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What’s next in Oaxaca?

By Jeremy Schwartz | Tuesday, December 5, 2006, 12:56 PM

Mostly lost amid the hubbub of Felipe Calderón’s inauguration last week is the near dismantling of the leadership of the Oaxaca protest movement. Nearly 150 members of the APPO, the umbrella group of protesters demanding the ouster of Gov. Ulises Ruiz, have been arrested in the past 10 days. Many have been sent to far-flung prisons in the states of Nayarit and Tamaulipas on the border. Monday night, the APPO’s most visible face, Flavio Sosa, was arrested in Mexico City leaving a press conference.

It’s unclear yet what the arrests mean for the future of Oaxaca. The APPO has been visibly weakened and the teachers union, which formed the backbone of the protest movement, has rejected an APPO call to go back out on strike because of the arrests. The APPO has called a megamarch for Saturday, which should be a good barometer of where they stand.

According to press reports, Oaxaca City, Oaxaca, is returning to calm, certainly good news for Calderón. Calderón signaled a harder attitude toward the Oaxaca protesters with the appointment of a hard-line conservative interior minister, and federal troops continue to occupy the city.

The wave of arrests was sparked after a riotous protest march on Nov. 25, in which protesters burned several government buildings. The burnings gave the government a tidy pretext to arrest the leaders, some analysts say, quieting the Oaxaca situation just in time for the turnover of power.

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Comments

By Desi

December 6, 2006 9:05 AM | Link to this

I am surprised that the Central Mexican Government could allow this amount of uncontrolled riots to take place for over six months with out a rapid and strong response. It is ok to mediate and negociate but when the APPO vandalized Government offices, closed streets, threatened the public and closed by force private business and government agencies then all the bets are off and the country’s duly elected President should put his foot down and take control. The same should be done to Lopez-Obrador and his tribe of sore loosers in the PRD. They put Mexico democracy in jeopardy with their illegal protesting. Que desorden de Pais!