Oaxaca, Mexico. The APPO are not terrorists.
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Oaxaca, Mexico. The APPO are not terrorists.

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November 14, 2006
 

It’s not usually my style to take on anything that ‘conservative people’ would say, but today I was introducing myself to the world of blogging and I stumbled upon the following the article that I really had to respond to. My commentary follows…

Monday, November 06, 2006
Oaxaca, Mexico: President Fox to crawl in gutter with APPO leadership

UPDATE!
Reforma now reports that presidential spokesman Rubén Aguilar said this afternoon that President Fox would not be meeting with APPo leadership as had been announced by the office of the Secretary of the Interior. Aguilar said that Carlos Abascal, Secretary of the Interior, was put in charge of all negotiations and was “available night and day for talks.”

This is so astounding that I will give you the link to the story in Reforma. It’s in Spanish but it is important that you don’t think I just made this up.

The Undersecretary of Interior, Arturo Chávez Chávez (remember him?), announced this morning that the president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, will sit down and negotiate with the leadership of APPO. The celebratory rocketfire has been steady from Juarez University for the last two hours.

It is difficult to imagine that a sitting president would sit down with wanted criminals. The APPO leadership, from Flavio Sosa on down, has some 60 federal arrest warrants outstanding against its individual members. These arrest warrants include various charges of murder, rape, kidnapping, armed robbery, burglary, riot, incitement to riot, destruction of government, private and church property, arson, assault and interference with and wanton destruction of federal transportation and communication systems. The number of state and municipal-issued arrest warrants must be staggering.

And yet the chief executive will sit down across a table from them and chit chat. I’m scratching my head trying to think of a similar situation that might have occurred in US history. This would be like President Clinton meeting personally with David Koresh in Waco, after the fire. Or President Truman meeting with the Puerto Rican terrorists after they shot up the House of Representatives. Or maybe President James Buchanan sitting down to negotiate with John Brown after he hacked a guy to death with his sword and after he murdered 4 (including a freed slave baggage handler at the train station) and took 60 townspeople hostage at Harpers Ferry. Or maybe President George Washington sitting down to negotiate a settlement with armed rebels who didn’t like Alexander Hamilton’s federal whiskey tax after the rebels had robbed the mail, stopped court proceedings, threatened an assault on Pittsburgh and, disguised as women, assaulted a tax collector, shaved his head, coated him with tar and feathers, and stole his horse.

None of our presidents did that. They sent in heavily armed federal forces with instructions to end it and end it quickly. But not Vicente Fox.

I hate to be so hard on the guy. He truly has tried to do his best. He did, after all, knock the corrupt PRI from its presidential pedestal after 71 consecutive years in power. But a balky congress, where the bitter enemies PRI and PRD, engaged in a decades old blood feud, suddenly became best of buddies to vote down most of Fox’s proposals, has allowed Fox few successes. He has just lived through the most miserable six years of his life and is now only a month away from walking away from it all. Still, this seems tantamount to a complete surrender.

And just wait until I give you the details of the settlement between the Secretary of the Interior (who, at last report, works at Fox’s pleasure) and the striking teachers union. You’ll have a heart attack. //END

My Comments

Mark, I would just like to ask you one quick, simple question. If you consider and answer it honestly, I think you will then understand why Fox sat down with the APPO…

The question is: Are the APPO Really Terrorists?

Mark, they are people, and Fox knows they are people — many who represent many more (whom, I will add, are also not terrorists) and whom care deeply about thier homes and want to see their Nation improve, but know full well that improvements do not come if you just sit there and wait for the men with the money and the guns to bring it.

As an American Mark, are you going to call those who made and fought for America, Terrorists? Those many many people who fought and died, some of whom did bad things, hurt people, made mistakes. Do you write off the life of one person for one mistake? How about 20 People? Do you write off an entire group for the irresponsible actions of the few? (And are you sure these charges are even real?)

Look to your Government right now, Mark. Are you sure the APPO are Terrorists? Their will and intention is not misplaced or enshrouded in some archaic, fanatical or megalomaniacal notion of politics.

As for your examples — Pick any reasonable and non-confrontational encounter with any Indigenous Group or Nation over the past 500 years – and every one with any of those who led the various civil rights movements in the history of the young Nation-State called America.

They were/are not Terrorists either.

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