The situation in Mexico is heating up as protests continue in Mexico, D.F. and Oaxaca over the unresolved status of the recent presidential elections in Mexico. Supporters of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the second place candidate by 244,000 votes out of 41 million cast in the presidential election, have taken up residence in the Zocalo and along Avendia de la Reforma in Mexico City. They managed to disrupt traffic in the city of 20 million, and some have also attempted to blockade the Mexican stock exchange.
Meanwhile, a group of about 500 teachers, armed with pots, pans and spoons, occupied a state television station in Oaxaca for 6 hours yesterday. The situation is a little more multifaceted there than it is in Mexico City, as it also involves a disputed gubernatorial election from 2004 and the state police tear gassing an earlier demonstration by striking teachers on June 14; all this plus the disputed presidential election. Oaxaca has had its own state-level protests for years and the presidential election is just one more ingredient to throw into the caldo there.
Lopez Obrador called for the Mexico City protests in a speech to his supporters on Sunday. His aim is to press for a total recount of the votes. A request that's very reasonable at minimum; especially given the narrow margin of victory of Felipe Calderon, the candidate of PAN--Vicente Fox's party, and the history of election fraud in Mexico.
These actions have prompted rumblings of worry among some of Lopez Obrador's supporters, including prominent Mexicans with pretty loud and authoritative voices such as author Carlos Monsivais and economist Rolando Cordera. They see the protests as negatively affecting the very people Lopez Obrador is fighting for and distracting from the real problem, which they identify as the voting fraud which took place largely outside of the capital. At least one outside observer has worried that Lopez Obrador's recent actions will lead to an undermining and preempting of the same institutions of Mexican democracy that he is relying upon for a declatation of legitimate victory.
On the other hand we find Octavio Rodriguez Aruajo of La Jornada, who suggests that a protest without causing inconvenience isn't really a very useful protest, and that the protests themselves are actually a sign of a healthy democracy--or at least a non-totalitarian country. Gustavo Iruegas, another columnist for La Jornada, sees it as a long overdue contest between the Mexican oligarchy, who are few, and the poor people of Mexico, who are many.
All of these opinions and events lead me to no conclusions now. It's just my effort to try and keep up with what's going on in Mexico. I carried it out in public because I expect that if you're like me, you've put these things on the back burner because of the growing conflict in Lebanon and the melting down of Iraq. Owing to the open nature of this quest, I'm afraid I've riddled this post with far too many links--but I do so to aid you, dear commie-pinko readers, in catching up too.
Really this has all been an elaborate gambit on my part to try and encourage Barba, who actually knows something about this, to enlighten us. I plead extenuating circumstances in my ignorance of the topic because I live depressingly close to Canada. It has nothing to do with plain old shiftlessness. Specifically, I seem to remember Barba saying something about using tourist dollars in Oaxaca as a way to "encourage" the state and/or town to behave better towards its citizens. The theme of a loss of touro-dollars in Mexico is now very much a part of the story here in the U.S. press.
4 comments:
That's an excellent summary of what's presently going on in Mexico, better than I could have done. The situation in Mexico City is trickier--you know this when even La Jornada has a range of opinion on the issue--than Oaxaca. There, however, the calmness of the protests has as much to do with AMLO's call for "civil disobedience" (which prompted one of the stupidest headlines I've seen in awhile, in the San Antonio Express News: "Mexico Throng Civil in its Civil Disobedience" . . . the article is actually slightly stupider) as it does his links throughout that city's civic infrastructure. It strikes me that, were the cops not so sanguine--even amused--about all this, things might look a lot more like they do in Oaxaca. In Mexico City, trucks are regularly emptying porta-johns.
In Oaxaca, at least for a while, the streets around the zocalo reeked of the human waste the state government kept insisting was the clearest indication of the kind of people camped out there. The protests in Oaxaca have had a few unpleasant waves (some temporary takeovers and blockages, some teargas, some beating), but--speaking of tourism--I can't imagine the state is looking at tremendous loss of income from this year's major festival, which was successfully disrupted by the teachers.
Where is all this going, though? I have a hard time guessing . . . AMLO clearly doesn't want any violence, but he sends what sound to some like mixed messages. "All I want is a total recount." Then: "I am the president of Mexico." "The protests should be civil." Then: "Mexicans will not tolerate a spurious president (nod, nudge, wink)."
Clearly, it'll be a good thing for Mexico all around if the recount thing is resolved calmly, either way. As for Oaxaca, it appears to be a classic standoff. I don't know enough, I'll admit, about governor Ulises Ruiz, but I'm familiar with his kind of stubborn righteousness, and I can't imagine any happy endings soon.
Ultimately--this is perhaps too far-fetched--we might be able to thank the EZLN for the organization and the spirit of civility in both protests. The EZLN, despite its masks and guns, has seen some success in what I can only think to call its very patient revolutionary struggle, one that appears not to seek immediate upheaval--and the attendant issues of international legitimacy that come with it--so much as a constant, low-level argumentative buzz . . .
Oops. End of the second paragraph: I meant to say: "I can't imagine the state isn't looking at a tremendous loss . . ."
what they used to call the station manager at 1310 AM: kdmtguv
Protests in Honduras too, but over a mining deal that gives mining companies access to one-third of the country for a 1% tax in return. Nice. So a bunch of NGOs, religious, labor, and enviro groups blocvked the main highway last week for about 20 hours. Talk about effective protest!
Thanks for the run-down. It is hard to keep up. wish I could be there .
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