heaven-storming

To update those of you who are not here-

and the mass media misleads all the time, anyway-

The PFP (federal police) are here and waiting

for orders to attack.

La Jornada got information about a big group

of provocateurs, organized by the Oaxaca government

to create chaos and vandalism. Four PRI groups

 – about 300 people– affiliated with CROC and

CTM are ready to start trashing. These are not the

 feds. 

On September 27 we woke up to see that all was well. One big night of threat over with, nothing happened.

My reasoning against attack may be too simple. There are three and half million in the state: the nation’s largest indigenous population, the nation’s largest teachers union, and the nation’s poorest, or close to it. Put it all together and it spells trouble for a repressive force. According to the news, the real deterrent is fear of failure. On the other hand, they might be afraid of success, since we are coming up on Oct 2 which is the anniversary of a Mexico gov’s massacre of students, twenty-some yeas ago, and nobody’s forgotten it.

Thursday was supposed also to be the first of two days of a work-stoppage by the Oaxaca business community. I have not yet figured out why they would want to do that, and I suspect they haven’t either, because only 60% (Noticias estimate, I would say less) actually did close, likewise today. That was a failure, and opening the schools by Government dictum was a failure also.

The popular teachers movement remains consistent, demanding the ouster of URO, the teachers voted once again not to budge until he’s out; then again, on September 27, the most recent teachers vote in their assembly, was not to return to the classrooms until URO leaves. The teachers also demand the release of the movement’s political prisoners, Germán Mendoza Nube, Evangelio Mendoza González, Catarino Torres Pereda y Ramiro Aragón Pérez.

The APPO foot march – Oaxaca to Mexico– changed its route to prudently avoid the state of Puebla, where resides one of the governors who is thought to be “domino numero uno”, if URO goes. The marchers have been fed and brought water and fruit along the way, both by local people and by the vans the APPO sends. They sleep indoors or in vans, off the ground. A photo in Noticias shows them alongside an open truckload of soldiers, who don’t appear to be hostile. Nevertheless, the APPO has designated a contingent of members to walk ahead of the two to three thousand people on the road, (and then I heard 6,000)to act as a “guard”. They are armed with the usual sticks and pipes. Within the state of Oaxaca there are rumors (again) that many police units have signed a document saying they will not shoot to kill their brethren.

That has to be another uneasy feeling for Abascal and Diododoro, and URO.

The teachers remain on “máxima alerta”. The Secretary of Internal Affairs, Carlos Abascal Carranza, stated “we are neither anticipating nor ruling out the use of federal forces”. What’s going on?

The PRI has only the power of alliance, it’s too small to carry off anything on its own.

The PAN needs the PRI vote in the legislature to beat back a surge against its president-elect Felipe Calderon by the PRD, which believes the election was fraudulent. If the PAN lets URO fall, that would be taken as a sign that the PAN won’t support any of the other PRI officials whose heads would roll if a popular movement sweeps the country. Thus far, the PRI has convinced the PAN that of the two choices, to intervene in Oaxaca or not, better to intervene. If the PAN Fox gove doesn’t ok the repression, the PRI will go over to the PRD.

The PRD is quick to point out what is going on. If the PAN cuts loose the PRI, the PAN cannot out-vote the PRD.

The PRD, we may recall, was formed not a decade ago by PRI dissatisfaction, so it’s not as if the PRD is the knight in shining armor. But many of the Oaxaca APPO back the PRD, and expect to be backed in return. This puts pressure on the PRD to defend Oaxaca.

Many of the APPO follow other political currents, many to the left of AMLO, who, after all, is another capitalist, in the populist mode. What kind of currents? Well, the APPO itself is a movement without political pretensions. It’s in a daily battle to rein-in the socialist, communists, Trotskyites, and PRD currents, along with adherents to the Zapatista Other Campaign, so that a focus will be placed on its own popular assemblies.

