Struggle grows to oust governor

Oct. 31—What is most striking in the unfolding confrontation in the Mexican state of Oaxaca is the tremendous courage being shown by the Oaxacan people in the face of brutal repression ordered by the Mexican government.

Oaxaca, Mexico, Oct. 29.

For over five months now, 70,000 Oaxacan teachers have been on strike and the people of the state, in solidarity with the teachers, have been demanding the resignation of corrupt Oaxacan Gov. Ulises Ruiz.

Last May, in the face of government rejection of their demands and threats by the governor to use violence against them, the teachers found it necessary to escalate their tactics with road blockades, the occupation of the central plaza in the city of Oaxaca, and demonstrations, including huge marches of 80,000 and later 120,000, mobilizations which included workers, students and Indigenous people.

The government’s response to the strong support for the teachers by the people of Oaxaca was to use tear gas, arrests and killings to try to force them back to work. In the middle of June, with growing recognition that the government was not really interested in negotiations, the teachers and supporting mass organizations formed the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO). This representative body has since functioned more and more as an alternative to the corrupt, repressive state and local governments. It has constantly grown in authority as the people’s answer to Ruiz’s refusal to resign and to the federal government’s refusal to disempower his discredited government.

In August the people’s movement took control of several radio and television stations and 20 official government vehicles. They also occupied the state government palace. At the same time, paramilitary goons, now proven by video footage to be affiliated with Ruiz and his rich cronies, increased their attacks against the people’s movement. Repressive forces sent in by the federal government began their ominous infiltrating and reconnoitering, including periodic overflights of the city of Oaxaca by military planes and helicopters.

Before the government assault began on Oct. 28, paramilitary forces directed by local leaders of Ruiz’s party, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), had killed at least 15 people. New reports say at least three more people were killed.

Mexican federal police and soldiers, along with their armored vehicles and other equipment, began massing outside the city of Oaxaca several weeks ago. Then, on Oct. 27, Ruiz’s paramilitaries killed three people: a Oaxacan teacher named Emilio Alonso Fabián, a protester named Esteban Zurita López, and an Independent Media Center reporter from the U.S. named William Bradley Roland (Brad Will). The government used this murderous assault as an excuse to begin its attack on Oaxaca.

On Oct. 28, Mexican president Vicente Fox ordered thousands of federal police, military police and soldiers, including some disguised as police, into the capital city. Using water cannons, tear gas and clubs against the city’s occupants and bulldozers to push aside the many barricades that barred passage to the city’s center, the repressive forces eventually managed to seize the central plaza. They have not, however, been able to stop the protests demanding they leave Oaxaca and take Ruiz with them.

On Monday morning, Oct. 30, Flavio Sosa, a leader of APPO, accused the government’s forces of breaking into many buildings during their attack, torturing captured members of APPO, killing at least three people and arresting at least 60 others. He added: “This city is standing up. The Oaxacan people are resisting. Thousands of supporters are approaching the city, and today there are strong mobilizations to demand that the federal police leave Oaxaca.” (La Jornada online)

The same day, La Jornada columnist Gustavo Esteva told Pacifica radio’s Amy Goodman: “Yes, the police is occupying these critical strategic points, but the people are surrounding them. They are not in control of the city; the people are still in control of the city.”

Goodman also reported the words of an unidentified protester: “We’re just people, the people fighting for our rights. We don’t want to live like this anymore. We don’t want to live in a constant state of repression, of blackmail, of murder and shabby deals.” (Democracy Now, Oct. 30)

Indeed, as this is written, protests in many cities of the Mexican Republic and in many other countries are being reported. In the U.S., supporters of the Oaxacan teachers have already gathered at Mexican consulates in several cities to voice their condemnation of the attack on Oaxaca and their outrage at the murder of Brad Will. Leaders of teachers’ unions in at least six Mexican states and the Federal District that encompasses Mexico City, in total representing 400,000 teachers, have announced a strike to protest the government attack. (La Jornada, Oct. 30)