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Onward,
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Weekend
Edition
November 18 / 19, 2006
Women, Political Parties, Barricades and
Autonomy
Who
Will Live On in the Oaxaca Uprising?
By BARUCHA CALAMITY
PELLER
Oaxaca
Although Governor Ulises Ruiz still
holds office, and federal police forces occupy the Zocalo of
Oaxaca City, the people of Oaxaca have removed the government
in practice. The Mexican federal government calls this practice
"ungovernability", but this state of "ungovernability"-
in which politicians are not recognized, streets are barricaded
in rebellion, and mass media outlets are taken over- is the most
natural answer to the repression that has threatened the survival
of Oaxacans for decades. "Ungovernability", is not
chaos nor is it a break-down of civilized social order, it is
the sanest and healthiest solution for the people of Oaxaca,
because as long as they are not governed they are not repressed.
Being ungoverned by others means being ungoverned by and neo
liberal misery, Oaxacans have began to create a space where
they direct and govern their own lives. The government, while
having the opportunity has failed to make any acceptable political
concessions to the Oaxacan movement, and has therefore even further
demonstrated the realization that is dawning on many parts of
the Mexican landscape- that the ideas, desires, and actions of
people will never be governable.
The question then is- can APPO
continue to realize the same thing?
The Congress-Plans,
Problems, and the Lack of A Process of Gender Analysis Integration
The APPO Congress consisted
of "mesas", exploratory sessions to debate the form
the APPO and its actions will take in the future, the question
of international, national, and state context, and the crisis
of institutions. The ten people in charge of facilitating the
Congress were accused on the second day of having "double
interests" (interests with a political party) and changing
and omitting some proposals that came forth. This came forth
in spite of the fact that decisions were made by over a thousand
people representing different sections of the APPO, and for the
most part decisions were made on a consensus basis.
Throughout the weekend congress
and continuing today is the debate over the participation of
political parties. The APPO does not consider itself a political
party, however, there is much discussion as to what extent the
APPO can have alliances with political parties. Although among
many Mexicans there is culture of distrust of political parties,
and there has certainly been an anti-government and anti-authoritarian
felling in the Oaxacan movement, there has been a disturbing
presence of the PRD party in the previous directive body of the
APPO. The "leftist" PRD party's presidential candidate,
Lopez Obredor, lost the national election this summer to federal
electoral fraud, sparking a social movement of millions of Mexicans
in protest of the fraud and Calderon, the un-democractically
elected president.
As Lopez Obredor said in a
speech Wednesday, "What the directive companeros of the
APPO ask of us-we are here to support them. They will decide
what we can do to help the people of Oaxaca."
During the Congress speakers
often noted that the APPO is an organization open to anyone,
including political parties if they are in favor of APPO demands.
The PRD has many stakes in the Oaxaca movement, because if Governor
Ulises is ousted before December 1st he would lose immunity and
there would be new elections according to the Oaxacan Constitution.
The PRD would surely be elected, since they are the only party
existing beside the ousted PRI is the PAN, the crafters of the
entrance of the PFP. In the meantime, the PAN and the PRI both
desire that Ulises remains in power until the 1st, because that
would grant Ulises the power to appoint a new governor, who would
come from his PRI party.
It was decided that the APPO
directive base, or the "Consejo", will consist of about
220 members, who are representatives from certain regions or
organizations, including students, a spot for "barricades
and neighborhoods" and about forty spots allocated for the
section 22 teachers union. This is a bright change from the
"provisional", leadership, about forty people who
have taken up leadership for months despite that their role would
be only temporary. Out of this forty, thirty will remain in
the Consejo.
During the Congress it was
also decided that the APPO would carry through with marches and
actions in the coming weeks. Some of these actions are aimed
at taking over government offices and institutions throughout
the state. Road blockades are planned, cultural events, as well
as the re-taking of the federal police occupied Zocalo of Oaxaca
City on November 2Oth, the anniversary of the Mexican revolution
and the day of the nation-wide strike called by the Zapatistas.
This is also the day that Obredor's supporters will name him
president.
Up for debate during the mesa
on the crisis of institutions was whether to reform existing
capitalist and government institutions or whether to create new
and autonomous ones. A clear decision has not been reached in
this respect. But a physical battle almost erupted after one
speaker said,
"I consider it important
that the APPO negotiates and occupies decision making spaces
and those of power effectively in institutions; that the APPO
negotiates with the federal government and takes spaces in the
federal government and takes spaces in the state government,
and is not against the search of deep transformation. It is necessary
to analyze the form that the APPO takes in the local legislature,
so that proposals can be solidified and it can participate in
the next electoral process. But there was no consensus in formation
of a political party. This in of itself could be the end of
the social movement."
The APPO seeks to use the wide
range of political strategies to their advantage, and the objective
of the congress was to be inclusive of the politics of the rainbow
of participants. But the congress did not succeed in reaching
a consensus of a general political formation of the APPO, and
in this lack of common agreement is the space in which political
parties, mostly the PRD, seek to inject their interests.
