Mexico Solidarity Network weekly news and analysis: La otra resumes, atenco update, calderon named president, negotiations in Oaxaca, more

MEXICO SOLIDARITY NETWORK

WEEKLY NEWS AND ANALYSIS

SEPTEMBER 4-17, 2006



1. MARCOS RESUMES OTHER CAMPAIGN TOUR

2. ATENCO UPDATE

3. CALDERON NAMED PRESIDENT-ELECT, AMLO RESISTS

4. MIGRANT REMITTANCES INCREASE DRAMATICALLY

5. ZAPATISTAS ARRESTED IN CHIAPAS

6. NEGOTIATIONS FLOUNDER IN OAXACA

7. HOUSE APPROVES 700-MILE BORDER FENCE

8. MSN PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS, Contact MSN@MexicoSolidarity.org

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1. MARCOS RESUMES OTHER CAMPAIGN TOUR

Subcomandante Marcos will resume the Other Campaign’s national tour
on October 9, picking up where he left off after May 4th police violence
in Atenco led to a temporary postponement. Marcos will begin in
Sinaloa, then travel to Baja California Sur, Baja California Norte, Sonora,
Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi, Nuevo Leon and
Tamaulipas, finishing in Mexico City. Several Zapatista Comandantes
will travel from Chiapas to Mexico City to work on the broad-based
movement to free 29 Atenco residents who remain in prison as a result of the
police violence.



2. ATENCO UPDATE

Nearly four months after police-initiated violence in Atenco on May 3
and 4, twenty-nine Atenco residents and supporters of the Other Campaign
remain in prison, charged with felonies including kidnapping, while
police, who beat over 200 arrestees and raped or sexually molested at
least 45 women, remain free. Police officers were able to post bail
because they are accused of misdemeanors, mainly abuse of authority, even
though lawyers for the 45 women accused them of sexual abuse and torture.

The incidents in Atenco began when local police rousted flower vendors
from land where a WallMart will be constructed. Atenco residents
responded by blocking the local highway. The following day, more than 3,000
police officers, led by state and federal authorities, invaded Atenco,
using tear gas and batons to scatter protestors, entering houses
without arrest warrants, and arresting some 207 people. The People’s Front
in Defense of the Land (FPDT) led a successful struggle early in the
Fox administration to prevent construction of a new airport on communally
owned lands in Atenco. The FPDT is also an adherent to the Other
Campaign, accounting in large part for the unprecedented police repression
on May 3 and 4 in Atenco.

This week, authorities from Mexico State reactivated 52 formal
investigations against at least 300 members of the FPDT that were put on hold
in 2002 as part of a series of agreements that ended plans to build a
new airport in Atenco. Most of the 300 now find themselves under threat
of arrest warrants, a common tactic in Mexico designed to demobilize
social movement leaders. Apparently federal and state authorities are
quite concerned about the influence of the Other Campaign, and perhaps
they want to reactivate failed airport construction plans as well.



3. CALDERON NAMED PRESIDENT-ELECT, AMLO RESISTS

On Tuesday, September 5, the Federal Electoral Tribunal named Felipe
Calderon president-elect. Despite recognizing serious problems with the
July 2 presidential election, the Tribunal unanimously declared
Calderon the winner by a slim 0.56% margin. Mexican law strictly prohibits
sitting presidents from publicly supporting particular candidates, and
the Tribunal’s final declaration criticized Fox’s six month campaign
for Calderon as a threat to the election process: “This high court
does not ignore the fact that declarations made by President Vicente Fox
risked the validity of the election, and if the influence of his
actions had not been weakened by various concurrent actions and circumstances
[here the Tribunal is referring to public statements made by PRD
candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), including calling Fox a
“chachalaca,” or nattering bird], it could have represented an important
element in the final determination…” The acceptance of clearly
illegal campaign activity on the part of the president sets a poor
precedent for future contests. Election law limits outside corporate
financing, yet dozens of corporations dug into deep pockets to pay for months of
commercials declaring Lopez Obrador “a danger to Mexico” and
linking him unfavorably with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. The PRD accused the
government of using federal welfare programs to influence voting. Exit
polls indicated more than 40% of Oportunidades recipients, single
mothers who are among the poorest people in Mexico, voted for the
business-oriented Calderon after threats that their benefits would be canceled.
The largely discredited Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), which
managed election logistics, included nine members, four appointed by the PAN
and five by former PRI congressional leader Elba Esther Gordillo, who
supported Calderon during the election and is a close ally of President
Fox. During a recount of 9% of the polling places ordered by the
Tribunal in the weeks after the election, officials annulled 234,574 votes,
more than Calderon’s margin of victory. Lopez Obrador demanded a
full recount after half-burned ballots turned up in dumps, videos showed
PAN officials stuffing ballot boxes, and thousands of polling sites
counted more votes than ballots. But the Tribunal rejected a full recount,
which likely would have annulled the election, and denied access to the
presidential ballots by news media and NGOs. The IFE would like burn
the ballots in December, though court challenges and/or Congressional
action may prevent it. The term for Tribunal members ends this Fall,
perhaps accounting for their reluctance to overturn a clearly fraudulent
election at the same time they are looking for jobs. Several Tribunal
members will reportedly be awarded by Calderon with federal judgeships.

