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MEXICO:
Besieged
Journalists Continue Publishing
Paper
Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY, (IPS) - In the
southern Mexican state of
Oaxaca, where activists say
human rights violations and
impunity are the norm, 31
employees of a newspaper that
has been critical of the local
government have been blockaded
inside their building for three
weeks.
The 31 press workers at Noticias,
Oaxaca's biggest newspaper, have
been trapped in their offices by
an armed mob that allegedly
includes plainclothes police
officers.
Nevertheless, they continue to
put out the newspaper, using the
Internet to send material to a
secret location outside the
building to be printed.
The argument of those who are
besieging the press workers is
that the newspaper is on strike
and should, as a result, stop
publishing.
”We are asking the president
(Vicente Fox) to intervene in
order to put an end to the
impunity, but nothing has been
done,” Noticias reporter Octavio
Vélez told IPS by telephone from
inside the building.
He compared the local
authorities in Oaxaca, one of
Mexico's poorest states, to
those of a colonial
”viceroyalty”, where traditional
political bosses do whatever
they please, regardless of legal
restrictions, the local
institutions are at their
service, and freedom of the
press is continuously violated.
While political pluralism is
making progress in much of
Mexico, authorities in Oaxaca,
who belong to the Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI) -
which ruled the country from
1929 to 2000 - squelch all
criticism and attack anyone who
dares to raise a dissident
voice, says the All Rights for
All Network, which links a
number of human rights groups in
Mexico.
Reporters Without Borders, the
Inter-American Press Association
and Amnesty International have
issued statements and open
letters in the past few weeks on
the situation in Noticias, a
newspaper that has been
circulating for 29 years.
According to the Noticias
employees, the blockade is
orchestrated by local
authorities in the state of
Oaxaca, which has been ruled by
the PRI for seven decades.
”Here we are, we don't have much
food or water and we're sleeping
on the floor, but the newspaper
continues to come out,” said
Vélez.
He told the press earlier that
the mob outside was blocking
efforts to bring in food.
Members of the Revolutionary
Confederation of Workers and
Peasants (CROC) - a trade union
with ties to the PRI, and to
which the newspaper's employees'
union is affiliated - declared
that the paper was on strike and
surrounded the building.
The demonstrators are demanding
a 25 percent raise for all
Noticias workers as well as a
400 percent increase in social
benefits.
But the besieged reporters say
they were never consulted about
the demand for a raise that is
so large that no union in Mexico
would even dare proposing it.
A majority of the daily's more
than 100 workers do not
recognise those who are
organising the ”strike” as their
leaders, and say they do not
agree with the demands that have
been set forth, said Vélez, who
also said he has not seen one
single Noticias worker among the
demonstrators.
Nevertheless, Oaxaca labour
authorities said the measure
taken by CROC was legal.
”The strike is just one more
strategy to block our criticism
and our work,” said Vélez.
Four years ago, then Oaxaca
governor José Murat, one of the
leaders of the most conservative
wing of the PRI, tried to
purchase Noticias, but the
paper's owners declined the
offer.
Since then, the publication has
suffered several reprisals, such
as the Oaxaca government's
refusal to purchase space in the
newspaper for official
advertising - an important
source of income - the theft of
entire editions, and the
occupation of Noticias
warehouses by groups of
unidentified persons.
But Noticias has not stopped
publishing.
The workers who have been
trapped inside the building
since mid-June receive reports
from journalists outside, and
thus put together the newspaper,
which has a circulation of
around 20,000 and is printed
elsewhere.
The situation ”restricts press
freedom and leaves citizens
vulnerable...by limiting their
means of being duly informed,”
said the Inter-American Press
Association.
Reporters Without Borders said
the ”strike” paralysing Noticias
is ”the act of people external
to the paper and is just a means
used by the local authority to
silence it.”
The London-based rights watchdog
Amnesty International called on
the Fox administration to take
urgent action to guarantee the
security of the 31 press workers
barricaded inside the building,
who it said had been threatened
and intimidated by the alleged
”strikers”.
In an open letter to Oaxaca
Governor Ulises Ruiz, the
Committee to Protect Journalists
(CPJ) expressed its ”deep
concern” for the safety of the
newspaper's 31 employees since
the members of CROC ”set up camp
outside the newspaper...blocking
its entrances and exits.”
It noted that while the
demonstrators claimed to be
”striking for a wage increase...Noticias
employees interviewed by CPJ
said that the demonstrators have
no connection to the
publication, that the actual
staff opposes this 'strike,' and
that this ongoing blockade is an
effort to suppress publication
of the newspaper.”
The CPJ also reported that
”State police stationed outside
have not intervened to allow
Noticias workers to come and go
freely.”
The Collective for Democracy in
Oaxaca, which represents 50
human rights groups, teachers'
unions, and indigenous and
women's rights organisations,
said that since Ruiz took office
in December, conditions in the
state have been similar to those
of a ”state of siege.”
The Collective says human rights
are systematically violated in
the state, freedom of the press
is not respected, and the
legislative and judicial
branches answer to the state
government.
As in the neighbouring states of
Guerrero and Chiapas, most of
Oaxaca's 3.2 million people are
poor. In all three states, many
of the worst traditions of the
”old Mexico” are still alive,
like corruption, repression and
intolerance of dissent, said
political analyst Miguel
Granados.
On Mar. 18, 2004, then governor
Murat reported that the vehicle
in which he and his bodyguards
were riding was fired at,
allegedly by his detractors.
The investigation by the
attorney-general's office,
however, found that there was no
attempt on Murat's life, but
merely a shoot-out between his
bodyguards, who later altered
the evidence to make it look
like an outside attack.
Long before the legal
investigation, Noticias reported
evidence that the alleged
”attack” against the governor
was a farce, which apparently
outraged Murat.
The incident further fuelled the
local government's anger against
the newspaper, which in spite of
threats, robberies and now a
three-week blockade continues to
be published daily.
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