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The Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca: A Chronicle of Radical DemocracyAuthor(s): Gustavo Esteva, Mariana Ortega Breña, Jan Rus, James LeragerReviewed work(s):Source: Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 34, No. 1, The Crisis of U.S. Hegemony in theTwenty-First Century (Jan., 2007), pp. 129-144Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27648002 .Accessed: 22/12/2011 02:22

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Commentary

The Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca

A Chronicle of Radical Democracy by

Qustavo Esteva Translated and edited by

Mariana Ortega Bre?a and Jan Rus

Photographs coordinated by James Lerager

The Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca?APPO) grew out of the violent repression of a teachers

' strike in Oaxaca

during the late spring of 2006. This chronicle is a description from inside, by a partici

pant, of APPO's process of decision making and increasingly popular representation of

citizens' discontent with federal and Oaxacan state authorities during the critical months

from August 2006 to the violent confrontations with federal police and the military in late October and early November 2006.

Keywords: Oaxaca 2006 rebellion, autonomy movements, radical democracy, social

movements, mexican politics

While Latin American Perspectives' commentaries are typically engaged, even polemical

analyses of events and conditions in Latin America, the following pages on the popular movement in Oaxaca, Mexico, since the spring of 2006 are unusual for both their degree of engagement and their immediacy. Gustavo Esteva is not only a close observer of Oaxaca

but a long-time participant in the struggle for social justice and democracy in the state, an

insider. When the Latin American Perspectives collective asked him in late October to write

a short analysis of the popular movement for this issue, he readily agreed but explained that

he was still immersed "hasta el cuello" in the rapidly moving events of those days. In fact, the federal police attack on the movement on October 28 and the confrontations that fol

lowed came while we were editing these pages with him, and Gustavo was immediately drawn into APPO's attempts to head off further violence.

Given the shortness of our original deadline and his own commitments, what Gustavo

offered us was his collected dispatches to the Mexico City daily La Jornada for the last several months and the contents of a running letter he has been circulating to English

speaking friends. From these materials, LAP has with his assistance composed the fol

lowing "cr?nica." More than a description of events, the entries convey a sense of the

on-going discussions inside of the movement?discussions in which the author took

part?about consensual decision making, negotiations with the state, nonviolence, and

Gustavo Esteva is an activist intellectual in rural Oaxaca, Mexico, currently affiliated with the Universidad

de la Tierra and the Centro de Encuentros y Di?logos Interculturales (CED?) in Oaxaca City. An adviser

of the Zapatistas at the San Andr?s Dialog, he also participated in the ground-breaking revision of

Oaxaca's state constitution in 1995 to grant indigenous autonomy. Mariana Ortega Bre?a is a freelance

editor and translator based in Ithaca, NY. She specializes in academic writing, particularly in the human

ities and social sciences. Jan Rus is Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives. James

Lerager is Consulting Photographer to Latin American Perspectives.

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 152, Vol. 34 No. 1, January 2007 129-144 DOI: 10.1177/0094582X06297615 ? 2007 Latin American Perspectives

129

130 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

the movement's hopes for Oaxaca's?and Mexico's?future. APPO and the current

movement in Oaxaca have been likened by some to the Paris Commune, and if this is so,

this chronicle perhaps represents a first draft of its history.

Photographer James Lerager spent several days on the street in Oaxaca in July 2006, and we are grateful both for the use of his photos and for his help in preparing photos provided by APPO (figs. 1-5 ? James Lerager 2006). Further photos, as well as com

muniqu?s from APPO (figs. 6-8) and dispatches from Gustavo Esteva and others can be found at oaxacalibre.org.

For almost two years, the people of Oaxaca have been in increasing turmoil. The

immediate cause has been the corrupt and authoritarian administration of the state's

Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) governor, Ulises Ruiz, who took office after a

fraudulent election in December 2004. But as the Oaxaque?os have resisted Ruiz, espe

cially these last five months, deeper struggles have come to the surface and begun to find

expression. It is a process of awakening, organization, and radicalization that merits

review. On May 22 the teachers' union, with 70,000 members throughout the state, began a sit-in in the main plaza of Oaxaca City to dramatize their economic plight. Most urban

Oaxacans reacted with a mixture of indifference and annoyance to the sit-in and the

blockade of some streets. Such demonstrations regularly accompany teachers' strikes and

always produce some additional perks for the leaders of the union and for the teachers but at the price of disrupting the life in the city for weeks or months. People were also more

than a little annoyed because the teachers had abandoned their schools and many families

did not know what to do with their children.