Lopez Obrador promises to continue resisting Calderon’s fraudulent
presidency, though the massive popular mobilizations that virtually
closed down large sectors of the zocalo and the downtown business district
ended on Saturday, September 16. Aside from Cuautemoc Cardenas,
historically the moral leader of the PRD who quickly recognized the
Tribunal’s decision, there have been few public breaks within the PRD’s
electoral coalition, which includes Convergencia and the Workers Party.
However, “resistance” by party officials, whose natural tendencies
lead them to support institutional mechanisms, has been, well, rather
institutional. PRD supporters took over the Congressional speaker’s
platform two weeks ago, preventing President Fox from delivering his state
of the union address. It was a bold move, though certainly not
unprecedented in Latin America. But not a single PRD official refused their
newly won seats in Congress or the Senate, which would have thrown the
government into a serious constitutional crisis (while also leaving
hundreds of newly elected party officials without paychecks). The four
sitting PRD governors went so far as to encourage newly elected Senators
and Congressmen to “not renounce any of our institutional spaces.”
And PRD governors enthusiastically participated in a recent national
meeting of governors at which the featured speaker was none other than
president-elect Felipe Calderon. Large mobilizations in Mexico City’s
zocalo prevented President Fox from overseeing the traditional
Independence Day celebration on the evening of September 15. For weeks Lopez
Obrador promised to deliver the traditional “grito” at Mexico’s
most important political holiday, but after closed door negotiations,
Mexico City Mayor Alejandro Encinas delivered the grito, accompanied by
Fox’s Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal. Fox was relegated to
delivering his grito in Dolores Hidalgo, where the independence movement
started 196 years ago, surrounded by at least 1,000 (some media reported as
many as 3,500) Federal Preventative Police and presidential guards who
cordoned off 50 blocks in the center of the city and blockaded the four
major highways leading into the city, checking every person for
indications of protest activity. On September 16th, the army traditionally
marches through the zocalo and along many of the major boulevards
occupied by protestors, but the PRD ordered protestors to evacuate so the army
could do its thing.

On the evening of the 16th, Lopez Obrador presided over the National
Democratic Convention, attended by more than a million delegates from
around the country. Decisions were made largely by party leaders and
close supporters of Lopez Obrador meeting in nearby hotels, then
announced to the massive crowd for approval. Among his inner circle are Elena
Poniatowska, one of Mexico’s best known authors who recently
published a letter accusing PRD founder Cuautemoc Cardenas, Subcomandante
Marcos and Patricia Mercado (she ran for president under another party
ticket, taking about 2% of the vote) of responsibility for Lopez Obrador’s
election loss; Jesus Ortega, his former campaign coordinator; Porfirio
Muñoz Ledo, Fox’s former ambassador to the European Union and former
member of the PRI; Dante Delgado, a Senator from the Convergencia
Party; and Alberto Anaya, the leader of the Worker Party. Carlos Imaz, who
was captured on video receiving shopping bags full of money from
businessman Carlos Ahumada in a nationally televised scandal that likely cost
the PRD some votes, and Marti Bartres, leader of the PRD in Mexico
City, are among the leaders who will head up the National Commission for
Civil Resistance. The Convention declared Lopez Obrador the
“legitimate president of Mexico” by popular mandate, setting November 20 as the
date for installation, and created a traveling government based in
Mexico City that will create a new constitution.

