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03/02/2006:

"Notes from the Other Oaxaca"

Walking across the central plaza in Oaxaca City time slows down. Stepping into the expanse of cobblestone walkways that weave through trees and flower beds, surrounded by old colonial government buildings and sidewalk cafes, one feels one's hurry diminish like a drop in temperature. Taking a stroll and then leaning back with an espresso seem to be the most natural activities in the world.

And this is no accident, the state of Oaxaca spent 80 million dollars in the past two years renovating the plaza, crafting the image that the Mexican state so dearly loves to export: the perfect balance of an antique culture represented in art and architecture and the conveniences and luxuries of capitalism.

This is the preferred snapshot of the “new” Mexico and the “democratic change” attributed to President Vicente Fox's six years in office. The idyllic colonial plaza equipped with credit-card ready shops and restaurants. The route of the Other Campaign through Oaxaca, however, revealed a different image of this intersection between Mexico's elder culture and its contemporary capitalism: the molded concrete of a prison wall.

Throughout Oaxaca Subcomandante Marcos listened to hours of testimony from family members and co-workers of indigenous activists who have been taken prisoner. The charges range from belonging to the armed Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) to acts of murder and kidnapping. Yet the evidence—when there is any—is reduced to a signed confession, extracted under torture.
zmag.org