But then on June 14 the governor ordered a violent repression of the sit-in, including

bombing the teachers with tear gas cannisters thrown from a helicopter, many of which also fell on private houses and offices. This episode changed the nature of the movement,

unifying large numbers of Oaxacans with their own reasons for opposing Ruiz's misrule.

Overnight ?Fuera Ulises! (Out with Ulises!) became the popular slogan in Oaxaca's

neighborhoods and streets. The teachers' union, seeing this response, attempted to draw

these social forces together in support for their movement, convening what they called a

Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de

Oaxaca?APPO). Hundreds of social and grassroots organizations joined immediately, and radical groups within the teachers' union quickly inverted the relationship between the union and APPO, essentially subordinating the leadership of the union to the popu lar assembly. Since June 20, the complex and heterogeneous body APPO has been lead

ing the uprising and organizing meetings and marches, one of which drew a million

people, almost a third of the population of the state.

The process of coalescing this movement and making collective decisions has been

complex, with many impressive episodes. Despite the intervention of the federal

police (just before this issue of Latin American Perspectives went to press) the strug

gle continues, more energized than ever. Rather than a summary or overall analysis of the movement, the following pages, which consist of running observations and reflec

tions from late August through early November, attempt to catch the movement on the

fly, still developing and learning its strength.

AUGUST 1: THE REVOLUTION WILL BE TELEVISED

Confronted with the government's use of the media against the movement, several

thousand women from APPO peacefully occupied the studios of the state radio and

Esteva / RADICAL DEMOCRACY IN OAXACA 131

Figure 1. University students marching in the Oaxaca Z?calo.

television network. Through its outlets in Oaxaca, the network had continually been used by Governor Ruiz for propaganda against the movement. Now instead the occu

piers disseminated the ideas, proposals, and initiatives of APPO as well as opened both radio and television for members of the public to express their own opinions 24 hours a day. Despite every imaginable technical difficulty (the women occupying the network had no previous training for this), thousands who called the stations made it onto the air. Eventually, a group of undercover police and mercenaries invaded the

facilities, shooting up and destroying the equipment and injuring some of the APPO "broadcasters." In reaction, a few hours later APPO occupied all private radio and TV outlets in the city. Instead of one, APPO suddenly had 12 options to disseminate information about the movement...and to give voice to the people. A few days later

they gave the stations back to their owners, keeping only one powerful enough to cover the whole state. Although it must be said that the station was not under the con

trol of APPO per se but of some of its radical components, it continued to broadcast information about the movement 24 hours a day until it was jammed at the end of

October. Since then, Radio Universidad (also under attack by paramilitaries) and other community radios have successfully continued to disseminate information about the movement.

AUGUST 22: CIVIL DEFENSE

After several initial skirmishes, state and city police apparently refused to obey the

governor's demand to repress their fellow citizens, forcing Ruiz to keep the police in its barracks. As a result, from June until the end of October, no police, not even traf fic police, were seen in the city. Instead, APPO, which had first organized to defend


Figure 2. More than 10,000 teachers and supporters have slept in the streets for months.

itself against the state, has continued sit-ins around the clock in front of all of

Oaxaca's city public buildings, as well as in all the private radio and television sta

tions and the public station in its hands. (The governor and all his officials, mean

while, have been reduced to meeting secretly in hotels and private homes; none dare come to work.) One night, a convoy of 35 SUVs, with undercover agents and merce

naries, drove by the sit-ins and began shooting. They were not aiming at the people but trying to intimidate them. APPO reported the situation instantaneously on its radio stations, and within minutes people started organizing barricades to impede the

convoy. In one place, they were able to close the street with a truck and actually trap one of the SUVs and all its occupants, who escaped. The vehicle, with its official

insignia on the doors, was parked as an exhibit in Oaxaca's central plaza. Unfortu

nately, in another street a bystander was killed when the attackers started shooting. As a result, every night at 11 p.m. more than a thousand barricades close the streets

around the sit-ins and at critical crossroads, to be opened again at 6 a.m. to facilitate circulation.

