Thread: Mexicans protest in Ca. about clash with police in Oaxaca.

Rally protests use of police
Mexican strikes get local support
Robert Rogers, Staff Writer
Article Launched:10/31/2006 12:00:00 AM PST

http://www.sbsun.com/ci_4578103

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SAN BERNARDINO - About a dozen local human-rights activists staged a midday protest at the Mexican Consulate, decrying the use of federal police to squelch demonstrations in Oaxaca and demanding the resignation of the local magistrate.
After a statement for news cameras in front of the consulate Monday, about a dozen protesters marched into the office of the Mexican government's chief representative here and hand-delivered a letter addressed to Mexico's President Vicente Fox.

The protest was called by the National Alliance for Human Rights coordinator and UC Riverside professor Armando Navarro, a frequent critic of the Fox administration. He said the federal response to demonstrations for higher wages for teachers "rapidly escalated the unrest" in Mexico.

"What happens in Mexico ... will ultimately impact us over here," Navarro said. "If there is to be a social revolution in Mexico, the hundreds of thousands crossing the (U.S.) border will become millions."

Oaxaca has been deeply divided by a five-month strike by teachers over wages. Fox authorized the deployment of riot police Sunday after gunfire in the city killed at least three.

Navarro and others, including Mexican congressman Pepe


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Jacques-Medina of the left-leaning Democratic Revolutionary Party, and a local religious leader took turns railing against the Fox administration, the federal response to the protest and class stratification in Mexico.
The Rev. Pat Guillen, director of a local social services organization, invoked Abraham Lincoln and blasted Fox for "ordering the military to oppress the people" in Oaxaca and praised protesters there.

"The poor are no longer waiting hopelessly for the powerful to hear them," Guillen said.

Turnout on Monday was low - which Navarro attributed to the hasty mobilization - but energy was not. Protesters shouted into microphones in English and Spanish. Others held aloft signs streaked with red and depicting bloody clashes between police and protesters in the past. Most notably, they drew comparisons between the current situation and the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre, an event deeply ingrained in Mexican consciousness in which hundreds of student protesters were slain in Mexico City.

One protester held a sign which said: "Oaxaca, manos limpias," or clean your hands, and pictured hands dripping with blood.

Bobby Vega, a social-services worker who has known Navarro for decades, said he came to protest because the federal response in Oaxaca speaks to issues he sees throughout Mexico and the U.S.

"Injustice anywhere, governments oppressing their people, is everyone's problem," Vega said. "Our administration basically supports the Fox administration, and we should be doing more to push them to treat their people better, not taking this hands-off approach to injustice. Ultimately, the problems there that we turn a blind eye to are going to come here."

Navarro and his cluster of protesters filed into the consulate's main office, delivered a note to Fox and aired their concerns for about 15 minutes to Carlos Giralt-Cabrales, the Mexican government's diplomatic representative to the Inland Empire.

After the protesters left, Giralt-Cabrales said the letter would go to Mexico City but defended the government's action in Oaxaca.

"The police did not use any kind of arms, pistols or guns, only defensive elements, like shields," he said. "The federal government only acted to restore order and security to the people of the city."

Later, Navarro said he was not convinced.

"They have a lot of weapons," Navarro said of federal police. "We categorically condemn the use of force in Oaxaca and call for negotiations to be reopened."

Hmmm... Leftists fighting Fascists. That has a familiar ring....

The protest was called by the National Alliance for Human Rights coordinator and UC Riverside professor Armando Navarro, a frequent critic of the Fox administration. He said the federal response to demonstrations for higher wages for teachers "rapidly escalated the unrest" in Mexico.

Why isn't this Racist down in mexico doing his little protest??

Hmmmm?

They are doing the same thing in San Diego and said they would be there 24/7.

Please don't protest on this side of the border. Go to Mexico so your protesting will really matter and be seen by people that are concerned.

Dixie

You do not need to be an illegal to be concerned about this issue. The Governor of Oaxaca was elected to office by a questionable vote and has been oppressive.

The teachers had a strike for better conditions and the Governor used force against demonstrators. If there was more respect shown the teachers by the Governor this could have been solved by negotiation. Rather than give in the teachers held their ground.

They were soon joined by armed militants from the extreme left. The military control of the state of Oaxaca was divided between the government and the left. Now after many months the Mexican Federal Police have come in. If the teacher complaints are resolved the rest of the Oaxaca uprising should fold.

A protest by supporters of the teachers and the left was to be expected.

the Mexican government's diplomatic representative to the Inland Empire.

What is the inland empire????

The Inland Empire is:

The city of San Bernardino Ca. and the surrounding cities in San bernardino County.

We have a Mexican consulate in Raleigh.

I live very close, so I often wonder as I drive by,
does anyone ever picket the mexican consulates
all throughout the US? Seems it would be a good
way to irritate the heck out of our globalist state
leaders in NC. Guvna Take-It-Easley may have to
let Barney & Andy off the leash. The consulate is on
a major thoroughfare so a lot of people would see it.

I was involved in a protest at the South African
Embassy in 1985 & the bad-*** DC cops told
us what we could & could not do unless we wanted to
have our face down on the asphalt.

Whoa, I just saw this after I posted....

http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/504716.html

Protesters of killing occupy consulate

Matthew Eisley, Staff Writer
RALEIGH - Several dozen people protesting the killing of an American journalist in Mexico last week stormed the Mexican Consulate in Raleigh on Monday.

They banged drums, waved signs and demanded a meeting with consular officials. One protester locked himself to Consul Armando Ortiz-Rocha's second-floor office television by means of a U-bar around his neck until a police officer freed him.

Few of the 200 Mexicans seeking help at the office with visas, worker permits and passports seemed moved by the clamor, one of more than a dozen simultaneous protests across the U.S.

After Raleigh police cleared the building and U.S. State Department security agents arrived, four of the protesters met with Ortiz-Rocha for about an hour.

They were protesting the fatal shooting Friday of Brad Will, an independent journalist and activist documenting a violent uprising against the government in the Mexican state of Oaxaca (pronounced oh-ah-WHOCK-ah). Government officers are suspected in the shooting of Will and two residents, according to news reports.

The five-hour protest and the brief morning occupation of his office did not amuse Ortiz-Rocha.

"He said we had to leave," said one of the four lead protesters, Monica Bhattacharya. "We said, 'No, this is too important.' He talked about how rude it was to come into his office. We said, 'Well, what's happening in Oaxaca is far more rude. This is tame.' "

Police ordered the protesters to a sidewalk along Six Forks Road, and then to adjacent property.

The protesters are part of a loosely organized opposition to authoritarian government and corporate news media power.

Will was affiliated with an international "Indy Media" effort that seeks to report events from a personal viewpoint, instead of providing what its consumers view as spoon-fed news.

"More and more, repressive forces are targeting independent journalists," said protester Henry McMillan, 27, a Durham computer programmer and free-speech activist who called Will a friend.

After the consul met with the group's four delegates, he complimented their intelligence and idealism but not their methods.

"We've never been invaded before," Ortiz-Rocha said. "It was not a civilized way to do it. When they were sitting in my office, and this guy was hanging from my TV by his neck -- well, it was time to call the police."

Even so, the consul declined to press charges of trespassing. He said he will file a report with his superiors in Mexico City.

"Once I was young myself," he said. "I still am idealistic. I understand. They wanted a lot of publicity. They got it."
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