However, there were 473 representatives
from indigenous communities at the Congress, and Oaxaca is the
state with the largest indigenous population in the country.
The indigenous communities in Oaxaca have traditionally organized
within their communities using "usos y costumbres"
and lean towards politics of autonomy, Zapatismo, and Magonismo.
It is highly unlikely that the indigenous bases within the APPO
will take part in reforming government institutions or seek to
participate or gain power in the electoral process. The influence
of ideas rooted in these communities, ideas of community run
direct democracy, have had a big impact in the movement in previous
months and will continue to be a fundamental part of the APPO,
no matter what direction some of the APPO leadership seek to
take.
"We have an urgency that
women enter into descions," says Jessica Sanches Maya, a
member of the Liga "We demand at least 33% participation".
When the time came to vote
for the percentage of women who would regularly participate
as members of the Consejo, it was clear that the APPO had failed
to integrate a gender analysis into their previous political
debates at the mesas. The mesa named "Analysis of the International,
National, and State Context" accomplished a coherent current
class analysis of Mexico, but never discussed patriarchy and
Mexico's long history of oppression of women on a social, economic,
and political scale. It was assumed in the APPO congress that
because women were present and because women's voices haven´t
been directly repressed within the movement, patriarchy was not
a factor that could threaten political decisions in the future
or that was necessary to analyze. The congress also consisted
mostly of male representatives.
Because of this, patriarchy
and a historically based gender analysis was not integrated into
the concept of representation. The vote between whether women
should have at least a 33% representation or a 50% representation
was debated for over an hour. Men who spoke on the side of a
33% representation argued that it would not be possible to have
half of the representatives for each organization, region, or
sector be women, because many had very little or no women participants.
However, the women in the Oaxacan
resistance have had a strong presence, and certainly have taken
the most combative and action orientated roles. The lack of
women participating to the fullest capacity has had bad implications
for the movement. Women had a central role in taking over several
media outlets, including Channel 9 television. The taking of
channel 9 television was extremely prominent; reflected by more
people watching the channel after the takeover by APPO women
than in the history of the channel. At Channel 9 and the radios
that the women took over, they taught themselves and then others
how to use the equipment, and televised or transmitted reports
on the Zapatistas and the spring siege of Atenco, among other
social struggles happening around the country. In this way they
provided a window of information in which Oaxacans could peer
out into the context of their struggle. The liberated media
outlets were also crucial in coordination and communication between
neighborhoods and barricades before and during the PFP invasion.
APPO
and the Barricades-Leaders, Political Parties, and Ungovernable
Will in the Street
There are people in Oaxaca
who will tell you that they are with the resistance to the government,
but that they are not a part of the APPO. Before the entrance
of the federal police, the three thousand barricades that were
constructed around the city were constructed on a neighborhood
basis- it was the neighbors that decided to take action and organize
locally in rebellion. Many of these participants were in fact
members and supporters of APPO, but the APPO simply acted as
a name and an organizational umbrella infrastructure in which
people took part by participating in the assemblies to the extent
that they wanted to. Oaxacans took over the streets with barricades
and organized within their neighborhoods, but these actions did
not necessarily result from an APPO leadership consensus, and
the barricades became phenomena out of the hands of the APPO.
In fact, the barricades have always been the most radical elements
of the movement, not only in their spontaneous and rebellious
form, but in the fact that they have existed outside of the directive
of the APPO. All of the barricades except the Cinco Senores
university barricade were removed when the Federal Preventive
Police entered into Oaxaca City on October 28th. The barricades
have not been reconstructed despite calls to action to do so.
This may be because the dead, missing, and arrested have largely
resulted from repression at the barricades. And after nearly
6 months of the Oaxacan struggle, people may be tired to continue
maintaining barricades. This is compounded with comments by
APPO leaders such as Flavio Sosa, who say the barricades have
no function.
Flavio Sosa, one the most well known faces in the APPO, a man
with many federal warrants on his name for his participation
in the movement and a figure often named as an APPO "leader",
is indeed able to make statements and present himself as a person
favorable to the people of Oaxaca. Sosa will certainly have
a strong voice in APPO in the times to come. However, Sosa was
extremely active in the eighties and nineties within the PRD,
giving those in Oaxaca that do not trust the sincerity of the
PRD's leftist profile a sense of disillusionment with the internal
desires of some the APPO leadership.
This was further compounded
on November 2nd, when the Federal Preventive Forces arrived at
Cinco Senores, the series of barricades surrounding the University
and its APPO run radio, where barricadistas (people who maintain
and defend the barricades in their communities) were readying
themselves for the battle to come, gathering gas masks, slings,
and bazookas.
According to people at the
Soriana barricade, which runs across the streets on one side
of the university entrance, and is a key part of element of the
entire university barricade, Sosa arrived to the barricade and
ordered that they be taken down.