In spite of the guerrilla attacks of the police, a human rights organization reported that in the last months there was less violence in Oaxaca (dead, injured) than in any other similar period in the past 10 years.

AUGUST 29: A FORETASTE AND A THREAT

For Oaxacans, and for Mexicans generally, Oaxaca has come to represent both a

foretaste and a threat. The source of this ambivalence, in part, is the present polariza tion of social classes and sectors nationally. But there is something deeper and even

more general going on. What is being built in Oaxaca, many feel, anticipates our future


LA DEMANDA

Figure 3. Poster against Governor Ulises Ruiz and the PRI plastered to the the pillars of the

Governor's Palace.

and carries a great burden of hope. But for the very same reasons, certain sectors of the current power structure feel threatened by a movement they are unable to stop and are

willing to use violence against those leading the transformation. The present movement is the product of a slow accumulation of forces and many

lessons gathered during previous struggles. In particular, three different democratic

struggles have converged in the single one being waged by APPO. The first joins together those who wish to strengthen formal democracy, whose weaknesses are well known in Oaxaca. People are tired of fraud and manipulation, and those who wish to

rely on the electoral system want it to be clean and efficient. The second consists of those who want a more participatory democracy. Besides transparency and honesty they want more civil involvement in the workings of government through the use of

popular initiatives, referendums, plebiscites, the right to recall elected leaders, partici pative budgeting, and other such tools. The third includes a surprisingly large number of individuals and groups that desire to extend and deepen autonomous or radical

democracy in accordance with political conceptions that have their own unique sources.

Four of five municipalities in Oaxaca have their own particular, autonomous forms of


Figure 4. Banners, graffiti, and Ulises Ruiz-caricature throwing a tear gas canister from a "heli

copter," all mounted on the bandstand in Oaxaca's Z?calo.

government, following indigenous traditions that date to the colonial period. Although this autonomy has been legally recognized by Oaxaca's state law since 1995, it contin ues to be the subject of pressure and harassment. What the advocates of autonomous

and radical democracy hope to do under the present circumstances is invert this strug

gle: to pressure and harass the state and federal governments, to subject them to civil

ian surveillance and control. The ultimate goal is to swing from community and

municipal autonomy to an autonomous coordination of groups of municipalities, from

there to regions, and eventually to an autonomous form of government for the entire state. While this is an appeal to both the sociological and political imaginations, it is

also firmly based on historical experience with autonomous self-government, both

legally and in practice. Nor are the people of Oaxaca waiting for the inevitable depar ture of Ulises Ruiz to put these ideas into action; there are already many APPOs oper

ating around the state on community, neighborhood, municipal, and regional levels.

Although the Mexican senate continues to disregard the fact, Oaxaca has already abolished its old, badly constituted government. Properly speaking, however, given APPO's surprising organizational capacities, there has been no "crisis of governabil ity" in the state. A few days ago, a violent brawl erupted during a private party in the

Alem?n neighborhood of Oaxaca. A half-drunk couple stumbled out onto the street.

"We should call the police," he said. "Don't be an ass," she said, "there is no police." "True," he answered, scratching his head; "let's call APPO."

SEPTEMBER 11: WHEN POWER FADES

Political power is a relationship, not a thing. This relationship presupposes trust and


Figure 5. Strikers and supporters took command of most of Oaxaca's radio and television stations.

credibility and concerns the whole body of government. C. P. Snow once asked Mao what conditions governing required. "A popular army, enough food, and people's trust in the government," Mao replied. "And if you only had one of those three things, which one would you choose?" Snow asked. "I can do without an army. People can

manage hunger for a time. But without their trust there's no government." In Mexico, political power is fading because an abusive and ultimately self

destructive political class has so misused people's trust that they have withdrawn it. It is a political class that over the past 25 years has systematically dissolved the state

apparatus and its corresponding functions, either openly, as in the case of CONA SUPO (Compa??a Nacional de Subsistencias Populares, the state agency in charge of regulating the market of basic staples), or surreptitiously, as in the case of PEMEX (Petr?leos Mexicanos, the national oil company). When told he couldn't sell PEMEX, President Fox instead sought to bankrupt it. Although he failed in that as well, he did manage to get farther than anyone could have expected. This year PEMEX attained a double record: the highest income ever and the lowest percent age of investment. In a time of record high oil prices, the company is being crushed

by debt. The decisions of the Supreme Federal Electoral Court (Tribunal Federal Electoral?

