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From: "Dana Aldea" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: ?iso-8859-1?Q?Universal,Senate_will_probe_Ruiz,_Oaxaca_gov't,Oct? ?iso-8859-1?Q?_11?Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 22:57:43 +0200 Senate will probe Ruiz, Oaxaca gov't Recent progress in negotiations to end the Oaxaca crisis got a shot in the arm Tuesday night when a Senate committee decided to pursue a constitutional process that could result in the fulfillment of striking teachers' persistent demand to have Ulises Ruiz removed as governor By Kelly Arthur Garrett/The Herald Mexico El Universal October 11, 2006 Recent progress in negotiations to end the Oaxaca crisis got a shot in the arm Tuesday night when a Senate committee decided to pursue a constitutional process that could result in the fulfillment of striking teachers' persistent demand to have Ulises Ruiz removed as governor. Committee members from all three major parties agreed to send a subcommittee to the embattled state Wednesday to investigate evidence that the state government has ceased to function and can therefore be dissolved. The decision came after members of the Senate's Interior Committee heard testimony from leaders of the Oaxaca region of the national teachers union, known as Section 22, and of their allies in the Oaxaca People's Assembly (APPO). As the Senate committee met behind closed doors, thousands of APPO members and teachers, many of whom had walked for 19 days from Oaxaca to get there, gathered outside the Senate building. The protest encampment has closed Tacuba and Donceles streets in Mexico City's Historic Center, and occupied the plaza in front of the National Art Museum. The committee's move by no means assures that the full Senate will ultimately vote to dissolve the Ruiz government. But it keeps alive the possibility of using the only existing legal procedure available for having a sitting governor removed. This could have a positive effect on the fate of preliminary agreements reached Monday night during a lengthy negotiating session involving APPO, Section 22 and the Interior Secretariat. Pending approval by the Section 22 rank and file and the full APPO, the partial pact could mark the beginning of the end of the Oaxaca crisis and send more than 1 million idle youngsters in the state back to school as early as next week. The plan would create a broad-based Oaxaca citizens security commission and put local law enforcement under the control of the federal Public Security Secretariat. Some 300 arrest orders against APPO and Section 22 members would be cancelled and 18 "political prisoners" would be released. However, the Oaxaca movement has made it clear that it won't be satisfied if Ruiz remains in office. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) governor, whom the teachers already considered a harsh authoritarian fraudulently elected, precipitated the Oaxaca crisis by sending in state troops last June in a failed effort to dislodge the striking teachers from their protest encampment in Oaxaca City's downtown plaza. On Monday, the movement leaders indicated they would concentrate their efforts to oust Ruiz on the Senate dissolution procedure, known as "desaparicio'n de poderes," meaning disappearance of powers. If the Senate Interior Committee had followed the recommendation of the previous committee membership and voted to drop the proceedings, the legal avenue for having Ruiz removed would have been blocked, and the negotiations might have slipped back to square one. That could still happen. PRI senators are firmly behind Ruiz, one of their own, and back the use of federal force to break the strike and save Ruiz's position. The Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), on the other hand, has openly called for Ruiz's ouster. That leaves the National Action Party (PAN), the largest bloc in the Senate and the party of power in the executive branch, as the swing vote in the Senate on this issue. Though the PAN has generally opposed calls for the governor's ouster, some prominent individual PAN members have softened their position in recent days, suggesting Ruiz consider resigning as an option for settling the crisis. But PAN president Manuel Espino seemed to indicate a more negative party attitude Tuesday when he told reporters the Senate lacks the legal status to declare on its own that a local government has ceased to function and therefore must be removed. "The Senate does not have the ability to decree the disappearance of power in any entity," Espino said. "The Constitution is very clear." That opinion was disputed by PRD Senator Ricardo Monreal Tuesday, who said there have been 47 "desapariciones de poderes" in Mexican history, all of them declared by the Senate. "And all had to do with political motives," he said. "It can't be strictly juridical." Espino's comment also seemed to contradict fellow PAN member Carlos Abascal, the interior secretary who is handling the Fox administration's negotiations with APPO and Section 22. Abascal, who had originally urged the movement leaders to use the legal means provided by the Senate dissolution procedure to pursue their goal of getting rid of Ruiz, said Tuesday, "They (the senators) know what their responsibility is. They have to analyze this issue and resolve it." EL UNIVERSAL staff writers Jorge Herrera and Alejandro Torres contributed to this report. -- To unsubscribe from this list send a message containing the words unsubscribe chiapas95 (or chiapas95-lite, or chiapas95-english, or chiapas95-espanol) to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Previous messages are available from http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html or gopher to Texas, University of Texas at Austin, Department of Economics, Mailing Lists.