"I was there, I heard
him, and that's exactly what he said, ´the barricades should
be taken down´. And of course with the PFP coming towards
us no one took down the barricades, and we still haven't."
said Maria Guerrero, a barricadista who has spent weeks coordinating
at the barricade.
The seven hour battle between
the PFP and the barricadistas that proceeded the conversation
resulted in an amazing defeat of the police and the successful
defense of the barricades, the occupied university, and most
importantly, the protester radio-which to this day is the last
transmitting APPO radio. The barricade is now referred to as
the Barricade Of Victory. During the battle, in which protesters
caused the retreat of federal preventive police, armed with tear
gas launching helicopters and water tanks, Flavio Sosa stayed
in the safe zone inside the university, and at one point demanded
to be able to say a few things on the radio, but was denied by
the people inside.
Sosa only came out into the
streets when the police retreated and the barricadistas and the
local people were celebrating victory, to stand with them and
claim his part of the victory in front of the neighbors that
had participated in the battle.
"I don't have proof, but
I believe there have been generalized attempts of the APPO leadership
to debilitate the movement, and particularly the barricades,
which have always have remained out of their control. And that's
why you see that the APPO had decided days before November 2nd
that there would not be confrontations with the PFP" says
Guerrero.
Some of anti-authoritarian sectors of the APPO movement seem
to be musing over the possible motives of the APPO leadership
and their connections to the PRD party.
There are two theories to why
the PRD elements in the APPO had a stake in the removal of the
barricades by the Federal Preventive Police, and have urged that
here be little confrontation with police. The first one is that
the "directors" of the APPO´s previous negotiations
with the federal government, which, although failed in many respects,
included opening up avenues and streets for movement in Oaxaca
City. The success of these negotiations might have created
a political opening for the PRD in the sense they had the opportunity
to will the federal government, particularly the Secretary of
Government, Carlos Abazco Carranza, to criticize Ulises Ruiz
and assist in his ousting.
The other theory is that the
PAN wants the movement to end quickly with the approaching d-day
of December 1rst, where the PAN presidential candidate Felipe
Calderon is set to take power amongst tumultuous social upheaval
over the summer elections that were frauded in Calderon's favor.
The winding down of the movement in Oaxaca will provide a somewhat
smoother landing surface for Calderon to take power. Because
the APPO leaders, including spokesperson Flavio Sosa, have serious
federal warrants on their names, it is believed that perhaps
Carranza threatened to make good on the warrants if the movement
continued, or to not follow through with the apprehensions if
the movement backed down in the days leading up to the 1rst .
The leaders asked for asylum in the Catholic Church last week
because of their warrants but were denied. Yet still, Sosa and
other APPO leaders can be seen walking the streets relatively
freely, despite the fact that they are wanted by the federal
government.
The university barricades, Cinco Senores, continues to hold despite
lack of direct backing from APPO. Last week, barricadistas called
in to the university radio behind the barricades saying, "We
don't care what the APPO says, we are not taking down our barricades."
Paramilitary threats continue,
as well as arbitrary detentions of the barricadistas. As striking
teachers returned to work in many parts of the state on Monday,
only some of the students entered the university through the
barricades to meet with teachers, yet there were no classes.
The press took advantage of this to paint an image that the
students were defiantly returning to classes. The mainstream
press is also reporting that the students are not returning to
classes at the university "because the conditions are not
right", referring to the protesters at the barricades and
citing a safety issue. However, people occupying the university
and the barricades to support the radio say that the safety threat
lies in the PRIistas who shoot into the university at night and
attack the radio on an almost daily basis. To strengthen ties
between the barricade and the surrounding community, a cultural
event took place Wednesday night at the Cinco Senores University
Barricades where films of the Oaxacan uprising were projected
onto buses that block the intersection for the neighbors and
barricade defenders.
It is ultimately up to the
people of Oaxaca to decide if they will replace one political
party with another or if they will estrange themselves from all
parties, to what extent they will be governed or how they will
govern themselves, and what tactics they will take to counter
the repression that continues to keep pace with the movement,
as death seeks to outrun freedom.
Last
minute breaking news:
Political assassinations have
become more frequent in Oaxaca in recent days. A 22 year old
Oaxacan, Daniel, who was studying in Chiapas, came to Oaxaca
over the weekend with the caravan of Zapatistas from Las Abejas.
He was kidnapped on Sunday and his body was found on Monday.
Later, when his body was being transported in a vehicle with
his family, police forces in ski masks stopped the car and took
the body, saying that an autopsy must be done. His body has not
appeared in any morgue and the whereabouts of his body is unknown
This morning, a lawyer was shot three times two blocks away
from Santo Domingo plaza, occupied by the APPO since the eviction
of the Zocalo by federal preventive police. It is believed that
assassinations are being carried out one by one to create an
atmosphere of fear and unknowing to repress the Oaxacan social
movement.
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