The death of U.S. journalist Brad Will, on Oct. 28, brought the violent conflict in Oaxaca, Mexico, and a decades-old struggle against repression, to the attention of mainstream America, five months after the city erupted in turmoil. “Mexico had a revolution and now, 71 years later, they finally started to have a competitive democracy,” said Visiting Assistant Professor of History Alvis Dunn.
What began in late May, as a teachers’ non-violent strike for better wages, is now a city-wide revolution to oust Governor Ulises Ruiz.
Ruiz, since his disputed election, has been accused of corruption and totalitarianism against the largely indigenous population of the southern state.
“The people are demanding the Oaxaca governor goes, even though there is blood spilt,” said teacher and protestor Esther Guzman to Reuters News. “The people are ready to die.”
Nearly 20 deaths have occurred, despite the teacher-founded Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) maintaining a non-violent position. The violence escalated and Mexican President Vicente Fox sent four thousand Federal troops into the city on Oct. 28, after three local police officers gunned down four people, including Will.
The clash between government forces and groups of citizens, leftists and guerillas intensified on Nov. 2. At APPO headquarters in Radio University, in what Oaxacans are calling the ‘Battle of University City,’ protestors encountered Federal troops’ water cannons and tear gas with homemade gasoline bombs, leaving at least 8 injured and 1 student dead.
“Our eyes are burning with tears, but at least we can see the government for what it really is,” said one protestor on a Mexico television program during the attack. “We’re not budging.”
The government’s inability to take the University not only enabled the protestor-run radio station to continue airing, but it was also a momentous victory in solidifying the independent status of constitutionally recognized self-governing Universities across Mexico.
“Police will not go on campus,” said Dunn. “That (autonomy of Universities) is one of the oldest traditions in Mexico.”
Groups around the world are showing their support for the citizens of Oaxaca, including protests at Mexican embassies in major cities in both the U.S. and Europe, rallies, and countless letters from friends of Will, fellow journalists and humanitarians.
The leftist rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army blockaded roads in the neighboring state of Chiapas on Nov. 1. Nonviolent demands for the governor’s ousting continued during a march on Nov. 5, in which hundreds of thousands of people stretched over three miles on Oaxacan roadways.
Governor Ruiz refuses to step down, despite requests from the Mexican Congress, President Fox and the many protesting parties worldwide. Fox vowed to remove Ruiz before he leaves office on Dec. 1, yet protestors and riot police continue to clash daily.
Although approximately seventy percent of the striking teachers have returned to schools, after receiving the pay increase they desired, the current attempts to oust Ruiz stem from years of oppression and economic inequality.
Mexico’s southern states, like Oaxaca, are poorer than the northern states and did not benefit from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), as the northern states have.
According to Reuters News, a 2002 World Bank report claimed that the NAFTA pact of 1994 did not benefit the southern states because of “poor roads and telecoms, bad governance and social instability.”
“There’s a class of people participating that never has before,” said Dunn on Mexico’s current political activity. “Just that you hear a shout is a positive sound.