Fox government steps into Mexico newspaper standoff
Posted on: Wednesday, 20 July 2005, 17:02 CDT
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.
Source: REUTERS
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