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 Travel & Outdoors | September 2006 
Protests Paralyze Oaxaca: But is it Unsafe for Tourists?
 Jolayne Houtz - The Seattle Times
| | A teacher is treated after being shot by police in Oaxaca, Mexico on Sunday, Sept. 24, 2006. Gunfire erupted after striking teachers, who are demanding the resignation of the state governor, tired to protest at a hotel where he was holding meetings. The governor, Ulises Ruiz, has warned the striking teachers that they would be replaced and lose their pay unless they immediately returned to work Monday, Sept. 25. (AP/Luis Alberto Crtuz Hernandez) |
Oaxaca, Mexico - Things turned desperate when the Coke ran out.
We were among hundreds of travelers stranded at a palapa-roofed roadside restaurant southeast of Oaxaca last month. Protesters had barricaded a lonely stretch of the main highway between Oaxaca and the state of Chiapas to draw attention to a litany of complaints against the government. We missed getting past the barricade by 10 minutes.
Within hours, a local entrepreneur had launched a shuttle service, ferrying stranded motorists in his pickup truck to the makeshift barricade created by two commandeered buses parked lengthwise across the highway.
But walking past the barricade wasn't an option for us. Our group of nine family and friends, traveling together in a two-vehicle caravan, was only halfway through what was supposed to be a six-hour trip from Oaxaca to Cintalapa, Chiapas.
We were now on Hour 11. The restaurant's fresh shrimp and cold sodas that sustained us at the beginning of the blockade had long since run dry.
"I've had it. I'm going up there," my husband muttered.
Twenty minutes later, Hector, who is Mexican, and his brother managed to persuade protesters to open the road again.
If only Oaxaca's deepening political crisis could be resolved so easily.
Oaxaca is the epicenter in an increasingly tense political conflict pitting thousands of teachers, students, farmers, activists and leftists against the government and police.
The protests began in May with a teachers strike, a comfortably predictable, annual event in which tens of thousands of teachers demand higher pay, negotiate with the government, proclaim victory with marginal raises and go home.
But this year, things went wrong. State police moved in to break up the protests in June. Protesters said they were tear-gassed, beaten and jailed. They held their ground in Oaxaca's pretty zocalo, or main square, and since have been joined by many other groups calling for the governor's resignation.
In July, the Oaxaca protests became a stage for protesters disputing the results of Mexico's presidential election.
Three and a half months after the protests began in Oaxaca, at least two protesters have been killed, allegedly by rogue police officers. Protesters have seized radio and TV stations to press their demands, and their leaders have begun talks with government negotiators aimed at ending the conflict.
So far, soldiers and police have mostly kept their distance. But protesters and the city's residents anxiously await the endgame, when they fear law enforcement will move in for a final, violent confrontation.
With that unrest as a backdrop, we were wary as we left for a two-week trip to the states of Oaxaca and Chiapas in August.
My husband and I were escorting a group of 26 people from Fauntleroy Church in West Seattle to Oaxaca to work on a construction project in a rural village several hours from Oaxaca city.
Most of our time would be spent in the village, where the biggest risks we faced were traveler's diarrhea and sore muscles from digging trenches and hauling rocks for the foundation of the church we were building.
But we also planned several days in the city, the state's capital, at the beginning and end of our week in Oaxaca.
More than half of our group were children and youth, many traveling without their families.
We'd been planning and fundraising for the trip for months, and no one was inclined to cancel.
But the news reports from Oaxaca were grim: Unruly anti-government protesters had taken over the city center. Streets had been closed and hotel windows smashed. Tourists were being hassled by protesters demanding their ID. And police had essentially abandoned the city.
In fact, our experience in Oaxaca was quite different from the chaos we had read about at home.
We never felt unsafe, and we never were confronted by protesters. As a large group of Americans in a city now almost devoid of tourists, we certainly stood out. But we never drew unwelcome attention. My husband and I comfortably walked throughout the city with our two young children. We allowed the youths in our group to walk in pairs around the city's historic center.
We visited several key tourist destinations outside the city, including the ruins of Monte Alban and Mitla and weavers in the artisan village of Teotitlan del Valle. We traveled by bus and car throughout the state and found the unrest more of an inconvenience than a safety threat.
But the protests have left a visible, possibly permanent stain on one of Mexico's most charming cities and provided an ever-present backdrop throughout our trip.
