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not the other way around (--making it ungovernable--ungovernable for whom?).
I perceived this after a lot of research into the protests in Oaxaca. That five-month protest started in June when the fascist Gov. Ruiz brutally assaulted striking teachers, but the history of it goes back to the 2004 election, which most local people believe was fraudulent. (I don't know what all the facts about that are, but I've read reports that Ruiz's paramilitaries were active even then, beating up people for voting). So the disorder starts right there--with a fraudulent election. When Ruiz's police forces assaulted the teachers in the middle of the night (the strikers were camping out), the entire community rose up in protest, demanded his resignation, and proceeded to form an alternative state government, under the "customs and rules" laws (based on ancient indigenous rules of governance). They held long community meetings, with broad participation--teachers, local elders, workers, small farmers, other community leaders--formed their own institutions, and barricaded the capitol city off from Ruiz and his hit squads. The community's behavior was entirely peaceful and orderly. They were RESTORING order, not creating disorder. For instance, they banned guns from their midst, and their leaders have constantly exhorted people to remain calm but firm, and to give no provocation to violence. Over the months, at least 17 people have been shot dead by Ruiz's paramilitaries (including, recently, fotojournalist Brad Will, who caught the perps--Ruiz police in plain clothes--on his camera as he died). Hundreds have been kidnapped, raped, tortured and disappeared. And until the Fox/Calderon government recently staged a military invasion of Oaxaca--not to stop Ruiz's violence or force him to resign--but to crush this peaceful, local democracy movement--the protesters did NOTHING to retaliate, even under extreme provocation. With the federal Darth Vader cops invading the town, and especially the Autonomous University of Benito Juarez (where they have no right to be), some youngsters threw rocks, firecrackers and molotov cocktails--against a large military force with tanks, assault rifles, helicopters--the lot--who were gassing the town with CS gas, and joined in the assault on peaceful townspeople, treating them like criminals (and treating them in ways that not even criminals should be treated--invading homes, dragging people out, beating them, taking them away to unknown locations). There is plenty of evidence that the federales under Fox/Calderon's orders are in cahoots with Ruiz paramilitaries. They are hunting down and 'disappearing' the protest leaders--the people of the town. Even so, the alternative government--APPO--led by the teachers, continues to urge no retaliation, no violence, and the incidents involving protesters throwing objects were quite limited, mainly at the university (where they did stop the invasion by the federal troops).
What we have here is something like the civil rights movement, with the main part of the population engaging in non-violent civil disobedience, against the very oppressive state government. Martin Luther King's marches and protests were called "disruptive" in their day. But they really represented ORDER, as opposed to the disorder to segregation and bigotry. These peaceful protests drew violence down upon them, but the people who were marching and protesting did not instigate violence, simply by expressing their opinion and demanding their rights as citizens--their right to vote, and their right not to be excluded from schools and restaurants and "whites only " drinking fountains, because of the color of their skin.
Similarly, the Oaxacans are entitled to good government, to not be ruled by thugs, and to be able to negotiate with government, like any citizens, over their needs (such as a pay raise for teachers), and over government policy. Their main demand right now is that Ruiz resign. He has lost all legitimacy. They will never be ruled by him. But in this case, the federal government did not act to protect the rights of its citizens. It entered the controversy on the side of the killers!
With this context--and also the widespread belief in Mexico that Calderon's own election was fraudulent, and that Lopez Obrador was elected president--consider the legislators who wouldn't let Calderon be sworn into office in front of them. Calderon had just sent a federal army into Oaxaca to brutalize the town. At least three more people have been killed in Oaxaca in the last few days. Frankly, I dreamed of such a congressional protest when Bush was fraudulently re-elected in 2004. ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE had been slaughtered in Iraq, in the initial bombing alone. Prisoners were being tortured, in violation of laws and treaties. Cheney's company Halliburton was stealing money hand over fist in Iraq. And there were already volumes of evidence of a stolen election. But it was not to be. Our Congress could not even be roused to protest the outrageous violations of the Voting Rights Act in Ohio. Only the Black Caucus took action, joined by Senator Barbara Boxer. The rest of Congress sat on their fat asses and let this criminal regime get re-installed.
So, I salute the Mexican legislators who raised this ruckus. Sometimes order is not real order, but the grim silence of oppression. And sometimes apparent disorder is necessary to put things right. Better to shout Calderon down, and deny him the stage--than to endorse his assault on the people of Oaxaca, and to acquiesce to a stolen election.
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