TRIFE), first regarding the gubernatorial election in Oaxaca and then regarding the 2006 presidential election, also deserve a place in the museum of mis-government. In both cases it documented a high degree of irregularities. In the first, it refused to inter vene in the process that illegitimately crowned Ulises Ruiz as Oaxaca's governor. In the second, it had to put itself through contortions to get around the contradiction between recognizing multiple irregularities that should have nullified the results and then confirming those same results.

The fading of political power always kindles the threat of repression. There are


Figure 6. Federal Preventive Police (PFP) entering Oaxaca, backed by water-cannon attack vehicles.

always amateur politicians who believe that their power and position can be saved or

restored through violence. In response, APPO has wisely refrained from attempting to

seize power and has kept as close as possible to the political traditions of Oaxaca's

indigenous communities. Rather than climbing into the empty chairs of those who

abused power, it seeks to establish new types of relationships between the people and

those currently coordinating their collective endeavors, to strengthen the social net

works of Oaxacans and reinforce their dignity and autonomy. In place of the failed

model of seizing power, the proclamations of good government of APPO represent an

appeal to free men and women who, with extraordinary courage, a healthy dose of common sense?the sense you get in a community?and surprising ingenuity are

attempting to rebuild society from the bottom up and create a new set of social rela

tions. As the Zapatistas put it, to change the world is very difficult, if not impossible. A more pragmatic attitude demands the construction of a new world. Today, that's

what Oaxacans are trying to do.

SEPTEMBER 21

Seeking a peaceful resolution to the impasse between APPO and Ulises Ruiz,

5,000 Oaxacans set out on foot for Mexico City to present Oaxaca's claims to the

incoming federal senate, which has the power to resolve the impasse by declaring the state "without a government" and appointing an interim governor. Unfortu

nately, the PRI and PAN members who constituted the majority of the previous sen

ate, who had just left office on September 1, had rejected all previous petitions

through the spring and summer to avoid interfering with their parties' campaigns for the July 2 presidential elections. After the elections, this inaction continued:

given the uncertainty about how a governing coalition would be assembled in the

fall, both the PRI and the Partido de Acci?n Nacional (PAN) expressed their full

support of the governor and refused to oust him. Oaxaca was thus reduced to just another piece in the complex negotiation between PRI and PAN. Among the diffi


Figure 7. Federal Preventive Police officer arresting youth.

culties of such negotiation is that after its humiliating defeat in the presidential elections, the PRI was and remains in full disarray: there is no person or group able

to organize a serious negotiation. Meanwhile, in the last week of September the teachers' union organized a massive

consultation with its members. There was universal consensus to continue the move

ment until Ulises was removed, with a solid majority also agreeing not to return to

classes (although many teachers also thought it would be good to continue the strike

but open the schools because many parents and communities that support the move

ment have no other way to care for their children).

SEPTEMBER 25: THE MOMENT OF CHANGE

One of the most important lessons the people of Oaxaca have learned during their

struggle concerns the media. The brave women who took over the state's communica

tions system grew tired of watching the contradictions between their real-life experi ences and the stories being reported by the media. The latter's credibility was completely shattered.

