New U.S. Warnings, Renewed APPO Strategies, and Reinvented State Rhetoric on the Death of Brad Will

On November 15, the U.S. State Department reissued a travel warning for Mexico (effective until January 18, 2007) speaking not only of escalating violence in Oaxaca, but of chances of danger in any part of the country, with new emphasis on Mexico City due in part to the bombings on November 5th (see our blog entry on the bombings below). However general and sweepingly devastating it may be for Mexican tourism, the warning nevertheless recognizes the concurrent political unrest of both the Oaxaca situation and the political actions intended by many citizens, led by lawmakers and activists, to impede president-elect Felipe Calderón’s inauguration on December 1st.

How the federal government and its armed forces will respond to the increasingly nationalized political pressure and social tension remains unknown. The state government of Oaxaca, however, continues its line of self-legitimization and anti-APPO rhetoric. Oaxaca Attorney General Lizbeth Caña recently argued that U.S. reporter Bradley Will (killed October 27) may have been shot at pointblank range by persons at the barricades who were participating in a premeditated plot that was intended to internationalize attention on the popular movement. Caña’s claim comes despite the existence of clear video footage of armed gunmen, some of whom have been identified as plainclothes municipal authorities, firing in Will’s general direction.

Yesterday in Oaxaca, ongoing tensions were manifest as a large march of APPO supporters once again faced off with the Federal Preventative Police (FPP) in the city center. The FPP, confronted by protest chants demanding their departure, began to hurl stones at the crowd; when the protesters responded in kind, the police stones turned to tear gas canisters. The number of injured persons is unknown.

At the same time, in order to show that the government has been rendered ineffective, thousands of APPO supporters and members of the Section-22 teachers’ union attempted to impede governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz’s annual ceremonial delivery of his state report to the legislature. Protestors used the context of the event to demand both the governor’s resignation and the federal government’s removal of the FPP. Ruiz did not deliver the document or its corresponding address in person.

These protests and altercations come directly after the completion of the APPO’s statewide congress, in which the leadership decided not to reinitiate the thus far failed negotiations with the federal government and instead to reestablish barricades and “moving brigades” to take control of and shut down state buildings and offices. A major component of the strategy in the coming days includes the creation of a “human fence” around the city center to isolate the FPP, with the intended result being their forced de-occupation of the city.