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 Editorials | At Issue | September 2006 
Calderon Sees Oaxaca as Mexico's Main Problem
 Reuters
| | Mexican President-elect Felipe Calderon. |
Mexican President-elect Felipe Calderon views violent disturbances in the tourist city of Oaxaca, where protesters are trying to oust the governor, as the country's biggest challenge, a top aide said this week.
Juan Camilo Mourino, the head of Calderon's transition team, said protests by leftists claiming fraud at the July election were less worrying because they were not violent, unlike the Oaxaca standoff.
"We see Oaxaca as the main problem facing the nation, without a doubt," Mourino told foreign journalists.
Five people have died in recent months as protesters try to force the resignation of Gov. Ulises Ruiz in Oaxaca, a pretty southern colonial city famous for its mezcal alcoholic drink and popular with tourists.
The trouble started with a teachers' strike but Indian groups and left-wing radicals have joined the protests.
Demonstrators, many from poor areas outside the city, have barricaded roads and burned buses, emptying the city of tourists.
In Mexico City, supporters of losing presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador paralyzed downtown for almost seven weeks with a sit-in to draw attention to their claims of vote rigging at the election.
The sit-in, which ended last week, was peaceful. Other protests in favor of Lopez Obrador have also been free of violence. "The Oaxaca issue is different. There has been violence, there have been deaths and a clear challenge to authority," Mourino said.
He did not say how Calderon, who has promised a firm hand against crime, would solve the Oaxaca problem if it is still simmering when he takes office on December 1.
President Vicente Fox's government is trying to mediate between striking teachers and the Oaxaca state government, run by the Institutional Revolutionary Party which governed Mexico for 71 years until Fox's election victory in 2000.
Critics say Ruiz has been heavy handed in his handling of the strike, sending riot police in to try to dislodge striking teachers from the city's main square. Protesters said off-duty police shot and killed one man. |
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