Is Oaxaca safe to visit?

Tourists stroll in the historic center, Oaxaca City, September 8, 2006

Is Oaxaca Safe To Visit?

There has been a growing concern over travel to Oaxaca. Recent reports in The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal and on NPR, among others, have highlighted the massive, historical protests taking place in Oaxaca city. A State Department bulletin warns US citizens against involvement in the protests. As usual the media only offers us part of the picture, generally the more lurid part of it.

If one does not read carefully it would be easy to imagine that Oaxaca city is something like a neighborhood of Baghdad. Of course this is far from the truth. Oaxaca City (not to be confused with Oaxaca state) IS occupied by protestors. The protestors are peaceful and friendly to visitors. They are peaceful, but not at all friendly, to the current state government. Below I offer a general overview of the protest as well as some links to postings by people inside Oaxaca who offer a non-media perspective on Oaxaca City as it stands now.

Since May, 2006, a peaceful protest has occupied the center of Oaxaca city. The protest began as an annual Oaxaca teacher union strike, now in its 26 th year, demanding better funding for schools and salary hikes. The old-school PRI governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz, tired of the protesters sit-in in the center of the city sent in several thousand riot troops on June 14 th to try and remove the protesters from the city. After a day’s effort, much teargas and many wounded, the police where unsuccessful in removing the striking teachers. By nightfall the teachers were in possession of the city center again. But now they found themselves reinforced by a growing myriad of social, student and peasant organizations who joined forces with them in outrage over the hard hand tactics used by the governor. The striking teachers also found growing support among the citizens of Oaxaca city who, though frustrated at having the center of the city being occupied the by the strikers, where outraged by the use of force and violence rather than dialog to deal with the strike.

June 14 th was a key turning point in the protest and it went from being a teachers strike to being an earnest protest attended by a broad mosaic of groups and demanding the resignation of Ulises Ruiz. The protest is peaceful. The state government response has drawn on the darkest of tactics from kidnappings of leaders to occasional drive by, masked shootings targeting protestors. The protestors’ responses have always been non-violent. They have built barricades that are closed at night to limit vehicle access to the center of the city. They have occupied all government offices in the city, effectively closing them as a pressure tactic. They have taken over all radio stations in the city (though recently appear to have departed from several) as a means of communicating among themselves. They have begun to police Oaxaca city in absence of an official police presence. They have begun a campaign to clean up graffiti on buildings placed there by themselves in the heated, early days of the protest. They have yet to use violence in response to the violence used on them.

With all of this going on in Oaxaca City, is Oaxaca safe to visit? I invite you to read the links I offer below and get a variety of viewpoints from a variety of mouths. However, my answer is yes. There has been no hostility towards visitors, and beyond the center of Oaxaca city, you would hardly know anything is going on (except that there are scant few tourists around- if you ever wanted to have the monumental ruins of Monte Alban to yourself, now is the time!). But you should also know that you will not find the center of Oaxaca city in pristine condition. Though the protestors are now working on cleaning it up, it is scuffed from actions of the protestors and government police.

October 2nd. A recent police and military build up in the state of Oaxaca signals the potential for an aggresive government response to the popular protest in Oaxaca city. If you have pending plans to travel to Oaxaca city, keep a close eye on the news. If you plan to travel anywhere else in Oaxaca state in the next week or two, this should not affect you except for the possible inconvenience of temporary road blockages set up in protest of the government action.

UPDATE

From the Christian Science Monitor December 18, 2006. Seven weeks of occupation by federal police ended Saturday in Oaxaca, Mexico, although about 2,000 of them were expected to remain at a military base outside the city in case of renewed trouble. The police were sent there in October to quell an attempt by leftist activists and their followers to force state Gov. Ulises Ruiz from office. In all, nine people died in the violence; more than 200 others were arrested. The upheaval cut deeply into the economy of the colorful city, which has been an international tourist attraction because of its colonial past.

November 25th. Peaceful protest by the APPO slated to surround the Zocalo and federal police for 48 hours turns violent. Many injured, buildings burned. November 26th finds the city with a tense calm.

November 1-25th. Life in Oaxaca flows normally, streets full of people coming and going, cafes filled with lunch crowds, couples walking in the parks, etc. Almost no tourist presence in the city. The teachers have gone back to school and a group of the APPO sits in front of Santo Domingo church each day talking, planning, passing the time crocheting and knitting. Around them has sprung up a uniquely Mexican APPO market where you can buy DVDs of different peak moments of the movement, Che Guevara t-shirts, Cds with APPO and other revolution songs, ice cream cones and tacos. Five blocks away the Zocalo is filled with the PFP, gr ay clad, armored storm troopers with the faces of boys. They while away the days watching the people come and go in the Zocalo and chatting with girls. One is politely or kindly greeted in either camp.

Web links for more info:

The Oaxaca-based Planeta.com forum provides a place where local voices talk about what it is like there now:

http://forum.planeta.com/viewtopic.php?t=795

http://www.planeta.com/ecotravel/mexico/oaxaca/oaxacatips.html#safe

Email from Mary Jane Gagnier Mendoza, long time Oaxaca resident offering current view on Oaxaca (Sept 8) .

Blog with a good overview and current view of Oaxaca as well as links to interesting news sources:

http://bridgenews.org/news/092006/oaxaca09t06

The revolutionary community social movement in Oaxaca- http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/426/1/

If you really want to learn what is at the root of the teacher union strike, this video is a documentary on the movement.

http://www.corrugate.org/granito_de_arena/granito_de_arena

For additional information type “Oaxaca” into Google News for a search of articles on Oaxaca.

You can read the articles in the NY Times by going to http://www.nytimes.com and doing a “Oaxaca” search.

Please feel free to write me with any questions as well. Traditionsmexico@yahoo.com

Sincerely, Eric Mindling