Fox government steps into Mexico newspaper standoff

OAXACA, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexico’s government is stepping
into an ugly standoff between union picketers and an
influential newspaper that says it is being targeted by
powerful local politicians for its critical stance.

The government has been under rising pressure to intervene
since Monday night, when masked men armed with ax handles
stormed the offices of Noticias, the largest circulation daily
newspaper in Oaxaca state.

They destroyed computers and other equipment, and evicted
31 editorial employees who had been barricaded inside producing
the paper for the last month despite constant threats and a
picket line outside.

The conflict could pit President Vicente Fox, who has vowed
to fight rights abuse and promote press freedoms, against a
powerful old-style governor from the PRI party that ruled
Mexico for 71 years until Fox’s 2000 election.

Noticias’ staff and many in Mexico say Oaxaca Gov. Ulises
Ruiz is using strong-arm tactics to try and shut down the paper
for criticizing his government.

“There is no doubt that Gov. Ruiz is behaving like a
dictator in a banana republic,” columnist Sergio Sarmiento
wrote in the daily newspaper Reforma on Wednesday.

Ruiz says it is strictly a labor dispute and a local
affair, and he criticized Fox’s administration in a full-page
newspaper ad on Wednesday for interfering.

Fox’s government could use Monday night’s eviction to get
involved. The attorney general’s office said that federal
investigators were interviewing employees about possible
aggression against journalists, a federal crime, though no
formal investigation had been opened.

The 31 employees, ranging from reporters to carriers, had
been barricaded inside Noticias since they were surrounded a
month ago by members of a local union that called a strike.

Leaders of the CROC union, which represents some newspaper
employees and also factory workers and others, said they
organized the strike to support a demand by Noticias workers
for a 25 percent raise.

But Noticias, noting that the union has close ties to the
state governor, says he engineered the strike.

Media groups say Fox has failed to defend press freedoms.

“The assault on Noticias further rarefies the climate of
violence against media and journalists under the tenure of
Vicente Fox,” Mexican press group CEPET said on Wednesday.

International press rights watchdog Reporters Without
Borders and rights group Amnesty International say the
newspaper is being targeted by PRI party henchmen and have also
called on the federal government to intervene.

The staff continued to publish from makeshift offices in
the state capital Oaxaca on Wednesday. The Noticias building
was surrounded by state police and strikers.