On the surface, the Convention looks very much like the second
National Democratic Convention (the first was called by Zapata during
Mexico’s revolution) held twelve years ago in Zapatista territory. The
proposed traveling government looks very much like the kickoff of the Other
Campaign in which Marcos visited most of Mexico’s states and called
for a new constitution written by those from the left and from below.
Lopez Obrador is clearly borrowing the trappings of strategy from the
Zapatista movement, though the results will likely be the same kind of
corporativist, undemocratic, party-oriented mobilizations that have
plagued Mexico for decades. While the Zapatistas and the Other Campaign
call for a new power dynamic, Lopez Obrador appears to be headed down a
well-worn path, though with a few new twists, to achieve political power
for his party. This is not to discredit a national movement that
includes millions of people who are not affiliated with party politics and
who oppose the imposition of a fraudulent president. The movement is
broad-based and has the potential to make genuine change. Unfortunately,
much of the designated leadership comes directly from Mexico’s
political class. Of the three commissions that were named during the
National Democratic Convention – the political commission, the commission
for civil resistance, and the commission to organize a plebiscite and
draft a new constitution – perhaps a quarter of the leaders are former
members of the PRI, and many of the rest are PRD party operatives. But
the movement has energy and has turned out the largest demonstrations
in the history of Mexico. It may spin out of the control of
party-oriented politicians and become a truly popular movement.

Where does this leave the official president-elect? Calderon has been
largely isolated, announcing public events at the last minute to avoid
confrontations with PRD activists, unable or unwilling to appear in
public in the nation’s capitol, and constantly fighting with his own
party’s leadership. Calderon is hamstrung. His natural tendency is
toward the hard line, but in this case he doesn’t have the political
strength or moral authority to enforce it. From the beginning, he
virtually closed off serious discussions with PRD officials who may have been
willing to negotiate. His transition office is surrounded by security
forces and he travels everywhere with a small army for protection.
These are the manifestations of a presidency on the defensive and a
president more accustomed to dealing in smoke-filled back rooms than in the
streets. It appears that the usual six month honeymoon began and ended
on July 2. The Calderon presidency looks like a failure from the
beginning.



4. MIGRANT REMITTANCES INCREASE DRAMATICALLY

Remittances from migrant workers in the US to their Mexican families
increased by 22% in the first six months of this year to a total of
US$13.4 billion, according to the Bank of Mexico. Total remittances during
the 5 ½ years of the Fox administration total US$82 billion, exceeding
every source of foreign exchange except petroleum sales.



5. ZAPATISTAS ARRESTED IN CHIAPAS

(The following report is part of an article published by Al Giordano of
NarcoNews)

On Friday, Juan Jimenez, 33, and Pedro Jimenez Gomez, 18, armed with
gardening rakes, walked out to work the field where they cultivate
radishes, cucumbers, carrots and flowers to sell in the markets of San
Cristobal, Chiapas. Agents of the federal attorney general's office (PGR, in
its Spanish initials) seized their rakes and placed the two men under
arrest. As of Saturday morning they were still imprisoned in the PGR
offices of San Cristobal de Las Casas [they have since been released on
bail but still face charges].

About 80 neighbors and family members from their community, Huitepec
Seccion 2, kept vigil overnight outside of the PGR building near the
entrance to the new federal highway that connects San Cristobal with the
state capital of Tuxtla Gutierrez. The highway was built through an
ecological reserve. Overlooking the highway and the PGR office is the
tallest mountain surrounding San Cristobal, known as Tzontehuitz. Atop the
mountain are various telecommunications and media company antennas, also
in the Huitepec "ecological reserve." The reserve includes private
property, homes, and government land. According to yesterday's police
action, it is perfectly fine to ram a highway through or keep a microwave
tower atop an ecological reserve, but not to plant radishes. Prosecutors
demand 20,000 pesos (about $2,000 dollars) bail for the release of the
two prisoners, an amount that surpasses their average annual income.
They are charged with the crime of "change of land use."