We Mexicans have an ambivalent relationship with the bureaucratic institutions that

embody the government and express our leaders' political power. We don't regard them as sacrosanct and accept them only as the formal basis of our coexistence with

each other. Paradoxically, however, the corrupt leaders who control these institutions

have now almost succeeded in dismantling them. Some were driven by market funda

mentalism, others by financial greed and their desire for political power. While their acts often shock us, enrage us, and even lead some of us to a kind of paralysis, some

times they serve to awaken autonomous action among the people. As Marx wrote in a letter to Ruge, "what we have to do is undertake a critique of

everything that is established, and to criticize without mercy, fearing neither the con


Figure 8. Mass protest march against Ulises Ruiz and federal government police intervention,

Oaxaca, Sunday, November 5, 2006.

elusions we reach nor our clash with the existing powers." This is all the more pertinent when those powers opt for violence in an attempt to solve conflicts they are incapable of resolving pacifically and democratically, as in the current impasse in Oaxaca. In an

astounding act of cynicism, leaders of both President Fox's PAN and PRI, as well as

members of Congress, demanded the use of public force "to restore order" in Oaxaca.

Although it is in the nature of these leaders to rely on violence when they have lost the

people's trust and can no longer conduct affairs in a civil manner, and although under

present circumstances the use of force will undoubtedly cause great harm, it won't

restore their power. They will have bloodied their hands in vain, for the people of

Oaxaca will not back down under this threat. Indeed, if it ever comes to official vio

lence, they will face it with the same peaceful disposition they have shown so far. And

between the politicians and the people of Oaxaca, other Mexicans will undoubtedly side with the Oaxacans. In our struggle, they see a sort of mirror in which they can

glimpse the future of their own battles to rescue Mexico.

SEPTEMBER 21-OCTOBER 8

The march that started on September 21 gathered massive support in the states it

crossed before reaching Mexico City on October 8. With thousands of citizens and


many organizations supporting them, the exhausted marchers established a sit-in near

the Senate. While this was happening, on October 4 the Minister of the Interior convened a

meeting in Mexico City of one hundred prominent Oaxacans, most of them from the

political class but also including a few well-known personalities like the painter Francisco Toledo. The minister's goal was to get everyone to sign a social pact agree

ing to an end to confrontation. Of those convoked, three renowned indigenous leaders, two famous intellectuals, and Toledo abandoned the meeting as soon as it started,

declaring to the press that the people of Oaxaca themselves were not represented? there being, for example, no real representation of the two-thirds of the state who are

indigenous. [Editor's note: Although he does not say it here, Esteva was one of those who walked out of this meeting.] Many of those remaining in the meeting, close allies of Ulises Ruiz, explicitly demanded the repression of APPO. Unable to fulfill its func tion of diffusing the federal government's responsibility, the meeting broke up. No

pact was signed, and a second meeting scheduled for October 11 was cancelled.

Meanwhile, for weeks the sit-ins and the barricades back in Oaxaca were attacked

during the night by paramilitaries.

OCTOBER 9: WAYS OUT OF THE BLIND ALLEY

The temptation to impose the federal government's will in Oaxaca by force persists, and violence remains a constant threat. After the Ministry of the Interior's failed meet

ing on October 4, those political and financial elites who favor repression continue to

demand a restitution of power and respect for those institutions they themselves have been

undermining. They were neither able nor wanted to understand what was happening. Unfortunately for them, to use force in Oaxaca would announce to the world how

low they are willing to go to protect themselves?or in this case, one of themselves, the governor of Oaxaca?from the people, no matter how great his corruption or how

many his abuses. "Protego, ergo obligo" has become the "Cogito, ergo sum" of the modern state. Since Hobbes, political theory has been based upon the notion that the state must teach its citizens that there is a contract by which the state provides them with institutional protection in exchange for civil obedience. Under present circum

stances, trying to teach this lesson to the people of Oaxaca would be worse than a

crime, it would be a serious mistake. Not only would it set the state on fire but it could lead to years of violent backlash. Instead of resulting in submission and compliance, it would turn the insurrection into a full-blown rebellion.

There is, however, hope. Oaxaca's reserves of political wisdom have yet to be exhausted and, despite pressure from violent groups, a catastrophe can still be avoided. A sensible dialogue of Oaxacans talking to each other in Oaxaca is just beginning, the actors attempting to weave a consensus that can serve both as a protective shield against institutional violence and a democratic tool for a much needed transformation.

