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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | November 2006 
Oaxaca Governor Avoids Giving Live Address After Protesters Threaten Interruption
 Rebeca Romero - Associated Press
| | A student from the University Benito Juarez in Oaxaca holds a banner during a protest against Oaxaca's Governor Ulises Ruiz in Oaxaca City November 8, 2006. The poster reads 'URO Out and PFP Out of Oaxaca'. URO refers to Ruiz and PFP to the Federal police officers.' (Reuters/Henry Romero) |
Oaxaca, Mexico – The governor of Mexico's conflict-ridden southern Oaxaca state sent a deputy Wednesday to hand-deliver his annual progress report to lawmakers after protesters said they would interrupt the governor's address if he gave it in person.
Instead of personally delivering a customary live speech at the state legislature, Gov. Ulises Ruiz sent state Interior Secretary Heliodoro Diaz to deliver the written report, state government spokeswoman Luz Divina Zarate said.
A taped message from the governor summarizing his past year in office was broadcast later Wednesday on television and radio stations. Protests demanding the resignation of Ruiz, whose term ends in 2010, have roiled the city for five months and protest leader Florentino Lopez had said demonstrators would disrupt Ruiz's address if he tried to deliver it in person.
Protesters accuse Ruiz of rigging the 2004 election to win office and of using violence against his opponents. Last month, President Vicente Fox sent more than 4,000 federal police to quell the unrest. The protests have led to at least nine deaths, mostly of leftists who have been shot dead by gangs of gunmen.
On Tuesday, the state's attorney general released a report saying an American activist-journalist who was killed while filming a gunbattle during recent demonstrations was shot at point-blank range, indicating the fatal shots came from nearby leftist protesters.
Lopez said Tuesday that officials were fabricating evidence to win the release of two local officials held in connection with the Oct. 27 killing of Bradley Roland Will, 36, of New York.
Will, 36, was filming a group of leftist protesters who clashed with a group of armed men in Santa Lucia, a working-class town on the outskirts of Oaxaca city. Both sides fired. It is not clear who shot first.
Will was shot twice in the abdomen and died on the way to hospital.
What Do the Oaxaca Rebels Want?
Babette Stern - Le Nouvel Observateur
"Fuera Ulises" ("Get out Ulysses"). Whether stenciled or spray-painted, the inscriptions on the walls demand the departure of state governor Ulises Ruiz, accused by the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) of corruption, authoritarianism, and, most recently, of assassinations. In this colonial town 500 kilometers to Mexico's south and designated as a cultural inheritance of humanity, the revolt against "Ulises" has brought teachers, indigenous peoples, intellectuals, students, and workers together in the heart of the same movement.
Since the outset of the power struggle between the APPO and the local government, more than ten people have died, not counting the numerous "disappeared." Suspicion points to the governor's henchmen. They are the ones formally identified as the murderers of American cameraman Brad Will, from the independent "Indymedia" outlet.
Abiding by his promise to leave his successor, Felipe Calderon - who will assume his functions December 1st - a "country at peace," Mexican president Vicente Fox sent federal forces, a contingent of over 4,000 men, who recaptured the Zocalo, the main plaza, which had been held up until then by the demonstrators. In spite of the disequilibrium in forces, the demonstrators do not deem themselves vanquished. They are encouraged by support coming from all over the country.
The leader of the Left, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, supports the movement, as do the Zapatistas under Subcomandante Marcos. Caravans from Mexico rally for Oaxaca. The senators and deputies have unanimously voted in favor of Ulises Ruiz's departure. An investigation is to be opened concerning his links to paramilitaries. But he still refuses to resign.
In a town in the throes of chaos, where confrontations occur daily, the Benito-Juarez University campus still resists. And in spite of the sporadic rounds of fire designed to shut it up, Radio Universidad, the voice of the rebellion, continues to broadcast. |
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