by dugoboy » Sat Oct 28, 2006 2:21 am
link: <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061027.woaxaca1027/BNStory/International/" target="top"><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Shootout in besieged Mexican city kills NYC journalist</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--></a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>Shootout in besieged Mexican city kills NYC journalist<br>REBECA ROMERO <br><br>Associated Press<br><br>Oaxaca, Mexico — Two shootouts left an American journalist from New York dead and several other people injured Friday in this city where protesters have barricaded streets and occupied government buildings for five months in a bid to oust the governor.<br><br>The gunfire erupted in a rough Oaxaca neighbourhood when armed men tried to remove a blockade set up by protesters who are demanding the resignation of Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz, said a police official who was not authorized to speak on the record. Both sides fired but it was not clear who shot first, he said.<br><br>An Associated Press video taken at the scene shows people ducking for cover as shots rattle out from many directions. A group of six men are seen running through the street with Bradley.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The American victim was identified by friends as Bradley Roland Will, 36, of New York City. He was shot in the abdomen and died later at a Red Cross hospital, police and witnesses said. Hinrich Schuleze, a co-worker of Mr. Will's, said he worked for Indymedia.org, an independent Web-based media organization.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Oswaldo Ramirez, a photographer for the Mexico City daily newspaper Milenio was shot in the foot and taken to hospital, Milenio said on its Web site.<br><br>The second shoot-out erupted between protesters and an armed group outside the state prosecutors office and left three people injured, the police official said.<br><br>Protesters have taken over the historic city since June, building barricades, driving out police and burning buses. The protesters accuse the governor of rigging the 2004 election to win office and using violence against his opponents.<br><br>Friday's clash came a day after teachers agreed to end their five-month-old strike that has kept 1.3 million children out of classes in the state of Oaxaca — a move that was expected to take the sting out of the protests.<br><br>The teachers have been camped out in Oaxaca city's colonial centre since May when they first walked out to demand higher pay and better working conditions.<br><br>After police attacked one of their demonstrations in June, they extended their demands to include a call for the resignation of Ruiz and were joined by leftists, students and Indian groups.<br><br>Police and armed gangs have led sporadic attacks on the protesters, and at least five people have been killed in violence related to the unrest.<br><br>The lawlessness has led to armed groups of protesters and other residents patrolling the streets, frequently capturing and beating suspected criminals.<br><br>On Thursday, just over 31,000 teachers voted to end their walkout, union secretary Ezequiel Rosales said. More than 20,000 voted to continue the strike.<br><br>Union leaders said they planned to meet with Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal in Mexico City on Friday to hammer out conditions for their return to classes.<br><br>Mr. Rosales said the teachers would demand that the government guarantee the safety of returning teachers, who fear reprisals from Ruiz supporters. Union leaders also are seeking the release of four jailed protesters and the cancellation of outstanding arrest warrants against demonstrators.<br><br>also:<br>link: <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0725/p01s03-woam.html" target="top"><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>In Mexico, social unrest reflects rising expectations</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--></a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>Local protests have become overriding themes in the disputed presidential race.<br>By Sara Miller Llana | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor <br><br>OAXACA CITY, MEXICO – In April a sit-in among steelworkers in the west turned deadly. The next month came violent demonstrations outside Mexico City. <br><br>Now, thousands of dissidents in the southern state of Oaxaca have taken over this pretty colonial capital, shattering windows of hotels, spraying buildings with revolutionary graffiti, and causing the city to cancel its most famed festival of the year.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Over the weekend, gunmen attacked a radio station in Oaxaca that had supported a mass movement calling for the resignation of the governor.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> <br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>While these flare-ups are driven by local circumstance, they share their origins in class friction and distrust of authority. These issues have long been part of Mexican society, but have now become overriding themes in the still-disputed July 2 presidential election.<br><br>"We are seeing a big awakening," says Wilfrido Mayren Pelaez, a Catholic priest in Oaxaca City who has been mediating between the strikers and the state government.<br><br>"People have changed.... Across the country, we are seeing that in different ways and with different expressions."</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Protests over disparities are not new to Mexico's political landscape. Its 1910 revolution was sparked in part by peasants and the working classes seeking to overhaul the inequities exacerbated by the Porfirio Díaz dictatorship.<br><br>But <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>many say that social tensions have reached a fever pitch, in part because of expectations and realities formed by the unraveling of 71 years of authoritarian rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), whose reign ended with President Vicente Fox's victory in 2000.