The community that Pedro and Juan belong to is one that counts itself
as a civilian "base of support" for the Zapatista Army of National
Liberation (EZLN, in its Spanish initials). "This land is ours, from the
times of our tata-abuelo," said one neighbor, using an indigenous
Tzotzil-and-Spanish word for great grandfather. "We have always cared for it,
cleaned it, and guarded it. Here, we have restored our ancient uses and
customs."



6. NEGOTIATIONS FLOUNDER IN OAXACA

Negotiations to resolve the growing dispute over removal of unpopular
Oaxaca Governor Ulises Ruiz floundered this week. Federal authorities
don’t want to include Ruiz in negotiations, focusing instead on
reducing tensions and economic issues, while teachers and members of civil
society grouped under the Popular People’s Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO)
insist removal of Ruiz is their central demand and the only one worth
discussing.

On Saturday, September 9, unknown assailants set fire to the front
door of the New Left of Oaxaca (NIOAX), one of the leading groups in the
APPO. The NIOAX immediately blamed Ruiz, claming he wanted to scuttle
ongoing negotiations. The following day, students from across Mexico
converged on Oaxaca for the First National Students Encounter, organized
by APPO and striking teachers. Tensions remain high throughout the
state.



7. HOUSE APPROVES 700-MILE BORDER FENCE

For the second time in a year, the House of Representatives approved
construction of a 700-mile border fence by a vote of 283-138, a larger
margin than a similar House vote in December of last year. The double
layer fence would cover one-third of the US-Mexico border, which
currently has 75 miles of fencing mainly in urban areas. The new fence is
expected to cost US$7 billion. Republican leaders in the House have yet to
determine a source of funding, leading opponents to characterize the
bill as election-year politicking.



8. MSN PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS, Contact MSN@MexicoSolidarity.org


September 10 - December 16: Fall Study Abroad Program. Earn 16 credits
studying Mexican social movements in Chiapas, Tlaxcala, Chihuahua City
and Ciudad Juarez.

Sept 24 - Oct 7: Speaking tour - The Femicides of Juarez and
Chihuahua, and border issues.

Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois

Oct 1-14: Speaking tour - Immigrant rights, featuring a representative
from Mexicanos Sin Fronteras.

Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina

Oct 10-21: Speaking tour - Immigrant rights, featuring Angela Moreno
from the Border Action Network.

Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana

Oct 15-28: Speaking tour - The Femicides of Juarez and Chihuahua, and
border issues, featuring Veronica Leyva, former maquiladora worker and
activist from Ciudad Juarez.

California

Oct 22 - Nov 4: Speaking tour - Immigrant Rights, featuring Nicasio
Martinez, an Ex-Bracero and member of the Asamblea Nacional de Braceros.

Ohio, Michigan

Oct 29 - Nov 11: Speaking tour - Building autonomy in Zapatista
communities, with a discussion of the Sixth Declaration of the Selva
Lacandona in the context of organizing in the US, featuring Cecilia Santiago,
human rights activist from Chiapas.

California

Nov 5-18: Speaking tour - Building autonomy in Zapatista communities,
with a discussion of the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona in
the context of organizing in the US, featuring Gabriela Martinez, a youth
activist in the Other Campaign from Chiapas.

New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan

Nov 26 - Dec 9: Speaking tour - Building autonomy in Zapatista
communities, with a discussion of the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona
in the context of organizing in the US, featuring Francisco Cruz, an
indigenous member of the Red de Defensores Comunitarias (Community Human
Rights Network).

New England

Nov 26 - Dec 9: Speaking tour - Building autonomy in Zapatista
communities, with a discussion of the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona
in the context of organizing in the US, featuring Rosario Aguilar, a
student activist in the Other Campaign from Chiapas.

Washington, Oregon, Vancouver, Idaho, and other parts of Northwest

Alternative Economy Internships - Develop markets for artisanry
produced by women's cooperatives in Chiapas and make public presentations on
the struggle for justice and dignity in Zapatista communities. Interns
are currently active in Fort Collins, OR; Spokane, WA; Alexandria, VA;
Grand Haven, MI; Chico, CA; Sacramento, CA; Stonington, ME; Lancaster,
PA; St Paul, MN; Louisville, KY; San Francisco, CA; Turner, OR; Athens,
GA; Chicago, IL; Philadelphia, PA; Guelph, Canada; Davis, CA; Tempe,
AZ; and Madison, WI.