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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | October 2006 
Oaxaca Gov´t Gets Backing of Committee
 Jonathan Roeder - The Herald Mexico
| | Members of the Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO), carrying tubes containing fireworks, take part in a protest rally in Oaxaca City October 18, 2006. Seven people, mostly protesters, have now been killed in the conflict that began four months ago, when striking teachers and leftist activists occupied much of the colonial city, storming Congress and blocking hundreds of streets in an effort to oust state Governor Ulises Ruiz. (Reuters/Daniel Aguilar) |
A Senate committee voted late Wednesday night not to dissolve the Oaxaca state government, while demonstrators demanding a solution to the five-month-old crisis announced plans to ramp up protests in the capital.
In Oaxaca City, a teacher was shot and killed by unknown assailants after leaving a late-night meeting with other teachers.
Back in Mexico City, the Senate Government Committee debated late into the night before voting to send a resolution to the floor that recommends not dissolving the state government in the troubled southern state.
Notimex reported the resolution was passed on an 11-3 vote.
Earlier, senators from the National Action Party (PAN) met in private to try and decide how to vote on the issue.
With the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) in support of such a measure and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in opposition, the PAN was poised to tip the scale - but its lawmakers were clearly divided and it had been unclear which way the party would swing.
Meanwhile, two dozen teachers and activists from Oaxaca passed into the third day of the hunger strike they started on Monday. They reiterated their vows to continue until Gov. Ulises Ruiz is removed from office.
"We know the Senate has postponed its decision until Thursday," said César Mateos, a representative from the Oaxaca People´s Assembly (APPO), the activist umbrella group that has helped direct protests against Ruiz. "We are waiting for the senators to do the right thing."
Mateos also announced plans for a "mega-march" in Mexico City on Oct. 21, and said the protesters would symbolically close the PAN headquarters.
Following the impromptu news conference at the group´s camp in the central Alameda Park, volunteers from the movement lined up to have blood drawn from their arms. The blood was then sprayed on a banner demanding the resignation of Ruiz.
The teachers and activists say Ruiz won the state´s governorship through fraud, and accuse him of using repressive methods to suppress their movement.
On Tuesday night, APPO leaders in Oaxaca said they were on "high alert" against an expected attempt to dislodge them from the city, and called for sympathizers to take over municipal government buildings across the state to raise pressure on authorities to find a solution.
In the face of this pressure, President Fox´s spokesman Rubén Aguilar on Wednesday guaranteed a solution to the conflict before Fox leaves office at the end of November.
"The president has said it on various occasions, and I reiterate: We are going to resolve the problem," Aguilar said, adding that top security officials were scheduled to discuss the issue.
Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal has directed negotiations with the APPO and the teachers union, which say any deal restoring order to Oaxaca must hinge on Ruiz stepping down. The Fox administration, however, has said that only the Senate has the legal power to dissolve the state government.
Abascal has also demanded the teachers go back to classes, which have been suspended ever since the conflict began. On Wednesday night, a teachers union assembly agreed to carry out a vote on whether to begin teaching again.
The murdered teacher, Pánfilo Hernández, taught pre- schoolers. He was shot three times in the stomach and died later in the hospital. |
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