Mexican Military Movements in Oaxaca Reported -- Is Crackdown on Leftists Imminent? (Translation)

El Universal ( Mexico City ) ^ | October 1, 2006 | Alberto Lopez ( translated by self )

[StJacques]

Movement of Naval Troops Reported in Salina Cruz [Oaxaca]

Alberto Lopez
El Universal (Mexico City)
Sunday 1 October 2006

Juchitan, Oaxaca -- Neighbors of the port city of Salina Cruz and Huatulco [Oaxaca] reported "an unusual movement" of naval troops from the end of last week. "We have seen the arrival of planes, armored cars, and helicopters," said a source who asked to remain anonymous.

Military sources confirmed the versions of witnesses, even though they clarified that the movement of troops corresponds with a program of combat practice which is regularly carried out in a joint form between Marines and soliders of the Mexican Army.

The arrival of troops at Salina Cruz and their displacement from Huatulco provoked alarm among the teachers of Section 22 of the SNTE¹ and the members of APPO² who are in protest in Oaxaca City since some four months back.

Even so, two of the helicopters which flew over the Oaxacan capital yesterday departed at 10:30 a.m. from the site known as "the naval military post station" of Huatulco and returned around 8:00 p.m., according to witnesses.

"Since Thursday we have seen the arrival here in Huatulco of three armored cars mounted on the platforms of some trailers, about 15 big trucks which are transporting troops, two planes and the helicopters," a merchant said by telephone.

By the agreement of the witnesses, the "unusual movement" of the armed forces of Mexico is itself observed in the military post station, located on Huatulco's Hierba Santa Bay, locally situated between the bays of Santa Cruz and La Entrega.

In the command of the tenth naval military zone, with its seat in Salina Cruz, no one wanted to comment on the "movement" of troops the locals observed.

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Translator's Notes:

¹ The SNTE is the acronym for the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación, the national teacher's union. Their strike, which began in May of this year, is the event which began the current unrest in the state capital of Oaxaca City.

² APPO is the acronym for the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca, (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca) the leftist organization that has come together to take control of the city after the Oaxacan Governor, Ulises Ruiz, unsuccessfully attempted to break the strike in June. See the article beginning an earlier thread for information on their close ties with Lopez Obrador and the PRD.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Probably not at all.

[A CA Guy]

At this point we will have to wait and see.

[StJacques]

"My personal spin: Mexican PRESS is quiet and subdued on week ends! . . ."

LOL rovenstinez! While Rome burns ....

[StJacques]

"This could very well start a civil war and a flood of illegals like we have never seen before."

While I don't think a "civil war" is really that close, because I think this problem will be contained within the states of Oaxaca and Chiapas, there are other implications to this controversy that do not bode well for the immigration problem.

One of the things I have noticed recently is that Felipe Calderon is not talking about the campaign agenda he ran on, which was somewhat controversial in Mexico. Calderon put big some reform issues; such as bringing foreign investment into Mexico's petroleum industry, putting the national electrical monopoly on a more efficient footing, and a wide variety of banking reforms which, taken together, were NOT designed to appeal to the broadest cross-section of Mexican voters, but were instead intended to unify the center and right in Mexico behind his candidacy during the campaign and to promote real economic growth once in office. But now that he has been declared the winner, he faces an unanticipated and very dangerous problem -- legitimacy. In his recent speeches Calderon is stepping away from the more controversial aspects of his campaign platform -- and those are the reforms Mexico really needs -- so that he can develop a domestic consensus in support of his presidency. It's a situation in which politics trumps policy or, to put it another way, the realm of the possible in Mexican politics is limited due to the leftists promoting the "ingovernability" of the country.

What we have always needed as part of the solution to the immigration problem is the development of real economic opportunities in Mexico. And, in spite of what so many who deride Mexico say to the contrary, the building blocks are all there. But they must implement some of the more necessary reforms to boost their growth rate and the tone of national debate as it exists now is such that there is no chance to do anything constructive. Everyone has to stop to keep the whole thing from falling apart.

With all of this in mind, I do not see the prospects for an improvement in the problem of illegal immigration as nearly so bright as they would have been had Calderon won a convincing victory. The Left in Mexico is determined to immiserate the entire country in a temper tantrum over their loss. They will not get the power they hope to acquire, but they may effectively kill the prospects for reform which held such promise for Mexico's future just a few months back. That is sad, but it's reality.

We are going to have to build the fence and strengthen domestic enforcement on this side of the border. We have no other choice in my opinion.

[rpgdfmx]

You ought to learn something about Mexican, and Iberian, legal traditions. A municipality has the right to withdraw their support from the central government (in some ways, Mexico is more libertarian than we are) when it is in their best interets to do so. And, under the Mexican constitutional theory that power comes from the people, these kinds of declarations of "municipio libres" aren't all that uncommon. There are a few that have Federal congressional representation, but aren't part of their surrounding state.

In Oaxaca, the theory (not just among the "left") is that the Governor is an illegitimate leader, and they've formed a people's government.

