2006 Oaxaca Protests - May and June 2006

May and June 2006

In May 2006, a teachers' strike began in the Zócalo in the Mexican city of Oaxaca. 2006 was the 25th consecutive year that Oaxaca's teachers had struck. Previously, the protests had generally lasted for one to two weeks and had resulted in small raises for teachers. The 2006 strike began in protest of the low funding for teachers and rural schools in the state, but was prompted to additionally call for the resignation of the state governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz after 3000 police were sent to break up the occupation in the early morning of June 14, 2006. A street battle lasted for several hours that day, resulting in more than one hundred hospitalizations but no fatalities. Ortiz declared that he would not resign.

In response to the events of June 14, representatives of Oaxaca's state regions and municipalities, unions, non-governmental organizations, social organizations, cooperatives, and parents convened to form The Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO, from its Spanish name, Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca). On June 17 APPO reestablished encampments in the zocalo and declared itself to be the governing body of Oaxaca, plunging the city into a state of civil rebellion. Barricades were constructed across some streets in an effort to prevent further police raids. APPO began to seek country-wide solidarity with their movement and urged other states within Mexico to similarly organize popular assemblies at every level of social organization: neighborhoods, street blocks, unions, and towns. Various municipality offices across the state closed in unity. A popular mantra was, “No leader is going to solve our problems”.

Though APPO did not boycott the Mexican national elections on July 2, Ulises Ruiz's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) suffered electoral defeat in Oaxaca, a state they have ruled for seventy years.

APPO did agree to boycott the annual Guelaguetza festival in the final weeks of July. Protesters blocked access to the auditorium in which the festival is held using burned buses and miscellaneous trash, thus preventing the finalization of renovations to the facility. This action drew criticism due to the damage that some individuals did to the auditorium by starting fires and spray painting graffiti. Some of the graffiti said: "Tourists, go home! In Oaxaca we are not capitalists". As a result of the boycott, the government cancelled the celebration of the festival – in its stead the APPO held an alternative version of the cultural festival over the course of several days.

The action marked the lowest point of government for Ulises Ruiz, who subsequently left the State. He resided in Mexico City for a few months.

After a few weeks of absence, the APPO assumed control of the city and started implementing their own law, while confrontations with State Police escalated.