Oaxaca Newspaper Stormed By Masked Men

by Diego Cevallos

(IPS) MEXICO CITY -- Masked men armed with sticks forcibly occupied the building of the Noticias newspaper in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, where 31 of the publication's employees had been trapped in their offices for a month by a group of demonstrators claiming to be workers on strike.

Nevertheless, the newspaper, whose critical reporting has frequently drawn the wrath of the local powers-that-be, continues to be printed.

A spokesman for the besieged Noticias journalists told IPS that they were evicted Monday night by "plainclothes police officers who covered their faces, and people with ties to the Oaxaca government," as part of an operation that he described as "an attack on freedom of expression."

The France-based Reporters Without Borders, the Inter-American Press Association -- which represents newspaper owners throughout the region -- and the London-based rights watchdog Amnesty International have repeatedly expressed concern, and have been calling for an end to the harassment of the press workers for weeks.

According to the demonstrators who camped outside the building for a month, the newspaper should have stopped printing because the Noticias workers had allegedly gone on strike.

But the paper's employees said that none of them supported the strike, and that not a single Noticias worker was among the demonstrators.

They argue that the protest has been orchestrated by Oaxaca authorities in an attempt to shut the paper down and silence criticism of the local government.

The demonstrators are led by David Aguilar, the head of the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants (CROC), a trade union with ties to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The newspaper's employees' union is a member of CROC.

Aguilar is also a lawmaker representing the PRI, the party to which Oaxaca Governor Ulises Ruiz belongs.

President Vicente Fox of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) promised last Friday that he would take a hand in the matter, in order to defend freedom of expression "to the very last consequences."

"But they got ahead of the president's promise to help us, because the harassment ended in eviction and beatings," Noticias journalist Octavio Velez told IPS.

The reporter said the masked men broke into the building and demanded, with threats and blows, that the employees leave. They also stole telephones and daily planners and destroyed computers, he added.

But the Noticias staff, which had been receiving articles from journalists working outside on the streets and sending the reports by Internet in order for the newspaper to be printed in another town, continued to work in other offices Tuesday.

"We pledged to continue publishing the daily and we will do so," said Velez.

Leonarda Reyes, director of the non-governmental Center for Journalism and Public Ethics, said the Oaxaca government "has defied everyone, including the president."

But with regard to attacks on freedom of the press, the Fox administration "has promised a lot, but delivered little," she said.

The case of Noticias, which is the biggest circulation newspaper in the state and has been publishing for 29 years, shows that freedom of speech is not respected everywhere in Mexico, Reyes commented to IPS.

She underlined that the paper did not stop circulating for a single day since the workers were barricaded in the building by the demonstrators, despite the threats and logistical problems they were facing. "That drew visibility to the case and ensured that the perpetrators will not simply get away with" the harassment, she added.

Local human rights groups say the incident is just part of an enternched pattern of behavior by the governments of Oaxaca, which have been controlled by the PRI for over 70 years.

The PRI also ruled Mexico for seven decades, until Fox was elected in 2000.

In Oaxaca, where a majority of the state's 3.2 million people live in poverty, human rights violations are routine, freedom of speech is not respected, and the legislative and judicial branches are at the mercy of the state government, say rights groups.

While political pluralism is taking root in much of Mexico, authorities in Oaxaca 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.

Aguilar, a personal friend of Governor Ruiz, claims that half of the 102 Noticias workers support the strike that was declared on Jun. 17 to demand a 25 percent wage hike.

"Not even Amnesty International can resolve" the labor conflict in Noticias, which has nothing to do with freedom of the press, or with the government, according to Aguilar, who said the strike was merely based on a demand for higher salaries.

But Velez said Aguilar's assertions were "false" and that "not a single Noticias worker is in favor of the strike."

Four years ago, then Oaxaca governor Jose 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 a number of reprisals, such as the state 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.