Oaxaca

November 10, 2006

The first question I´m usually asked these days is, "What made you decide to move from new Yorki City to Oaxaca, Mexico?"

This brings to mind some dialogue from the movie Casablanca:

Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains):
- What in heaven´s name brought you to Casablanca?

Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart):
- My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.

Captain:
- The waters? What waters? We´re in the desert!

Rick:
- I was misinformed.

My daughter, Emily, wife, Betty and I didn't move here July 2006, for the waters, but for a year-long sabbatical. What we didn't come for was an exploding political situation, but we got anyway.

Since may, the teachers of Oaxaca have been encamped in the town suqre (Zócalo). this striker has been an anual event for the last twenty-five years and usually lasted a couple weeksor until their demands for pay raises and funs for school were met. For the first time in the strike's history, the new governor, Ulises Ruíz Ortíz (URO), decided not to agree to their demands. Instead, on June 14th at 4:30 a.m, he sent in riot police in an attempt to forcibly expel them.

This attack completely backfired. Not only were the strikers not envicted, their demands and their numbers expanded. They were joined by a larger coalition of unions, the APPO (Asemblea popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca) who declared the strike would not end unless governor Ulises stepped down.

Since then, tensions rose and fell with periodic police actions against strikers, but they didn't budge.

After more than 5 months of unrest, the xit hit the fan. On Friday October 27th the governor thugs attacked strikers, killing 3 teachers and an American journalist. this pressured Mexico's presidente into ordering federal troops into Oaxaca the next day.

The Policia Federal Preventiva (PFP), as the federal troops are called, attacked the strikers and took over the Zócalo. As of this writing the Zócalo is no longer an encampment of teachers, but has been replaced by an encampmet of military forces. The governor is refusing to leave office, even as pressure mounts from all sides, including from his party.

So our move has been everything we'd hoped for - barricades, mayhem and lots and lots of riot police, all trumped by every-thing else this adventure has to offer. Water or desert, Oaxaca remains a fantastic choice.

Peter Kuper