OCTOBER 10-19

On October 10 the Senate finally decided "to study" the case of Oaxaca. On the 19, the senators produced an oxymoron as their conclusion: given the condition of the state? the fact that its government was no longer functioning?they explicitly recognized that a


"desaparici?n de poderes" ["disappearance of government," the formal phrase for abol

ishing a state government] should be declared and the governor ousted. But they refused to take that final step in the name of obscure judicial formalities. After this shameful doc ument (no one dared to defend the psychopathic governor), on October 29 the Senate

joined the Chamber of Representatives in a "petition" to the governor to please resign? to which the governor immediately responded with an appeal to the Supreme Court and

accused the Congress of abusing its power! He would, he declared, never resign. Back in Oaxaca, the group that had walked out of the meeting with the Minister of

the Interior joined with organizations representing all sectors of Oaxacan society to convene a Dialogue for Oaxaca. The first meeting, on October 12, was opened with

great success by an indigenous ritual. Despite the threats of violence from outside, the

people of Oaxaca had come together to create an open, democratic space in which to

articulate the hopes of civil society and organize a political transition.

Through all of this, investors and businessmen, particularly at the national level,

steadily increased their pressure on President Fox and the federal government to

"solve" the problem?meaning to send federal forces to Oaxaca.

Meanwhile, with no end to the crisis in sight, outside the Senate building in Mexico

City on October 15, 25 of the marchers started a hunger strike. Assuming that politi cal fasting is an appeal to the morality of the adversary and considering that the gov ernor, the federal government, and the Senate were showing no morality at all, APPO

and many members of the civil society asked them to stop the strike, which they did

after 21 days.

OCTOBER 23: STANDING VIGIL

"They're trying to force us to govern, but it's a provocation we're not going to fall for" ("Nos quieren obligar a gobernar. No caeremos en esa provocaci?n"). This subtle bit of graffiti on a wall in Oaxaca reveals the nature of the present movement. It seeks not to take over the current power structure but to reorganize the whole of society from

deep inside and establish new foundations for our social life together. On October 12, during an open dialogue inaugurating a new kind of collective

reflection to generate consensual decisions, a businessman addressed his colleagues in

wonderfully lucid terms: "We have been asked to endorse the use of public force,

ostensibly to reestablish the rule of law. Yet we know that, on many an occasion, the rule of law has been disrupted in much more serious ways by the government itself. It's as if all excesses are sanctioned in Oaxaca?except for speaking against negli gence and injustice!" Pro-Oax, a prestigious NGO, immediately validated this argu ment by pointing out that Oaxaca has never had "the rule of law," that it has always been undermined by the very authorities who were supposed to maintain it.

Unfortunately, the businessman's hope that PRI would step back from "the fasci

nating process of destroying itself to defend one of its worst political cadres" was not

fulfilled. Instead, PRI tainted PAN with its senselessness. In spite of continual offenses and in spite of the "disgovernment" of the constituted

authorities, Oaxacans have continued to appeal to the national institutions, which in turn shut their doors, fail to fulfill their moral and political obligations, and destroy their own authority. How are the people expected to react?

Everyone knows what's coming. As the situation grows tenser, Oaxaca fills up with

policemen and soldiers in civilian clothes. They're here to "rescue" Oaxaca?that is,


to snatch it from its people if so ordered. Government officials daily reiterate that they consider this a real option.

This kind of irresponsible arrogance, in turn, has nurtured resentment among the

impatient youth, stoking their political passion with heroic rancor. As the weeks wore

on, one young man wrote on a banner "Fucking government! They won't even deliver

their war!" Let this serve as a premonition of the bloodbath that would ensue if the

government tried, as our irresponsible president announced, to impose a "peaceful

occupation" of Oaxaca.

For Gandhi, nonviolence was the greatest virtue and cowardice the worst vice. Non

violence, he added, was for the strong, while the weak had no choice but to use vio

lence in order to avoid cowardice. Unfortunately, it is hard to explain to the young of

Oaxaca that they are the strong ones, that the weak are those in the political class whose use of violence only hastens their self-destruction. We must not allow ourselves to be

provoked by them, to answer violence with violence, since this will only feed the fire.

