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By Jonathan Clark This story was originally published in the Mexico edition of The Miami Herald on July 21, 2005. OAXACA - When a gang of pro-government trade unionists and their ski-mask-wearing allies stormed the offices of an opposition newspaper here Monday, it was more than the culmination of a month-long labor dispute - it was the latest act in a long-running and increasingly contentious row between the state government and its most vocal critic. And what has made this conflict so bitter and volatile, local observers say, is that its origins are personal as well as political. Opposition daily Noticias and the local Institutional Revolutionary Party - the party that has ruled the state for the past 76 years - once enjoyed an amicable relationship. The paper's ownership group was not only friendly with the party, it was headed by a former PRI legislator. According to one local newspaper editor, Noticias' ownership once held such influence within the PRI's inner circles that it was allowed a say in choosing the party's candidates for the state legislature. But when an argument arose between Noticias' majority owner, Ericel Gomez Nucamendi, and his long-time friend, volatile ex-Gov. Jose Murat, the paper and the party turned on one another. The result has been a stream of allegations against the state government by Noticias, and a campaign of oppression by the state against the paper. A CONFLICTIVE CLIMAX For 31 days prior to Monday's office invasion, a skeleton crew of Noticias management and staff had been holed up inside the paper's headquarters by a picket line organized by a PRI-friendly union known as the CROC. Then, at 8 p.m. Monday, a group of men - union members, according to the CROC; masked policemen and hired goons, according to Noticias - broke into the building and drove the employees out. Spokesmen for the CROC and the governor's office said that the raid had been non-violent, but the workers said the invaders beat them with clubs and smashed computers and equipment. The current CROC-Noticias dispute traces its origins back in 1992, when workers at the newspaper signed a contract granting the union the right to negotiate an annual collective bargaining agreement with ownership. At that time, Ericel Gomez Nucamendi, a former PRI deputy in the state legislature, had just bought a controlling interest in the newspaper. And because he was a personal friend of Serafin Aguilar, CROC head and fellow PRI member, negotiations were cordial and fruitful. "It was a good relationship," said Noticias deputy editor Genaro Altamirano. "The workers got paid vacations, yearly bonuses, performance-based bonus, and other benefits that they hadn't had before." But when David Aguilar, a current PRI state legislator, inherited the union leadership from his father Serafin, the relationship soured. "(The younger Aguilar) wasn't interested in labor issues, and so he paid no attention to the conditions of the workers," Altamirano said. "Last year, he didn't even show up for the contract negotiations." However, when it came time for this year's talks in May, Aguilar took a more active interest in the negotiations. But it was not, said Altamirano, an interest in worker rights that motivated him. "He had a political agenda this time," he said. TALKS DOOMED FROM THE START According to Altamirano, Aguilar was working on behalf of Gov. Ulises Ruiz, who was intent on sabotaging Noticias over its critical editorial policy. Instead of negotiating with the paper, Altamirano said, Aguilar organized a strike against Noticias - without notifying the paper's employees. And so when the CROC installed its picket lines in front of Noticias' offices last month, the picketers included CROC members and sympathizers from other pro-government unions - but no Noticias employees. Feeling intimidated by the protesters, 31 of the paper's workers barricaded themselves inside the building and continued publishing via Internet, sleeping on office floors and surviving on canned food. Meanwhile, the paper continued to publish allegations that the strike outside was part of a larger campaign perpetrated by Governor Ruiz to silence his critics. Aguilar did not respond to repeated requests for comment. But Ulises Bravo, the CROC's secretary for labor and conflict, denied that the strike was politically motivated. "Noticias has tried to make this into a political issue because that gets them publicity and sells more papers," he said. "But this is a strike that is completely labor-related and has nothing to do with a political agenda." Bravo said that Gomez Nucamendi was to blame for the standoff. "(Gomez Nucamendi) is the one running a political campaign here," he said. "He always wants to be portrayed as the victim, and so he overreacts and exaggerates everything." Hector Ramirez, press director for the governor's office, denied any involvement by Ruiz in the CROC-Noticias dispute. But he, too, blamed Gomez Nucamendi for turning the disagreement into a labor issue. "They said that they were being held hostage in the building by the strikers - that's not true. They chose to stay in there and make a big show of it," he said. The accusations of political persecution, he said, don't stem from any political campaign by the government. "What this is all about," Ramirez said, "is a 2-million-peso-per-month payment to Noticias that was terminated by Ulises Ruiz." BUYING POSITIVE COVERAGE The PRI government in Oaxaca has long relied on generous "publicity" contracts to keep the local press friendly. For many years, Noticias was not only the largest-circulated newspaper in the city, it was also run by a group closely allied to the PRI. As such, it regularly received large publicity deals from the state. According to officials at Noticias, the paper split with the PRI shortly after the election of ex-Gov. Murat in 1998. They say that Murat approached his long-time friend and business partner, Gomez Nucamendi, with an offer to buy a 50-percent share of the paper. When Gomez Nucamendi refused the request, Murat was furious, and terminated the relationship. Noticias then began to publish articles focusing on corruption within the Murat administration; an act that further enraged a man known for his sensitivity to press criticism. After Murat hand-picked Ulises Ruiz to run as the PRI candidate for governor in 2004, Noticias says that Ruiz told them that he would purchase high-priced campaign publicity from the paper, but only in exchange for positive coverage. When the paper refused, Altamirano says, Ruiz pulled his publicity and vowed retaliation against Noticias. The paper responded by backing opposition gubernatorial candidate Gabino Cue and running stinging criticisms of Ruiz. Ramirez, the governor's spokesman, tells a different version of the story. He says that Ruiz wanted to spread his publicity money around to other papers, and when he notified Noticias that he would no longer meet their 2 million-pesos-per-month asking price, the paper retaliated with an attack campaign. Ruiz was elected governor in August after a contentious election fraught with allegations of vote buying and fraud. Then, in November, just days before he took office, armed, masked men stormed Noticias' warehouses on the outskirts of Oaxaca city and temporarily took control of the facility. When they vacated the premises a few days later, the dead body of a 19-year-old man was left behind. Noticias' claimed that the invasion was an act of revenge by Ruiz and a message that his administration would be making life difficult for the paper. In its subsequent editions, the paper ran a daily tally noting total of days it had been "under siege" - a number marked from the first day of the warehouse invasion. STAYING OUT OF IT So far, the local Oaxaca press has steered clear of the Noticas-Ruiz dispute. Privately, editors and reporters say they fear reprisals from the government for reporting on the issue. Editors reluctantly admit they need the government's publicity money to survive financially, and reporters say they fear that they will be harassed or fired for what they write. Some journalists here also express disapproval over what they say has often been a reckless attack campaign against Ruiz by Noticias. And they say the dispute between the paper and the government has more to do with personal animosities among former political friends than an attack on the freedom of the press. But they also say the Ruiz government has played a major role in both the November invasion of Noticias' warehouses and in the recent labor dispute that culminated in Monday's office takeover. One reporter from a rival daily who witnessed the Monday night raid on Noticias' offices said that he was "sickened" by what he saw. "There's no doubt that the police not only allowed the raid to take place, they also participated in the invasion. It was like we were watching something from the 60s or 70s," the reporter said, in reference to the nation's "dirty war" when the PRI government used goon squads and police to harass and even murder its opponents. "When you're a reporter who can't write about what you see for fear of reprisals, it's a terrible feeling," said the reporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal. |