It is the Teacher-APPO politic that attracts the indigenous and campesino adherents. The socialists tend to be urban intellectuals. The APPO model is what is being presented in other states, and the APPO has sent out delegates to further that work, much as have the Zapatisas, to further their position.

Like the Zapatistas, the APPO is horizontal in structure, or at least it’s trying to be. The “movement leaders” supposedly are dispensable, and like the union assemblies, from which the teachers move their consensus up the ladder from the base, this is what the APPO is all about. That’s why the teachers, the Zapatistas and the APPO fit together in a social movement, altho right now the Zapatistas are sitting this one out The issues of each group, not the method, constitutes their differences. They all are concerned with the poverty of the many and the wealth of the few, and the disregard for the indigenous population. The APPO is openly anti-neoliberal, as are the Zapatisas. Oaxaca majority want URO out.

So what’s a political party to do? La Jornada had a headline yesterday, “The renunciation of Ulises Ruiz never was considered in the meeting carried out at Los Pinos” between URO and Fox. Huh? We also read that URO was offered once or twice a face-saving kick upstairs, but declined. He wants to stay as governor.

Fox and the PRI governors had a new political strategy, which as I read it, sounds like buying off the struggle. Written in La Jornada by Rosa Elvira Vargas: …” a new political strategy to resolve the conflict in Oaxaca…consists of a new economic proposal to the teachers of Section 22… and in an offer to the organizations making up the APPO, to reform various laws and local institutions and solve specific political problems, like the liberation of political prisoners.” It took 11 governors and more than two hours to conceive of this plan: “An integral package which takes care of the demands of Section 22 of the teachers. Second, attending to the social claims and a profound political reform: what the prisoners of Loxicha demand, what the APPO demands, the businesses, all of that is on the Oaxaca agenda. Third, the coordinated, respectful responsible action of all the governments – municipal, state, federal, seeking what is the best policy and the agreements to resolve this conflict.”

A package of reforms of institutions, electoral methods and law of transparency was included. Along with this was the idea that somehow URO would be monitored by the federal authorities, sort of a governor’s house arrest procedure.

This incentive package was followed by claims and disclaimers regarding the use of federal forces. Fox is saying that he’ll resolve the Oaxaca crisis before he leaves office. Maybe.

I appreciate the optimism of people like Tomas, who suggest the APPO has won this round. I agreed as recently as yesterday. Like everyone else’s, my mood swings. Today I can’t believe that Fox will hold back, what with the hounds baying at his heels. But since he SHOULD, maybe he will. This is a losing proposition for the PAN and national PRI, benefitting only local PRI (and the legislators today voted themselves a new extended term of office) and URO, for as long as he lasts.
If the shit hits the fan, don’t believe any media reports except Jornada and Noticias. Those of you who can translate, at that time, perhaps will be kind enough to do so, and I will. We’ll try to keep you informed.

Nancy Davies

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/oaxacastudyactiongroup/message/751

Some Claim the Current Business Strike Will Be Used as Pretext for Repression

By Hermann Bellinghausen
La Jornada

September 28, 2006

OAXACA CITY, Sep. 27: In a city permeated by tension in the face of widespread rumors of immanent attacks by Institutional Revolutionary Party-aligned “shock troops” and corresponding intervention by federal police, the state teachers’ union agreed to continue its struggle “in a massive and united fashion… until the fall of the tyrant Ulises Ruiz Ortiz is achieved, and only then begin the school year.” Enrique Rueda Pacheco, general secretary of the local Section 22 of the National Union of Education Workers, publicized the agreements through a new consultation with the rank-and-file on the continuation of the strike, which began 129 days ago.

The teachers’ assembly, meeting in the hotel owned by the union, resolved that the departure of Ulises Ruiz “is not negotiable and cannot be conceded; it remains our sole demand.” As the 1,500 union delegates roared, “unity, unity!” Rueda Pacheco reaffirmed that his organization continues, “forward, together with the other organizations with which we form the Popular Assemblies of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO in its Spanish initials); we are not separate, we are a single front that will maintain this period of struggle.” This was followed by the chorus of teachers who filled the auditorium: “The teachers and the people united / Will never be defeated.”

