Mexico Week In Review: 06.05-06.11

[cisdc]

Mexico Week In Review: 06.05-06.11
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Published since 1994, 'Mexico Week In Review' is a service of the
Committee of Indigenous Solidarity (CIS).  CIS is a Washington, D.C.
based activist group committed to the ongoing struggles of Indigenous
peoples in the Americas.  CIS is actively supporting the struggles
of the Indigenous peoples of Mexico while simultaneously combating
related structures of oppression within our own communities.

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directly, write: cisdc at zzapp.org

"Para Todos, Todo; Para Nosotros Nada"
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OAXACA TEACHERS ON STRIKE

Some 50,000 to 80,000 teachers and their supporters marched on June 2 
in Oaxaca, capital of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, in one of 
the largest demonstrations in the state's history. The 70,000 
teachers in Section 22 of the National Education Workers Union (SNTE) 
went on strike on May 22 and started a sit-in in front of the old 
Palace of Government in the capital, along with blockades affecting 
56 streets in the Historic Center. Their demands center on a 
cost-of-living adjustment to their salaries and more resources for 
education and for building schools.

Students, parents and local social movements joined in the June 2 
"Teacher-Popular Mega-March," which stretched from the Fuente de Las 
Siete Regiones to the site of the concluding rally, the Plaza de la 
Danza, at a distance of about five kilometers. The social movements 
were protesting repression by the government of Gov. Ulises Ruiz 
Ortiz, of the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI); they 
charge that the state has at least 40 political prisoners, held since 
2004, from municipalities including Santiago Xanica, San Juan Lalana 
and San Blas Atempa. "Governor, listen to my teacher," the marchers 
chanted, along with: "A teacher in struggle is also teaching," and 
"Like it or not, Ulises is on his way out."

Gov. Ruiz Ortiz says the state can't offer more than an increase of 
60 million pesos, since cost of living increases are the 
responsibility of the federal government. Local businesses are 
demanding an end to the teachers' sit-in, and on June 3 Ruiz Ortiz 
threatened the teachers with fines and firings if they didn't return 
to the classrooms by June 5. As of June 3 there were unconfirmed 
reports that the Mexican government had sent 1,500 agents from the 
Federal Preventive Police (PFP) to remove the teachers; the PFP force 
was reportedly encamped in Tlacolula de Matamoros, 30 kilometers from 
the state capital. [La Jornada (Mexico) 6/3/06, 6/4/06]

Source: Weekly News Update- Nicaragua Solidarity Network Of Greater 
New York: 06/04
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ELECTION UPDATE: MEXICO DIVIDED AS EVER AFTER TV DEBATE

Communist flag-waving, a combative television debate and a shooting 
have turned up the heat in a nasty presidential campaign that has 
polarized Mexican politics but failed so far to point to a clear 
winner. The two main candidates in the race to replace President 
Vicente Fox on July 2 are in a dead heat in opinion polls and a live 
debate on Tuesday (06/06) night appeared to do little to change that. 
Many newspapers on Wednesday declared Felipe Calderon the winner of 
the face-to-face contest with leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. 
But the latter scored points for keeping his famous temper under 
control and sticking to the line that his plans to help Mexico's 
millions of poor are nothing radical.

Some 10,000 of Lopez Obrador's supporters who gathered in the 
capital's main square or Zocalo to watch the debate on two big 
screens hurled insults and jeers whenever Calderon spoke. Analysts 
were divided over who had won the debate. Calderon, a former energy 
minister, frequently called his rival a liar and said: "The project 
you represent is a danger to Mexico because of the threat of debt and 
economic crisis." Third-placed candidate Roberto Madrazo told Reuters 
on Wednesday the mud slinging was getting out of hand. "I am very 
worried about the polarization that has happened in the electoral 
race. It's very regrettable that an intolerant, radical right that is 
inexpert in matters of state is taking on a very violent left."

Fears of a return to the endemic political violence of the mid-1990s 
were rekindled on Tuesday when gunmen shot at the family of a jailed 
businessman who had threatened to release videos damaging to Lopez 
Obrador. No one was injured. Lopez Obrador commands fierce loyalty 
from supporters, as well as fear among the rich who call him a 
populist who will ruin Mexico's economy. "He's the one who 
understands the poor. There's no reason for Mexico to have such 
poverty," follower Joel Iniesta, 68, said in the Zocalo.

Mexican stocks fell by 2.05 percent on Wednesday, hurt by election 
uncertainty and higher U.S. interest rates. Party leaders met at a 
luxury hotel to discuss forging a "civility pact" between them to 
allay tensions. "It's going to be very useful if we reach an 
agreement between the parties. I know the party leaderships are 
working on that, which pleases me," Calderon said. Electoral 
authorities have had to ban libelous television spots by the two 
front-runners. Aggressive ads by Calderon, like one comparing Lopez 
Obrador to populist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, prompted the 
leftist to respond with harsh rhetoric.

Source: Reuters: 06/07
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BORDER NEWS: MEXICO HOPES RESERVE WILL SLOW CROSSINGS

Mexico is creating an environmental reserve about 30 feet wide and 
600 miles long on the Texas border, a "green wall" to protect the Rio 
Grande from the roads and staging areas that smugglers use to ferry 
drugs and migrants across the frontier. Much of this border zone is 
remote and inhospitable - generally too rough to hike through unless 
you're a black bear or a pronghorn sheep, species that have 
flourished in the area's deserts and mountains. And that's the way 
Mexico wants to keep it.