The first hint of the unrest came as we entered the city. Our bus from Mexico City had to take a 15-minute detour to reach the bus station, teetering along a skinny hillside road to get around a roadblock erected on the main highway.
The closer we got to Oaxaca's zocalo, the more apparent the problems became. Graffiti and anti-government slogans were spray-painted on most buildings, much of it calling for the resignation of embattled state governor Ulises Ruiz.
Some referred to the disputed presidential election or to international events. One showed the word "Bush" in a circle with a line through it, with the "h" in the shape of a swastika.
Close to the square, streets were blocked by chunks of concrete, the remains of burned tires and sheets of corrugated metal. Oaxaca's idyllic central plaza had been transformed into a tent city, its graceful gazebo barely visible under protest signs and blue tarps rigged between trees to provide cover from the sun and afternoon rains.
Tourists have virtually vanished from the city during what should be one of its busiest seasons.
Sidewalk cafes that normally would be packed with European and American tourists sat almost completely empty, waiters trading jokes to pass the time. The prominent Marques del Valle hotel on the square has been shuttered for three months because of the unrest.
Other large hotels have closed for lack of tourists. At our hotel, a small inn called La Casa de la Tia, we were the only guests. "People are scared off by the press reports, so everyone canceled," the hotel manager said.
Business at a downtown women's cooperative with more than a dozen rooms filled with highly coveted Oaxacan handicrafts is way off, perhaps 20 percent of normal, according to a shopkeeper who didn't want to give her name. "Some days we make not even a single sale," she said. "All we can do is wait."
During our visit, we never saw any law-enforcement presence in the city, apart from soldiers at the airport on the outskirts of town and private security guards protecting banks and money-exchange businesses. Most shops and restaurants were open. Roaming vendors of hammocks and handicrafts worked the square and its handful of tourists, though with an air of resignation about what will be a difficult year for many in Oaxaca whose livelihoods are tied to tourism dollars.
Many Mexicans have mixed feelings about the situation in Oaxaca. One Oaxacan friend owns a pharmacy near downtown that she has had to close a number of times this summer due to protests.
She lamented that her son, just completing his medical residency, may not return to Oaxaca to start his medical practice because of concerns about the unrest and the region's long-term stability. "They're pushing out the young people," she said.
Outside the city, some have cheered the current governor when he has inaugurated new public works. Others blame his government for political dirty tricks and the assassinations of unarmed opponents.
Some friends and relatives in Mexico grumble that protesters are overreaching with unreasonable demands and tactics that are hurting those they claim to represent. Yet they also know protesters are voicing legitimate complaints from one of Mexico's poorest states, where the gap between rich and poor remains vast and many have not benefited from Mexico's strong economic growth.
My husband, too, seemed conflicted about the protests roiling his home country.
When Hector and his brother marched to the blockade to have it out with protesters on our trip to Chiapas, they discovered the protesters were a handful of local farmers angry after the apparent police kidnapping of a protest leader from the area.
Hector and his brother listened to the protesters' complaints with a sympathetic ear.
And then they shared some of their complaints - some true, some not. We had a 1-year-old baby in the car who was vomiting, and we were out of diapers. (Not true.) We were tired, hungry and unable to explain to our children what purpose was being served by protesters preventing us from reaching our destination. (True.)
We drove past the protesters a half-hour later after they agreed to open the road for some 200 vehicles that had been stuck at the barricade. Hector yelled amiably, "Suerte!" (Good luck!) and waved as we passed.
But when we reached a second blockade a few miles later that briefly held us up again, Hector was feeling more frustrated than friendly.
"No ganaron nada!" he yelled at the second group of protesters as we finally drove past. "You haven't gained anything!"
IF YOU GO:
The U.S. State Department made a public announcement Aug. 24, alerting travelers to the ongoing unrest and noting that demonstrations have been marked with increasing violence.
"U.S. citizens should carefully consider the risks of traveling to Oaxaca city at this time," the state department notice said. "U.S. citizens in Oaxaca should remain in their homes or hotels and avoid downtown Oaxaca and surrounding areas during active demonstrations."
For the latest advisories and news about Oaxaca, check the State Department Web site, www.travel.state.gov. (click on Consular Information Sheets and go to Mexico)
Some helpful Web sites for travelers:
www.mexiconews.com.mx/ is an English-language news Web site operated jointly by The Miami Herald and El Universal newspaper in Mexico.
www.oaxaca-travel.com/guide
www.allaboutoaxaca.com |
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