Last Wednesday the local PRI leader announced that his party was putting together

"grupos de choque," hit-squads of vigilantes. Meanwhile, the dialogue among Oaxaca's men and women continues. Given the

complexity of the challenges and the huge diversity of our cultures, this has never been

easy. Perhaps this explains why one of the documents being circulated includes a

quote by Bertolt Brecht: "Above all, we should learn to agree. There are many who

say 'yes' but deep down are not in agreement. Others are never asked for their opin ion, and many are in agreement when there is no need for them to be. That is the rea

son why learning to agree is important."

OCTOBER 24-29

During the third week of October, there were great advances both in the dialogue among the people of Oaxaca and in the negotiations with the federal government. The

teachers' union finally agreed to return to classes (the government's main demand) in

return for the government's satisfaction of their original economic claims and the lib

eration of their members in jail. To all appearances, political space for a new kind of

arrangement was beginning to grow. Then on October 27, paramilitaries and municipal policemen loyal to the governor

attacked barricades throughout the center of Oaxaca. In one of these, they shot and

killed Brad Will, an American journalist for Indymedia with a deep sense of sympa

thy for the peoples of Oaxaca. Violent confrontations broke out around the city, and

that evening President Fox used the murder as an excuse for his decision to send the

federal police. The Polic?a Federal Preventiva (Federal Preventive Police)?PFP, arrived on

October 28. APPO explicitly decided to resist nonviolently, avoiding confrontation.

And in the face of the PFP, with its tanks and all the paraphernalia of power, the people of Oaxaca exhibited enormous restraint. In many cases, unarmed citizens stopped the

tanks by laying their own bodies on the pavement. Adults held back young people try

ing to express their anger, although there were cases of stone-throwing and even a few

Molotov cocktails. When the police reached the main plaza, APPO fell back and aban

doned it. APPO regrouped on the campus of the university, protecting its radio station, which had been transmitting the decision to remain nonviolent and to avoid con

frontation and provocation. Outside of the university, meanwhile, the police began


selectively capturing APPO members at the barricades or in their homes. By the end of the day, there were three dead, many injured, and many more disappeared. Those

picked up by the police were sequestered in military barracks. Human rights organi zations, including the government's own Comisi?n Nacional de Derechos Humanos, were unable to visit or even identify those who had been picked up because the police moved them secretly from one place to another. Over succeeding days, there were also

many reports of people coming from surrounding villages to support the movement

who were pulled out of trucks, beaten, and arrested.

Despite the wave of repression, on October 29 APPO organized three marches. The

police with all their equipment had fully occupied the main plaza and a few other key places in the city by this point. But within a short time they were surrounded by the

people, who proceeded to establish new barricades. As soon as the police would dis

mantle one of these and move on, the people would return and rebuild it.

Many are afraid that we will not be able to stop the bloodbath the governor and fed eral government seem determined to provoke. In spite of APPO's continual appeal to

nonviolence, the people of Oaxaca feel deeply offended and angry. And they don't want to be cowards.... They know that they are not alone, that people throughout Mexico and around the world are with them. But what to do before this barbaric, irra

tional violence of the state against its own people?

NOVEMBER 2

Today's clash, when the massed people of Oaxaca resisted an attack on the univer

sity by the PFP, was the largest and most violent clash between civilians and police in

Mexico's recent history and perhaps the only one that resulted in an unquestionable popular triumph. The fight was certainly unequal enough: although the police were

outnumbered five or six to one if we count children, they had shields and other

weapons, not to mention tanks and helicopters, while the people had only sticks, stones, a few slingshots, and some uninvited Molotov cocktails.

Shortly before the battle, President Fox announced that peace and tranquility had

returned to Oaxaca. The Interior Ministry also reported that everything was in order, and the governor declared that out of Oaxaca's 570 municipalities, the entire rebellion was limited to one street in the capital and a handful of foreigners. Anyway, he

insisted, it was almost over, whereupon the national television networks called their camera crews back to Mexico City, their task of minimizing the strike complete.