While the proposed Rio Bravo del Norte Natural Monument is only about 
30 feet wide, it will connect two large protected areas south of the 
river. When a third nature reserve, known as Ocampo, is created this 
year, the protected areas in Mexico will form a "wall" of millions of 
acres of wilderness, matching Texas' Big Bend parks foot-by-foot 
along the border. "This stretch of border is the safest one we have. 
It's safe because it has wilderness on both sides," said Carlos 
Manterrola, who heads the environmental group Unidos Para la 
Conservacion.

Big Bend National Park has had some problems with migrant and drug 
trafficking, but superintendent John King says extending protected 
areas on either side of the border will likely keep the problem from 
getting worse. "When you have a roadless area, you make it more 
difficult for these activities to happen," King said. The strip 
protects a much longer stretch of riverbank, from just downstream of 
the Texas border town of Presidio to the outskirts of Laredo, Texas, 
raising the possibility of still larger reserves that will serve as 
biological corridors, encouraging four-footed traffic but making it 
exceedingly difficult for humans to pass. In other border areas where 
U.S. reserves aren't fully matched in Mexico - such as Arizona's 
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument - primitive roads and ramshackle 
hamlets have sprung up on the Mexican side to provide supplies and 
staging areas to illegal border crossers. They have then overrun U.S. 
wilderness areas.

As the U.S. puts up more fencing near cities and popular crossing 
zones, migrants will likely be looking for new routes in remote 
areas. That happened with the Mexican hamlet of Las Chepas, which 
became a hub for undocumented border crossers. The problem got so bad 
that Mexican authorities - at the urging of New Mexico Gov. Bill 
Richardson - bulldozed 31 buildings to discourage them from being 
used as a smuggling haven. Now, Mexico is working on yet another 
"mirror" border reserve, to be announced this summer in an area known 
as the Janos grasslands, roughly west of Las Chepas and across from 
the Alamo Hueco Mountains and Big Hatchet Mountains Wilderness areas 
in New Mexico's boot heel region.

Law enforcement is a problem at many Mexican parks, but if well 
policed, the 1.2 million acres of the proposed Janos wilderness area 
could not only protect one of the largest prairie dog populations in 
North America, but also present a natural barrier to smugglers moving 
deeper into the wild as border security tightens. Mexican ranchers 
and environmentalists applauded the Rio Bravo del Norte proposal, 
which was published Monday, starting a 30-day comment period. Along 
with the Ocampo wilderness, it will protect several pine- and 
oak-clad mountains often described as "sky islands," temperate 
mountaintop enclaves divided by seas of heat-seared desert or 
grassland. "This would close the circle," said Jesus Armando 
Verduzco, a 73-year-old ranch owner from Ocampo. "Perhaps later, we 
could do a bit of hunting, eco-tourism, preserve it for humanity."

Some environmentalists say this policy of establishing nature 
preserves along the border could be a more effective alternative to 
the walls and "smart" fences being pondered in Congress. "The whole 
idea that people are coming up through wilderness and roadless areas, 
and that's simply not the case," said David Hodges, policy director 
of the Sky Island Alliance. "People have a tendency to stay near 
roads, because they don't get lost and that's where they get picked 
up. ... It would be disastrous to put roads through these areas."

Source: Associated Press: 06/05
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MINERS EXTEND CANANEA COPPER STRIKE

Miners have voted to extend a four-day strike at Mexico's giant 
Cananea copper mine until an ousted union leader accused by the 
government of corruption is reinstated, the miners' union said. The 
strike began when the union said owners Grupo Mexico insisted miners 
work on June 1, the 100th anniversary of Mexico's first mine strike. 
The union said after the vote the stoppage would now go on 
indefinitely until ex-leader Napoleon Gomez, toppled as head of the 
national union earlier this year, gets his job back.

The government and some workers accuse Gomez of skimming millions of 
dollars of union funds into private bank accounts. But some union 
members say the government of orchestrated Gomez's removal from the 
union leadership in February and replaced him with a 
government-friendly boss.

"The Attorney General's office is giving false information, accusing 
Gomez Urrutia of serious crimes that might dishonor him and isolate 
him from the worker base, something which will never happen," the 
union said in a statement. "The decision of Mexico's miners, 
metalworkers and steelworkers is clear and final," said the union. 
"Napoleon Gomez Urrutia is their general secretary." Gomez, who is in 
hiding, denied last week reports by Mexico's official news agency 
Notimex that he had requested political asylum in Canada.

Source: Reuters: 06/04
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ONE KILLED AND DOZENS INJURED IN LAND DISPUTE

One man was killed and dozens were injured when hundreds of peasant 
farmers clashed with fists, machetes and guns because of a land 
dispute in Central Mexico, authorities said. The fight broke out in 
the mid afternoon between residents of San Juan Tetla and San 
Agustin, two villages at the foot of the Popocatepetl volcano, about 
100 km (60 miles) to the east of Mexico City. Both villages claim 
ownership over a nearby piece of woodland, said officials from the 
state government of Puebla, where the volcano in located. Hundreds of 
state and federal police swept the area, officials said. However, 
armed gangs of farmers were still roaming around the nearby 
countryside as night fell. Many of the injured, some who were in 
serious condition, were taken to a local hospital for treatment.

Source: Associated Press: 06/02

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The above articles were originally published and copyrighted by the 
listed sources. These articles are offered for educational purposes 
which CIS maintains is  'fair use' of copyrighted material as 
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.

end: Mexico Week In Review: 06.05-06.11
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