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 News from Around the Americas | November 2006 
Migrants Told to Boycott Mexico
 Paul Chavez - Associated Press
| | Workers in the U.S. who are from Latin America send their relatives back home an average of $300 a month. |
Oaxaca activists think they can get the government to listen if the flow of remittance cash is stopped.
"Our voice is our money! Stop the repression!"
Written on Spanish-language fliers distributed in downtown Los Angeles, the slogans urged Mexicans working in the United States to stop sending money home for three days to protest the Mexican government's crackdown on dissenters in the southern state of Oaxaca.
If money talks, the Saturday-to-Monday boycott has the potential to speak volumes. Workers in the U.S. who are from Latin America send their relatives back home an average of $300 a month, or about 10 percent of their incomes, according to an October study by the Inter-American Development Bank.
Migrants from Mexico alone sent home more than $20 billion last year in remittances -- the country's second leading source of foreign income after oil.
Upset over Oaxaca leadership
Oaxaca is Mexico's poorest state, and many of its 3.5 million residents lack electricity or local roads.
Protests that started with striking teachers in May grew to include students, Indian groups and anarchists, who barricaded streets in Oaxaca City as they demanded the resignation of the local governor, Ulises Ruiz.
As the city turned to chaos, Mexican President Vicente Fox sent more than 4,000 federal police to Oaxaca last month, and they cleared protesters from the central square using armored vehicles and water cannons. At least nine protesters have died since August in clashes with police.
The crackdown has prompted marches and rallies in U.S. cities with many Mexican immigrants, including Los Angeles.
Masked protesters armed with sticks, rocks, fireworks and homemade gasoline bombs clashed briefly with federal police and took over a hotel Monday.
Plans for the remittance boycott were announced a few weeks ago at a Los Angeles rally, and word was also spread through fliers. It was organized by a group called Danza Cuauhtemoc and was supported by human rights groups, said Odilia Romero Hernandez, coordinator of an indigenous rights group in Los Angeles.
The verdict is still out on whether stopping the flow of money south can be done, and if it can make a political point.
A similar boycott was floated in 2002 to pressure the Mexican government to allow Mexicans to vote from abroad, said activist Jorge Mujica. But, "we didn't have the strength and organization to carry it out," he said. "It was the first time I think that there were serious talks about it."
Englewood, Colo.-based Western Union, a leading money transfer company between the United States and Mexico, does not release figures on specific countries and was not aware of the remittance boycott this past weekend, said spokeswoman Kristin Kelley.
Remittances give migrants a voice
Armando Navarro, coordinator of the National Alliance for Human Rights, said a remittance boycott is an good idea but requires organization to be effective.
"It's not enough to make a pronouncement in a flier of a boycott without the administration and mechanics and strategy that is a requisite for a successful boycott," said Navarro, who is an ethnic studies professor at the University of California, Riverside.
"There is momentum, there is energy, there is commitment and conviction, but we're still lacking the key factor of organization," he said. |
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