, as they marched from all directions toward Oaxaca's main square, the Zócalo, which was the APPO's base. 

The APPO took the view, after a series of meetings on 28 October that were called to consider President Vicente Fox's decision to sent in the PFP to restore order, that it could not withstand such forces. Dissidents however did throw stones at the police and set fire to vehicles to create a smoke to disorientate the police. 

The APPO also withdrew from the radio station and government offices it had taken over. The APPO disputed the government's claim that the assault was entirely bloodless. The APPO claimed that the federal police shot dead one of the APPO's 15 year-old supporters on the outskirts of Oaxaca as the operation began. There was no independent confirmation of the police having shot him, as the APPO claimed. Several eyewitnesses said that the dead boy, Jorge Alberto López Bernal, was acting as an auxiliary nurse when he was hit by a firecracker: almost certainly this missile was thrown by an APPO supporter. The government's decision to send in the PFP to retake control of Oaxaca does not mean, necessarily, that Ruiz will remain in office nor that the confrontation is over. The radicals in Oaxaca felt that they were close to victory, even though their protests had been showing signs of disintegration for the past week.

Ruiz, however, claimed in a radio interview on 29 October that he had no intention of resigning and that President Fox had never asked him to go. This looks like sophistry: Ruiz's discussions over his future had been with Abascal. The signs that the protests were failing were clear from 18 October when Gordillo changed her stance. On 22 October the teachers said that they would hold a second ballot on whether to go back to work. Enrique Rueda, the leader of the radical Sección 22 of the teachers union, came in for heavy criticism after he chose to follow the Gordillo's lead. She had ordered the teachers back to work.

On 25 October, radicals in the Sección 22 of the teachers union (SNTE) forced the meeting, called to confirm the result of the second vote on whether the teachers should go back to work, to end inconclusively. The radicals claimed that shots were fired at the meeting. A more likely reason for the curtailing of the meeting was the fact that a majority of teachers had voted to end the strike. Unofficially, the vote was 28,000 for a return to work and 23,000 for a continuation of the strike. 

Some of the teachers, who started the whole saga off in May, had already gone back to work. The federal government expected the majority to start teaching again from Monday 30 October. The divisions in the teachers' union were the most obvious sign that the protests were losing momentum. In the first ballot of teachers, on 22 October, a majority of teachers (25,692 to 17,483) voted to start teaching again from 23 October. The hardliners, however, pointed out that 12,179 teachers had refused to make the choice (go back or stay out) offered by the ballot. These hardliners said that they would not return to work while Ulises Ruiz remained governor. 

What was clear from the vote by the teachers is that the divisions in the teachers union are geographic. Teachers in indigenous areas, especially around the Isthmus of Tehuantepec voted heavily to go back after big demonstrations in favour of Ruiz last week. Teachers in and around Oaxaca City voted to stay out. The polarisation of the state increases the risk of renewed violence. 

Federal government moves: The Procuradurí­a General de la República said on 24 October that it had issued warrants for the arrest of 56 people in Oaxaca. The federal authorities have decided that the divisions between the proto-revolutionaries in Oaxaca are broad enough to allow them to try to re-establish control of the state. It is not clear whose names are on the warrants, but the general supposition is that the federal authorities are going after the leaders of the APPO, which organised the virtual insurrection. 

What the senate said: The senate home affairs committee decided on 18 October that there was no evidence of a power vacuum in Oaxaca. This vote was confirmed by the full senate on 20 October. The vote means that the government cannot impose an interim governor on the state. The senate decision is a victory for the old-guard of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, now the third-biggest party in congress, which had lined up behind the governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz, a fellow prií­sta. 

Defence ministry: In an almost unprecedented public comment, the defence minister, General Clemente Vega, denied on 5 October that he had told President Fox that the army would not go into Oaxaca. Mexico's military keep a very low profile, so General Vega's comments carried heavy implications. They came in response to a well-informed political column in Impacto that claimed that while the marines and even the navy were deploying against the unrest in Oaxaca, the army had not sent a single extra soldier to the state.

What gave the column added weight was the clarification that the two helicopters that had so alarmed the APPO actually came from the navy. On 3 October, the interior minister, Carlos Abascal, ruled out the use of force to regain control of the centre of Oaxaca City. General Vega said that the Impacto claims were completely false "lacking in veracity and easily proven to be so." General Vega said that there were 5,414 soldiers deployed in Oaxaca and that their numbers had been increased by 1,837 on 27 March. The solders were supported by four Bell helicopters and German Schweizer aircraft.