Thread: Fox urges end to Mexico City protests

http://localnewsleader.com

Fox urges end to Mexico City protests
Staff and agencies
02 August, 2006


By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer 3 minutes ago

MEXICO CITY - President Vicente Fox urged Mexico City authorities Wednesday to remove sprawling camps of leftist protesters who want a complete recount of last month‘s presidential election, saying they are choking off commerce and tourism in the capital.

In a statement read by his spokesman, Ruben Aguilar, Fox urged the city government to find a legal and peaceful way to end the protest led by leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

"The city of Mexico is for everyone," Aguilar said. "Democracy should be defended by respecting it."

"I am supporting a cause and my own personal convictions," he added.

The official count, which has not been certified by Mexico‘s top electoral court, gave the candidate of Fox‘s pro-business National Action Party, Felipe Calderon, a lead of less than 240,000 votes, or less than 0.6 percent.

The Federal Electoral Tribunal has until Sept. 6 to declare a president-elect or annul the election.

But the marches, while frequent, usually take only a few hours. The tent cities have inconvenienced people for days.

With city police protecting the protesters, many people in this megalopolis of 20 million are getting angry.

He said his income had fallen by at least 60 percent since the blockades began snarling traffic throughout the city.

The protests helped drive down Mexico‘s stock market and currency Monday and Tuesday, but share prices and the peso both recovered some of their losses Wednesday.

Davide Baroni, 42, a tourist from Milan, Italy, said it took him four hours to return from a 30-mile trip to the pre-Columbian pyramids and other ruins at Teotihuacan, northeast of the capital.

"We asked a policeman, and he said, ‘You can go to the right, or the left, but who knows if you‘ll be able to get back,‘" Baroni said.

Even some of Lopez Obrador‘s strongest intellectual and artistic supporters have begun criticizing the protest camps.

"This is a just cause, but it shouldn‘t be converted into an attack on the city by blocking streets and affecting so many people," wrote critic and author Carlos Monsivais, who has publicly backed Lopez Obrador.

Calderon, who considers a vote-by-vote recount both unnecessary and illegal, has accused his rival of having "kidnapped" the capital.

"It‘s very clear to me that freedom of expression can‘t cancel out the rights of people to travel to their places of work, schools or homes," Calderon told reporters Wednesday. "I call on all Mexicans to live in peace."

"This is a just cause, but it shouldn‘t be converted into an attack on the city by blocking streets and affecting so many people," wrote critic and author Carlos Monsivais, who has publicly backed Lopez Obrador.

Calderon, who considers a vote-by-vote recount both unnecessary and illegal, has accused his rival of having "kidnapped" the capital.

"It‘s very clear to me that freedom of expression can‘t cancel out the rights of people to travel to their places of work, schools or homes," Calderon told reporters Wednesday. "I call on all Mexicans to live in p

Ya they quickly forget they are tromping on other peoples rights as well.......Freedom to stand up doesn't mean the freedom to harm others.