Full Story at NarcoNews

MEXICO: The Power of the Oaxaca Commune, by Andrés Aullet, from
Oaxaca, from La Verdad Obrera 205, September 21, 2006

As this edition was closing, the failure of negotiations between the
Interior Secretariat [Secretaría de Gobernación] and the Popular
Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca, APPO, was announced. At the same
time, threats of repression, with direct intervention by the
[militarized] Federal Preventive Police [PFP] are growing. As the
power of the APPO grows, the fear by state and federal governments
that the example of Oaxaca will spread, is growing. Declarations by
Mouriño, chief of the presidential transition team for the fraudulent
Felipe Calderón, prove this: “The subject of Oaxaca is different
(from the PRD blockades in the capital), there has been violence
there, there have been deaths there, there is an obvious challenge to
the institutions there.” Leaders of the APPO have pointed out that,
although the solution by repression was not mentioned during
negotiations, it could not be ruled out. Faced with the threat of
repression, it is necessary to surround the heroic struggle of the
workers and people of Oaxaca with solidarity.

Less than a century ago in southern Mexico, Emiliano Zapata
established the Morelos Commune. Today a new Commune is rising in
Oaxaca, in the framework of a profound crisis of the regime of
alternating parties [régimen de la alternancia] and reminds us of the
heroic gesture of the workers of the Paris Commune in 1871. Oaxaca
marks the culminating point in the class struggle in the country, the
most advanced revolutionary process in the region.

The Zócalo of the city of Oaxaca remains occupied and protected by
the organizations of the APPO, that show much combativeness. The
people read, comment on, and discuss the press, making blankets and
banners. There is an atmosphere of much politicization and militancy,
which has prevented the movement from declining or arriving at
negotiations contrary to the demands of the APPO. While the federal
government tries to revive the Ulises Ruiz Ortíz (URO) administration
and the threats of possible repression, a dual power is beginning to
extend through the whole state. The URO administration continues to
crumble.

People begin to see the APPO as a real government

The power of the APPO is beginning to assume greater character as a
popular political organ of decision and representation in the entire
state. From distant villages and municipalities commissions arrive at
the capital to hand over the founding documents of local Popular
Assemblies, thus increasing initiatives toward self-organization and
the multi-tendency front established by some union and popular
organizations that form the APPO. At the same time, communities that
have their own governments send greetings to the APPO in the city
and demand the fall of URO. But they also arrive with problems and
conflicts for the APPO decide as the government.

These elements of self-organization are beginning to become more
extensive and to be expressed with greater clarity in the assemblies
of neighborhoods that want to have a certain representation in the
APPO, many assemblies until now with a common character.
Transportation problems, conflicts between families, conflicts over
safety and other conflicts, are explained to the APPO to seek a
possible solution. In what it does, the APPO has become an incipient
form of government with an embryonic administrative power. In their
minds, the people Oaxaca are beginning to see the APPO as a real
government, erected on popular bases and, because of that, support
has become massive.

This heroic struggle brings up for discussion the seizure of power
itself and how to solve the demands of the oppressed and exploited
comprehensively. While the leaderships of the movement are seeking a
negotiated solution with the federal government, the base of this
struggle is making its mark by broadening dual power and diversifying
support for the Oaxaca Commune, although it still has illusions in a
solution negotiated with the federal government to declare the fall
of URO.

While measures to pressure the federal government try to find an echo
in sectors of the APPO leadership, that until now has continued to
demand the exit of URO (although at the same time it is committed to
promote measures to diminish tension), the base is reinforcing its
position. In these moments, more city halls and highways have been
seized, and paramilitaries are being driven back. What is happening
is that federal and local governments are terrified and want to avoid
at all costs that the people of Oaxaca should go forward in extending
dual power.