Finally, the Mexican army is reluctant to get into civil conflicts, having done so, to their own disgrace, in the late 60s, early 70s.

[rpgdfmx]

St. J -- posted my previous response before I read your analysis. I agree with most of it. Calderón does have a legitimacy problem. So does Ulises Ramerez, though his is a chronic problem going back two years -- and Ulises' problem was made worse by the federal election, the annual teachers' strike AND Esther Elba Gordilla's attempt to form a party of her own (for those unfamiliar with her, Gordilla is the boss of the Teachers' Union, that the Oacaca teachers want out. She was part of the PRI central committee, but was expelled for being too close to the conservative PAN movement. She started her own political party, basically as a pressure group -- and to drain off support for her old party. She's sort of an unknown in all this... trying to force the Oaxaca teachers into line, and keep control of her own machine in Oaxaca).

With only 33 percent of the vote in the last election (assuming the votes were properly counted) Calderón has no choice but to make concessions to the other 66% that voted for one or another "leftist" party. You're already seeing PRI-PAN coalitions forming in the Senate and Chamber of Deputies (PRD used to claim that the two were one party under the skin -- "PRIAN" -- and it looks like they're sort of correct).

The Naval "exercizes" (these involve the Mexican marines transporting paramilitary police, according to some papers), it looks as if the Feds are ratcheting up the pressure for a solution NOW, rather than after the inaguaration.

I don't think this has anything to do with immigration -- not directly -- though.

[StJacques]

My comments on immigration have to do with the long-term necessity of structural change coming to Mexico in order to create enhanced economic opportunities for the Mexican people. Calderon's reform program offered hope in that regard, but the current political climate makes reform impossible. Therefore, we will not be seeing any meaningful progress on immigration from the Mexican end because Calderon is using the issue as a rallying point to help him build consensus behind his presidency.

I think it may be somewhat unfair to discuss the legitimacy problems of Calderon and Ruiz in the same sentence. Ulises Ruiz represents the very worst of the old PRI regime; steal the election, rob the treasury when you get into office, and to hades with the rest. Felipe Calderon won an election that was examined with a fine toothed comb on the other hand. His problem is facing down a left that wants to destroy the process itself.

On the issue of the "mixed nature" of governing institutions within Mexico, you are correct to raise it as suggesting that there may be some precedent for the ultimate goals of the protestors in Oaxaca in so far as they may be appealing to a tradition of local autonomy whose roots go very deep. But there is no precedent for the legal negation of constitutional government, the goal which the teacher's union and APPO are pursuing here. That is something different.

And I think that APPO and the SNTE in Oaxaca have gone so far that Elba Esther Gordillo and Nueva Alianza are no longer even remotely in the picture. Yes; she had something to do with the start of the conflict and she correctly tagged Ulises Ruiz as part of Robert Madrazo's "political cartel" (my term), which set her against them. The PRD is controlling the show now and their national directors will be in Oaxaca this Wednesday to govern a large meeting between their party, APPO, and the SNTE. It's the PRD that matters now. And unless they try to urge a settlement in line with what Segob is offering, I think the rest of us will only be able to conclude that the "ingovernability" of the country is their goal. I think the PRD wants to set a precedent for undermining constitutional order in Oaxaca which they can later carry to the national level. And I also think the federal government's perception of this strategy is the underlying motivation for the forceful response they now seem to be preparing as an alternative.

[DaoPian]

Water Cannons v. Molotov Cocktails

That's my prediction.

Oaxaca - Watch

[Shuttle Shucker]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061005/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_politics

More prominent PRDers recognize Felipe as president...

[StJacques]

I saw that from a couple of Mexican sources, including an article up on El Universal I can no longer find. I think there has been something of a Nueva Izquierda coup among the PRDers in the Federal District. They've taken over the committees in the Legislative Assembly of the Federal District, pushing AMLO's people aside:

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/ciudad/79600.html

One of the things many leaders in the PRD are dealing with now is the rise in its indebtedness over the past few months. Not all the details of the recent increase are given but the current PRD debt is 12.3 million pesos, it was 1.6 million when Marti Batres took over in June of last year and 9.1 million in July of this year. Batres is coming under a lot of criticism for claiming these are "campaign debts," when everyone knows this is the cost of the protest encampments:

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/ciudad/79752.html

If you do an El Universal search for "Batres" you will see a number of articles in the recent returns discussing the PRD reaction to these numbers.

[Shuttle Shucker]

May those PRD debts accumulate interest and increasingly show the PRD how silly its current leaders are.

Even ObraGore's native state of Tabasco isn't flocking to the PRD where the October 15th gubernatorial race's concerned:

http://www.mexiconews.com.mx/20800.html

[Kenny Bunk]

Feliz Navidad

Is it possible that the increased use of naval forces means that the Mexican government is shifting the onus of the fight against Drug Lords and Leftists (often related, as is common throughnout latin America)to the Navy? Perhaps The Army, far more numerous and better equipped, has had its officers implicated once too often in dealswith the narcotraficantes.