Word: oaxaca
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Oaxaca was once a haven for tourists because of its colorful native American culture and Spanish colonial architecture. But there is widespread anxiety, not just because of the Sears bomb or another "artifact," undetonated, was found outside a branch of a bank in a middle-class district of the city. Oaxaca is simmering in civil discord: the state has been torn by political strife and unrest since last year - further complicated now by contentious local elections pitting the conservative government against left-wing political groups scheduled for Sunday...
...turmoil has spilled from Oaxaca into neighboring Mexican states. In early July, explosions shook installations of Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), the national oil company, in the state of Guanajuato, just north of this region. At first the government said the cause was poor maintenance but later admitted it was a terrorist act when the Ejercito Popular Revolucionario (EPR) - The Popular Revolutionary Army - took responsibility for the incidents and demanded the release of two comrades taken into custody by the army in Oaxaca. The EPR espouses radical Marxist redistribution of wealth and the rights of indigenous peoples; it bases itself...
After today's bomb, the department of public safety sent a general alert to all police departments. Security was reinforced at all levels, especially around the Zocalo or main plaza, the international airport and the Pemex installations just outside Oaxaca city. Nevertheless, despite the increase in police and army forces, a demonstration by 200 women in support of the left-wing political opposition group APPO (Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca or Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca) took place as scheduled. As the elections approached, there have been daily marches, loud public denunciations of the state and federal...
...situation will be complicated by the vote count for the local assembly in Sunday's election. Oaxaca is divided into more than 500 municipalities and only 152 have what is called universal suffrage. The rest vote by what is known as usos y costumbres, that is custom and tradition, which usually means a council of elders or a leading member of the village decides how to commit the community's votes. APPO has accused the government of plotting to intimidate the usos y costumbres vote into abstaining, thereby tipping the assembly into more conservative hands...
Civil society has not broken down to the extent that it did last year when rightist and leftist forces battled it out for control of the Zocalo and the University. But many fear that Oaxaca is once again inching toward some kind of breakdown. On Wednesday evening, Oaxaca's governor Ulises Ruiz urged calm, telling TIME that today's abortive bombs were simply aimed at disrupting the elections. "Oaxaca is not violent," he said, "not even with last year's events. That is not Oaxaca." He added, "The people responsible will be punished by the full weight...