For months, the government and the upper classes in both Oaxaca and Mexico City have condemned APPO in the name of law, order, public security, human rights, and stable institutions. All these elements were employed to justify the use of police force. But without realizing it, the authorities have been giving us a lesson in revolutionary civics. The PFP became the vehicle for an offensive and massive violation of human

rights: searches and arrests were carried out without warrants while the number of

dead, wounded, and disappeared increased. Only PRI's hit squads and the govern ment's own hired guns were allowed to travel freely. Meanwhile, the army and police obstructed those trying to reach the city of Oaxaca, especially if they were coming to

support APPO. And finally, the Federal Highway Patrol cruised the city and trans

ported troops amid a climate of chaos and insecurity.

Despite the violence and severe provocation, the ability of the people's movement to exercise restraint has been simply remarkable: "human rugs" were formed, people


laying their bodies on the pavement in front of light tanks, as in Tiananmen Square; flowers were handed to the police; people retreated in an orderly manner in the face

of advancing troops, while men and women tried to control young people bursting with anger. This self-control, in the end, prevented a major bloodbath, and the rebels are now preparing to give orderly course to their movement in a "constitutive" assem

bly that will take place from November 10 to 12. The idea is to keep it from derailing,

exploding in violence or scattering away. There are some ideological manias involved

and some internal pressure to implement particular agendas. If the movement begins to take an erroneous shape, such as that of a political party, the original movement will

overwhelm it, just as it will overwhelm all legal and institutional channels if the polit ical class continues to block access to them.

Following the popular victory on November 2, the largest march in the history of

Oaxaca took place on November 5. Among the participants were scores of indigenous authorities from communities throughout the state who came to the capital carrying their staffs of office to publicly declare their allegiance to the movement.

NOVEMBER 6

So how should we summarize the first six months of the Oaxaca insurrection and

the creation of a democratic, popular assembly to govern it? Perhaps the first thing to

say is that the movement received more than one push from Mexico's irresponsible

political class, which forced it to consolidate itself much faster than anyone expected. At first, officials, bureaucrats, political parties, and analysts treated it as little more

than a local disturbance. And of course, when we Oaxacans first took to the streets, that's what we thought it was too, solidly in the tradition of the popular outbursts that occur when a local tyrant becomes unbearable or when some new official imposition drives people over the edge.

The insurrection was next seen as a rebellion, a bigger kind of violent reaction, because its participants refused all attempts to subdue them and, filled with a sense of

their own dignity, stepped up their protests. By thousands, by tens of thousands, they came out onto the streets of Oaxaca city from throughout the state to cry "Enough!" to the governor and his arbitrary rule.

But if the insurrection became more than a simple disturbance, it soon became more

than just a rebellion as well. Rebellions are like volcanoes, mowing down everything before them. But they're also ephemeral; they may leave lasting marks, like lava beds, but they die down as quickly as they catch fire. They go out. And this one hasn't. In this

case, the spirit of defiance has become too strong. Although Ulises Ruiz, Oaxaca's PRI

governor, was the original focus of popular discontent and possessed some of the worst

traits of an oppressive system, ultimately he was just the detonator that touched off an

explosion where there was already a profound, widespread feeling of discontent.

Finally, his legacy will be that his political misjudgments became the take-off point for a lasting movement of transformation to a peaceful, democratic society.

[On November 6, in a "Forum to Ease the Tension" organized by Oaxaca's civil

society, the Red Oaxaque?a de Derechos Humanos (Oaxacan Human Rights Network)

presented an interim report on the violence from October 28 through the first days of

November. They identified 17 dead, 138 injured, 57 in jail, and many disappeared. On November 13, as this is written, APPO continues to survive all kinds of internal


contradictions. The last session of the exhausting Constitutive Congress, attended by some 1,500 delegates, ended at 5 a.m. this morning, Monday. Some 1,500 state dele

gates attended this peculiar assembly. A council of 260 delegates was created to coor

dinate the ongoing collective effort. They represent everyone?indigenous peoples, of

course, but also every sector of the society. Some barricades also sent delegates to the

Congress and now have a representation in the Council. The Congress approved a

charter for APPO, an action plan, and a code of conduct. Most of the agreements were

reached through consensus, some of them with great difficulty. It was not easy to agree on gender equity, for example. One of the easiest agreements, however, was the deci

sion to give the struggle a clear anticapitalist orientation. Yes, the city is occupied by the police. Eight more people disappeared last night. But they cannot occupy our soul.

We have more freedom than ever.]

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