Investigation of Oaxacan leftist org APPO requested, evidence of Hugo Chavez ties surfaces (Trans)

The National College of Adherent Organizations of the PRI [Institutional Revolutionary Party] calls for the clarification of those who have supported the more than 160 days of protests which were carried out in Oaxaca

Jorge Teherán
El Universal (Mexico City)
Tuesday 31 October 2006

6:31 p.m. Organizations of the PRI demanded today of the Governmental Secretary, Carlos Abascal Carranza, to make publicly known who they find behind the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), since it is known that "these movements cost."

In a press conference, organizations adhering to the PRI reiterated their support for the Governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz, and requested that the rule of law be respected in that state.

The members of these PRI associations requested that the Governmental Secretary make public the names of those who have caused destabilization in this state.

Luis Figueroa, Executive Secretary of the National College of Adherent Organizations of the PRI, assured everyone that a mobilization like that which was carried out in Oaxaca for more than 160 days has a cost.

"This movement was financed, this movement has political actors who can be found behind it and it is important and cannot be put off that the Governmental Secretary makes them known," he affirmed in a press conference at PRI headquarters.

Before the exhortation made by the Congress of the Union to the Governor of that state, Ulises Ruiz, that he consider resigning his office, the PRI members assured everyone that the exit of the [Oaxacan] Chief Executive puts the rule of law at risk.

"What we believe is at risk are institutions. Our defense has been, fundamentally, for the respect of the rule of law," he said.

Furthermore, he proposed that the case of Oaxaca permits thinking about the Congress of the Union legislating constitutional reforms which permit a greater citizen participation in political life.

"Why not think now of the establishment at the federal level, of a constitutional plebiscite, of a referendum, from popular initiative and, of course, of the revocation of the [electoral] mandate, these are subjects which cannot be put off, which must be discussed and which must be at the top of the legislative agenda," he stated.

This article raises THE most important question about APPO. How can an organization which comes out of nowhere suddenly burst upon the scene and take over an entire state; whose leaders and staff jet back and forth repeatedly between Oaxaca and Mexico City, with all the attendant costs of hotel stays and expenses; whose membership is presented publicly as consisting of only striking teachers and itinerant Oaxacan laborers; whose thousands of activists must be materially supported with food and more; and which does not have an identifiable source of fundraising; sustain itself in power for a period of no less than 160 days? No matter how you answer the question, the associated figure which must accompany its accounting will be in the millions of dollars -- not pesos -- dollars.

Some simple logic should be applied to an approach of the answer, since we do not have any reliable information from APPO itself. Given that we have heard nothing in the way of a miraculous visitation by Virgin of Guadalupe who pointed APPO to some hidden treasure, at the most abstract level we can only entertain two possibilities; either APPO raised the money itself or someone else provided them with the financing. The first explanation can be dispensed with rather quickly, no one who has shown their heads within APPO had the financial resources to provide the organization with the level of funding necessary to keep their protest going. So we are then left with the second and almost undeniable reality, which the PRI organizations understand all too clearly, that there is an outside and, as of this point hidden, source of funding sustaining APPO. So who is it?

One possible contributor is ex PRI Governor of Oaxaca José Murat Casab, who was identified by the Mark in Mexico Blog as one who was evidently behind the sudden economic fortunes of APPO founder and principal leader Flavio Sosa, after he was charged by the small Mexican Alternativa party in an official complaint to the Mexican Attorney General. But Casab may only have been involved with Sosa's rise to a modestly successful economic life before APPO, there is no way he could or would have sustained the APPO movement, and especially since Casab is from the same PRI party as Ruiz himself, even though there is clearly bad blood between them. The logical choice for APPO would have been the PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution), whose leftist agitation on behalf of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's attempt to overturn the recent results of the July 2nd Mexican presidential election were made possible in part by the threat of a meltdown in Oaxaca, which deterred the Mexican federal government from taking a hard line with Lopez Obrador and his supporters when they shut down Mexico City for over six weeks from late July to early September, as Fox clearly did not want to antagonize the Mexican Left, who were seeking a "provocation" around which to rally their followers. But the possibility that the PRD provided APPO's funding is also unlikely, at least in so far as providing major support. The Mexico City protests themselves were an extremely costly endeavor for the PRD, who paid salaries to protestors who manned their encampments and much more. The PRD's national debt has been a veritable scandal within the party since early September, and its ability to fund APPO can be discounted as a result. So after examining those we might describe as "the usual suspects" we are still left without an answer.

There is one other major player who has been identified as contributing financial support to the Mexican Left over the past year, and it is not by mere speculation that we raise his name. As reported in Mexico City's El Universal newspaper as early as May, 2005 Venezuela's Hugo Chavez was implicated in a scheme involving Mexico's PRD Party, Lopez Obrador's Federal District Government, cocaine shipments flown into Mexico from Venezuela, monetary transfers to and from Mexico City, Havana, and Caracas, and arms purchases and shipments for Mexico's EPR guerrillas through the cooperation of Colombia's FARC guerrillas. As a result of activities such as these, which continued, the Mexican government eventually pulled the credentials for Venezuelan Ambassador Vladimir Villegas in November, 2005. The reporting from El Universal which coincided with Villegas's expulsion (you can read an English didaction of this story by the same El Universal reporter at this link) indicated, in light of the citation of individuals within Segob as sources for the story, that the Mexican government had been keeping a close eye on Villegas for some time and they knew that he had been providing funding and other support for the PRD, the EPR, and for the numerous "Bolivarian Circles," which refers to Chavista cells founded across Mexico, especially on college campuses, to disseminate Chavez's leftist propaganda and to import it into the country.