“What happened in Atenco is not going to happen here”

Like the Paris Commune, the forces of the right and reaction are
clamoring for an “energetic” solution that would return order and
tranquility to the ruling class. The parties of the Oaxaca Congress
approved a request to the Congress of the Union to send federal
repressive forces to keep an eye on the situation and reestablish
normalization.

There is a willingness of the people of Oaxaca to confront threats
and repression if negotiations fail, since the Interior Secretariat
wants and seeks to bring in the federal police forces with the
agreement of a sector of the APPO, to “reestablish order.” But the
will of the people is seeking to turn its struggle into a mass
struggle with popular support, that has not been broken, as its
showed in confronting the paramilitaries and the death squadron. They
say, “what happened to our comrades in Atenco is not going to happen
here.”

This was what the APPO assembly showed on September 19, where the
leadership arrived with a proposal to comply with the “cooling-off
measures” that the Interior Secretary proposed to the teachers’
leaders. The base indignantly rejected any agreement aiming at
surrendering the movement; it even rejected the blackmail of
repression that the leadership attempted.

This is why this struggle must be extended to a national level. And
unions like the SME, the UNT and the CNTE must go on strike now, in
solidarity with the APPO and the struggle of the people of Oaxaca,
unifying the discontent against the fraud and the antidemocratic
regime with the demands of workers and campesinos of the whole
country.

Source:
http://codepappo.wordpress.com/2006/09/10/asamblea-popular-del-pueblo-de-oaxaca-acuerdos-10-de-septiembre-2006/

English translation: Tomás Rosa Bueno and Lois Meyer (for the OSAG “t-group”)
CONSENSUS STATEMENTS BY THE POPULAR ASSEMBLY OF THE PEOPLE OF OAXACA IN A MEETING HELD IN THE “PROFR. JACOBO HERRERA SALAZAR” AUDITORIUM, OF SECTION 22 OF THE THE NATIONAL EDUCATION WORKERS UNION, ON SEPTEMBER 10, 2006
PARTICIPANTS: 309 DELEGATES FROM DIFFERENT ORGANIZATIONS
START: 12:15 PM CLOSE: 11:00 PM

I. FRATERNAL GREETINGS:

o OAXACA CITY TAXI DRIVERS
o APPO OF SAN JUAN GUELAVIA
o APPO OF SANTA CRUZ PAPALUTLA
o FRANCISCO VILLA POPULAR FRONT
o OAXACA INDEPENDENT TAXI DRIVERS GROUP
o UNAM STUDENT COLLECTIVE
o AN APPO HAS BEEN ORGANIZED IN SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA – DEMONSTRATION SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 10 AM, TO SUPPORT THE OAXACA MOVEMENT, AS IN AUGUST 1st -APPO (INVITATION TO JOIN THE MEGAMARCH COMING FROM ALL 7 REGIONS OF THE STATE AND CARAVANING TO MEXICO CITY ON SEPTEMBER 15.)

II. REPORTS
1. MIGUEL A. ALVAREZ (SERAPAZ)
2. DIALOGUE WITH THE INTERIOR MINISTRY ON THURSDAY, SEP. 04, 2006.
3. SECTION 22 (STATE ASSEMBLY AGREEMENTS, SEP. 06, 2006).

