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The Unitarian Church of All Souls • 1157 Lexington Avenue • New York, NY 10021 email: peacetaskforcenyc@yahoo.com
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THE OAXACA POLITICAL CRISIS AND THE ROOTS OF MIGRATION
Power-Point Presentation and Discussion October 16, 2007 Review by Phoebe Hoss On Tuesday, October 16, 2007, in All Souls Reidy Hall, Miguel Ángel Vásquez de la Rosa spoke on how NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, has further impoverished the people of Mexico and, thereby, increased migration to the United States. This program was sponsored by the Peace Task Force and Witness for Peace. Mr. Vásquez de la Rosa is one of the founders of EDUCA (from the Spanish initials for Services for an Alternative Education), a nongovernmental organization that advocates for indigenous peoples in the state of Oaxaca, helping small farmers and women to have fair elections and cope with the judicial system. He was introduced by Ben Beachy, regional organizer for the mid-Atlantic region of Educa, which was sponsoring Mr. Vásquez de la Rosa's tour. Mr. Vásques de la Rosa spent thirteen years in the Oaxaca countryside, studying the effects of NAFTA. Oaxaca reflects the crisis simmering in other underdeveloped nations: more poverty; social, political, and economic exclusion; and authoritarian rule. This Mexican state has a population of 3.5 million, with several distinct ethnic groups, making it -- as he said -- the "indigenous conscience of Mexico." Despite its great natural wealth, it is the second poorest state in Mexico, with 76 percent of its people living in extreme poverty and producing only 1.5 percent of Mexico's GDP. Under NAFTA, small farmers find themselves competing against agribusiness and inevitably lose out. Moreover, free trade has resulted in a decline in the production of basic grains and fruits: now, for example, the citizens of Oaxaca may eat apples from California, not from their own orchards. Furthermore, their water has become contaminated, as are many of the seeds for corn they receive – in an area where corn originated; or the corn is genetically modified. People have two choices: whether to face the crisis individually or collectively. The individual way is migration: hence, the some 15 million Mexicans in the United States today, whose remittances to their families are, along with tourism and coffee, one of the three main sources of income in Oaxaca. The collective way is by organizing. In the spring of 2006, a social crisis exploded in Oaxaca, with the strike of the 70,000-member teachers union, who were demanding not only increased wages but more money for educational supplies and support for poor students. We were shown pictures of the government's brutal suppression of the strike and of the social movement APPO, or Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, a coalition of over 300 local and state organizations that developed in response to the government's repression. Over many months of violence, people were shot, beaten, killed. "Now," said Mr. Vásquez, "we have a government that rules by an iron fist." What happened there, he said, could happen anywhere, even here in the United States. In the question period, it was established that:
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