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Oaxaca starts to return to normal
December 17, 2006
The Federal police leave the zocalo
We walked through the Alameda and arrived at the zocalo at noon today to listen to the free concert by the State Band. It took us a minute to realize what was different. The Federal Police, the PFP, were gone, along with their trucks, their water cannons, their tents, and their portable mess hall. The zocalo was back to normal for the first time in more than six months.
A lot to toot about. Yesterday, this was the PFP's mess hall.
According to the newspapers, about half of the 4,000 PFP members who have been policing Oaxaca for the last seven weeks have been redeployed elsewhere. Some 2,000 will stay in or near Oaxaca. It appeared to us that the intersections near the zocalo are now staffed by a mixture of federal, state, and local police officers.
This is clearly an important step back to normalcy for Oaxaca. Still, it carries the risk that APPO or other activist groups may once again feel bold enough to try to re-establish encampments in the city. However, right now Oaxaca looks and feels more like itself than it has in more than half a year. The festivals of December, leading up to the Night of the Radishes and Noche Buena--Christmas Eve are in full swing. Their are lots of explosions tonight, but for the first time in a long time, we can be sure that all of them are just fireworks.
Renormalization can't come a minute too soon, since many, many people and businesses who rely on tourism or on the money it brings into Oaxaca's economy are at the end of their resources. "Maybe I can hold on for one more month," says the local owner of a small coffee shop and breakfast spot. A local B&B owner tells us, "I have nothing but empty rooms and cancellations." Vendors in the zocalo say they can do nothing but hope that tourists will start to come back to Oaxaca soon. That's our hope too.
Click here for more about coming back to Oaxaca.
December 9, 2006
Newsflash: Cleaning up Oaxaca's State Government?
In an extremely important step, agents of the Mexican Federal Preventative Police (PFP) and the Mexican equivalent of the FBI (AFI) raided Oaxaca's attorney general's office, confiscated allegedly illegal firearms, and arrested five state police officers. The federales say that they will test the confiscated firearms to see if they were used in any of the killings of protestors and activists that have taken place over the past six months.
If this represents a real determination on the part of Mexico's new president, Felipe Calderon, to clean up the state government of Oaxaca, and perhaps begin a process that could lead to the ouster of Governor Ruiz, it might represent the beginning of a real and lasting resolution of Oaxaca's problems.
December 2, 2006
Report from the zocalo
As we walked into the zocalo today, it really seemed that Oaxaca's usual zest and optimism had returned. The square was thronged with people, and for the first time in many months, most of them were smiling. There was a holiday feeling in the air as stores played Christmas songs and Oaxacans lined the zocalo's planting beds with brilliant red noche buena (poinsettia) plants. Many added wishes and prayers for the city, of which the following was typical (and shared by almost everyone):
"Oaxaca: God protect and bless you, raise His face over you, and fill you with peace."
Still, there was a (peaceful and nonviolent) march of thousands of teachers and other APPO supporters yesterday, protesting the arrests of their colleagues. Hundreds have been taken to distant prisons. Many families don't know where their loved ones are, or in what condition. Clearly, Oaxaca's problems are not over. However, for most Oaxacans, it's as though a long, feverish night has finally come to an end.
November 30, 2006
The headlines read: Cinco Señores and University Radio [are] released;
Governor Ruiz starts to recover the Oaxacan capital;
Oaxaca [is] free
With the strategic stretch of road known as Cinco Señores cleared of barricades for the first time in many months, and with APPO's tearful handover of the University radio station--their communication center and last bastion--to the University, Oaxaca made a huge leap back toward normalcy. Painters are suddenly at work all over town erasing six months of anti-Ruiz grafitti, businesses are flinging open their doors, people are hanging out at the zocalo's cafes once again, and the city is as full of traffic as if nothing had happened.
Painters scrape a grafitti-splattered wall
The zocalo's sidewalk cafes spring back to life
Clearly this is just the start of a return to normalcy. The city has suffered many millions of dollars in damage to buildings, streets, sidewalks, street and traffic lights, and its fleet of buses. Thousands of people have lost their jobs or have been unable to market what they grow or make. The federal police remain extremely evident. Although the Mexican government has promised to pour funds for repairs and rebuilding back into the city and state, it's going to take months at best before Oaxaca physically returns to normal.
Of course, that doesn't count the incalculable damage to Oaxaca's international reputation as a world-class tourist destination. It will probably take far longer to repair Oaxaca's tattered image than to fix her damaged streets and buildings. Friends who run restaurants, small hotels, or language schools estimate that a full recovery will take years rather than months.
Nor does it count what one commentator referred to (borrowing a phrase from the Oaxacan composer Alvaro Carrillo) as "soul scars"--the lingering effects of the six-month strike, the police incursion, arrests, and the spiral of violence and deaths that accompanied and eventually ended this phase of what started as a popular reform movement.
However, if today's resurgence of optimism and energy is any guide, hopefully Oaxaca's renaissance will not take too long.
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