III. CONSENSUS STATEMENTS:
1. This Plenary ratifies that unity in discourse and action by all social organizations and by the organized people in the popular struggle, as these join together in the APPO, is an important factor to defeat the tyrant, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz,.
2. This Plenary agrees to ratify that the ousting of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz is a non-negotiable item.
3. Total support for a single APPO negotiating commission to maintain a unified presence at the negotiating table with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, based on the central demand that Ulises Ruiz must go (a split in the negotiating commission must not be allowed).
4. Develop a political document as a counterproposal to the offer of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, made up of proposals from the people of Oaxaca.
5. Ratify the decision to submit the government’s proposals to popular consultation.
6. Attend the meeting with the Senate to ensure that there is a concrete proposal, to not break off negotiations, to avoid clinging to only one solution, to keep insisting on the quickest solutions, which is the resignation or removal of Ulíses Ruiz Ortiz.
7. Establish the necessary contacts with the different parliamentary factions in the Senate, following them up with mobilization so as not to compromise the Oaxaca popular movement.
8. Take organizational measures to strengthen the APPO.
9. Initiate the departure of the three caravans to publicize our struggle in the North, South and Center of the country, the 15th and 16th of September 2006.
10. Keep promoting the creation of APPOs in the regions.
11. Strengthen APPO’s police force and the mobile brigade.
12. That the national protest encampment in Mexico City move to the Senate
13. Advance in the writing of the political proclamation, the manifesto and in the call for citizen meetings to deal with the reactivation of the economy, public safety, upkeep and beautification of the city, urban and suburban transportation, tourism and harmonious coexistence. (Present it at the next APPO meeting.)
14. That the APPO’s Cultural Commission and Section 22’s Secretary of Culture and Recreation organize the festivities for Independence day.

15. Carry out a fund-raising campaign to organize the Independence Day celebration.
16. Structure APPO committees in the neighborhoods, agencias (tiny hamlets), municipalities and regions.
17. Meeting with all labor unions belonging to the APPO (on a date to be determined).
18. Meeting of all agencias and neighborhoods belonging to the APPO, on Tuesday September 12, 5 PM, at the School of Law and Social Sciences.
19. Meeting with public transportation company owners to deal with transportation fares (date to be determined).
20. Due to need, consider the possibility of expanding or creating new commissions for the collective steering of the APPO.
21. Promote the national and international forum of solidarity with the Oaxacan people’s struggle on September 28, 2006.
22. During the national forum, schedule a national march of solidarity with Oaxaca, September 28, 2006.
23. Promote the motorcade of the ” First of August Oaxacan Women´s Coordination- APPO”, leaving on Friday September 15, 2006.
24. Schedule the APPO’s Constituent Congress.
25. In anticipation of eventual repression, we need to create a national and international protectiive shield for our teacher and popular struggle requesting both information and financial support. (Create worker defense committees.)
26. To guarantee the work proposal presented by the Secretary of Culture and Recreation, Section 22, that the celebration of Independence Day in Oaxaca incorporate active and peaceful resistance.
27. September 20, 2006: march from the Ministry of the Internal Affairs to the presidential palace in Mexico City, together with Mexico City’s Popular Assembly, in support of Oaxaca’s popular struggle.
28. Sertexa bus owners ask for the return of their vehicles

IV. PRONOUNCEMENTS
o This Plenary declares its opposition ot the repressive policies of the Federal and State governments. It also condemns the militarization of the State of Oaxaca.
o For the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners and prisoneers of conscience in Mexico, and in particular the release of: Germán Mendoza Nube, Erangelio Mendoza González, Catarino Torres Pereda and Ramiro Aragón Pérez.
o Punishment for those who are the material and intellectual authors of the crimes against comrades who have fallen in this period of popular struggle.
o Against the militarization of Oaxaca’s villages, we demand the immediate departure of the Mexican army from the Sierra Juarez villages of: San Gaspar Yagalaxi, Río Grande, and Guelatao de Juárez, among others.

V. PLAN OF ACTION
Date and place Activity Participants
Sep. 14, 2006 Mexico City 5th Round of Negotiations between APPO and the Ministry of the Internal Affairs APPO’s Official Negotiating Commission
Sep. 13, 15 and 16, 2006 Popular Independence festivities The people of Oaxaca
Sep. 28, 2006, Oaxaca City National and international forum of solidarity with the struggle of the Oaxacan people National and international organizations
Sep. 28, 2006 National march of solidarity with Oaxaca National organizations
October 12, 2006, 11 AM, San Lorenzo Lalana (City Hall) Popular Forum Open invitation to all social organizations

FOR THE REMOVAL OF ULISES RUIZ ORTIZ, NOT ONE STEP BACK!
UNITED AND ORGANIZED, WE WILL WIN!