In light of all of this, we can say that there is an established history of Hugo Chavez's intervention in Mexican political life, along with his provision of financial support for the Mexican Left. All that remains is to make the connection between APPO and Chavez to demonstrate that he has been a source of financial support for the recent Oaxacan protest. With the retaking of Oaxaca City by Mexican federales this week, this information is now beginning to surface and some of it is quite specific. The Oaxacan newspaper A Diario today published an article on the connections between Chavez and APPO. (Note: I'm going to post a full English translation of this article within this thread so everyone can read it.) And what do we find revealed? That the "Bolivarian Circles" Villegas helped to establish are playing a critical role. To post one translated quote here, for some "six months, a Bolivarian Circle of activists enabled by the Venezuelan government has been coming to Oaxaca to economically, logistically, and ideologically support rebel activities." The sources the A Diario article cites are from Mexican Army intelligence, a teacher's union member, and other witnesses. And they are specific enough in their reporting to even go so far as to give the street address where the Venezuelan "activists" are centered in Oaxaca City.

It is my guess that the PRI organizations who are calling for the investigation of APPO's funding know these details already, but we will have to wait and see what happens.

Here is the translation of today's article from the Oaxacan newspaper A Diario on the APPO-Chavez linkage:

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Foreign engineering suspected in conflict

By Fortino Torrentera

APPO dissidents, witnesses to the taking of radio broadcast stations, and "intelligence" reports from the Army indicate that in the people's-teacher's union conflict there may have been activitists from the Bolivarian Movement of the Peoples acting.

By agreement with testimony gathered by A Diario, a teacher who was a leader of Section 22 of the SNTE,¹ and who asked to remain anonymous and who only identified himself as Sergio "G," asserted that several actions carried out by APPO were notorious for the presence of foreign agents.

He even indicated that at some points where barricades had been placed, such as in the Fraccionamiento sector and the La Cascada suburb, some youths and local residents were trained in personal defense by sympathizers of Venezuelan origin.

During the people's-teacher's union conflict, which initially began 155 days ago with a wage increase demand and continued with the request for the resignation of Governor Ulises Ruiz, after a failed eviction carried out the 14th of June by state police, one million three hundred thousand students were unable to attend classes, there were nearly three billion pesos in economic, financial, and equity losses; a depression of the tourist and artisan market in the state and in the southeast of the country, and moreover the detention of a dozen [teacher's union] leaders and the death of at least 10 people, mainly teachers and militants of that movement.

Personnel who were themselves found on the 21st of August in some of the radio stations taken described: "tall, dark subjects who had a distinct Caribbean-like accent who were asking us: "How do you connect this case?"

According to military "intelligence" reports to which A Diario had access, groups of students were trained by Venezuelan agents ever since they began the political campaigns for the presidency, operating in Mexico from states such as Oaxaca, Morelos, and Guerrero where they had distributed propaganda in towns and communities.

They asserted that going back "six months, a Bolivarian Circle of activists enabled by the Venezuelan government has been coming to Oaxaca to economically, logistically, and ideologically support rebel activities."

"They are students and volunteers from civil organizations who are working in suburban (sic) municipalities or by means of canvassing house by house in popular neighborhoods and suburbs, divulging their support for a change in Oaxaca," the report pointed out.

The purpose of these agents is identifiable because in their activities they are promoting "Latin American unity" as the aim of the class struggle resulting from political changes in cities and towns with a radical speech which struggles for the founding of socialism as the only instrument of a change of power.

Though the report indicates that an attached list exists "that which we do not have in our control -- people who are operating the popular movement in Oaxaca, related with some armed groups like the EPR, ERPI, FARP, and the TDR."²

It indicated that the arrival of Bolivarian Brigades, [and] some sympathizers and militants of these armed groups have changed or added to each other, which it considers "a recomposition of the rebel picture."

The report details that there exists a Bolivarian Continental Coordinator, Mexico Chapter (Mexican Nucleus of Support for the FARC-EP), in which some persons of local politics figure, "whose names are not made known in the report--."

Also, it identifies in this city a residence where these brigades operate, on Francisco Villa street 207-A in the Reforma Agraria suburb, moreover others in Santa Lucia, and the Microondas and Santa Rosa suburbs.

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Translator's Notes:

¹ The SNTE is the acronym for the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de Educacion (The National Union of Education Workers), whose May 22 strike began the Oaxacan conflict.

² "FARP" is not a typo or misprint, these are all Mexican "guerrilla" or "revolutionary" groups.
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Well; how many times have we heard the issue of whether or not Hugo Chavez was behind the APPO protest? Any questions now?

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