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>"In the case of Oaxaca, what we are seeing now is something that has been boiling for decades," says Rossana Fuentes-Berain, a political analyst at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. "It is emblematic of frustrations people feel in parts of the country."</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>The clashes in Oaxaca, which is closed off by metal barricades that are spray-painted with threats aimed at Gov. Ulises Ruiz, are taking place against the backdrop of the disputed presidential election.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The 2006 race, the closest in history, has the free-trade advocate Felipe Calderón winning with a little more than half a percentage point over Andrés Manuel López Obrador, an outspoken advocate of the poor - and has split the country along geographic and class lines.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>In Oaxaca, an annual protest by the teachers' union morphed last month into a mass movement calling for Governor Ruiz's resignation when he ordered state police to clear out strikers from the teacher's union, who have been leading an annual protest for higher wages for 26 years.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The government response represents a heavy-handedness that observers say the people of Mexico will no longer accept. The repression, which included tear gas, angered union groups, farmers, and radical political organizations alike. They have banded together to demand his resignation, sleeping in shifts in the central plaza, or zocalo.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>"The PRI bet that the traditional way of doing things would work," says Gloria Zafra, a sociologist at the Benito Juarez Autonomous University of Oaxaca. "But the people changed."</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The power struggle in Oaxaca has drawn other embittered residents, protesters say, including activists from San Salvador Atenco, where the May demonstrations took place. One banner for "Radio Kapucha," a radio station formed by activists from Chiapas, makes reference to a crusade launched by Zapatista rebel leader "Subcomandante Marcos" this winter to expose what he called the inadequacy of all three main presidential candidates.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>"It is time that we all come together and participate,"</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> says Mari Gutierrez, who teaches religion classes outside Oaxaca City and has joined a group of Catholic organizations camping out in the zocalo. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>"A lot of us are becoming conscious that the government [officials] are liars, and we need to join the people's fight against inequality and injustice."</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Runner-up López Obrador, <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>who lost by 244,000 votes</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, has submitted claims of voter fraud and requests for a full recount to the nation's top electoral court, which has until Sept. 6 to certify a winner. He announced at a rally last Sunday that he would launch a campaign of civil disobedience if his request for a recount were not granted.<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>No matter who wins, experts say, Mexico's next president will struggle gaining legitimacy in the eyes of a significant part of the population</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>"This is a very contested election," says Ms. Fuentes-Berain. She says she does not expect unrest to replicate itself across the country, because Oaxaca and San Salvador Atenco are examples of movements that have been taken over by radical factions.<br><br>"But what we are seeing now is worrisome proof of how ungovernable a state can turn when there is no real good faith [effort] at negotiation ... on both sides," she says, referring to talks between the striking teachers and the government.<br><br>Protestors in Oaxaca are scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss their next steps, says Father Mayren Pelaez. They had refused to negotiate any terms until Ruiz steps down, but they could reconsider that stance, he says. "If that happens, we have hope of beginning to talk again," he says.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>But many protestors say that their goals stretch beyond the political future of Ruiz. Florentino López Martinez, a member of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO), the umbrella organization for the protest in Oaxaca City, says their struggle could become a national cause against the "neoliberal politics" that have defined Mexico as it has opened its markets to global competition.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>"We are against repression, and we could provide unity for all the country," he says, "where the pueblo is fighting against the rich."</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>In voicing such rhetoric, the group has raised the stakes of the protest, with no clear end in sight. "[A solution] might take a long time, and a dramatic response," says Francisco Toledo, a famous Mexican artist in Oaxaca who has joined Father Mayren Pelaez as a mediator.<br> <p>___________________________________________<br>"Fascism finds root best in unreality, dysfunction and irresponsibility." - Me<br><br>"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act" -George Orwell<br><br>"When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it - always." -Mahatma Gandhi</p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=dugoboy@rigorousintuition>dugoboy</A> <IMG HEIGHT=10 WIDTH=10 SRC="http://www.geocities.com/orcthrasher/files/images/Qn38113.gif" BORDER=0> at: 10/29/06 2:15 pm<br></i>