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Guerrillas claim responsibility for Mexico blasts
By Agencia EFE DenverPost.com
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Mexico City - An entity claiming to speak for a cluster of guerrilla groups claimed responsibility for the three bombs that went off here early Monday and for several others that failed to detonate. "We assume full responsibility for these deeds and we offer heartfelt apologies to citizens whose daily lives might have been disrupted," Revolutionary Coordination said in a statement sent to EFE. It also threatened more attacks if Mexican authorities don't resolve the political crisis in the southern state of Oaxaca, where a coalition of grassroots, civic and peasant groups is demanding the ouster of Gov. Ulises Ruiz. Earlier Monday, the Oaxaca dissident organization, known as APPO, denied any connection to the explosions in Mexico City, which caused considerable damage but no casualties. Revolutionary Coordination purports to speak for the Lucio Cabañas Barrientos Revolutionary Movement, the Revolutionary Democratic Tendency-People's Army and the People's Liberation Brigades, among other groups. The Lucio Cabañas faction is one of two insurgent groups that had vowed to take up arms if federal security forces moved against APPO in Oaxaca, as occurred on Oct. 29. While acknowledging authorship of Monday's blasts, the coordination said that the chief responsibility for political violence lies with "the lords of power and money who have unleashed a neoliberal (capitalist) dirty war against the people of Mexico." The communique goes on to threaten political and military action against the 40 largest corporations operating in Mexico as well as against "spurious" institutions accused of cheating leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of victory in the July 2 presidential election. Revolutionary Coordination said it would desist from further attacks if Ruiz leaves office and thousands of federal police are withdrawn from Oaxaca city, the capital of the troubled southern state. "These are methods of struggle for which we claim no responsibility. They are actions that have nothing to do with the kind of action we take," APPO leader Flavio Sosa told Radiocentro earlier Monday, seeking to distance his coalition from the bombings in Mexico City. No one was hurt in the nearly simultaneous pre-dawn blasts, whose targets included the seat of Mexico's highest electoral court and the headquarters of Ruiz's Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which had governed the country for seven decades before losing the 2000 election to President Vicente Fox's conservatives. The third blast was at a bank branch, according to an official in the secretariat of public security. A fourth device at another bank branch failed to explode and was successfully deactivated. The explosions came as impoverished Oaxaca remains stuck in a sometimes-violent crisis dating from late May. The federal government sent more than 4,000 riot troops late last month to Oaxaca city to retake the town center from APPO protesters. But the federal presence has not ended the crisis, with anti-Ruiz militants still demonstrating in other parts of the city. The federal electoral court was the authority in charge of reviewing claims of fraud and irregularities presented by Lopez Obrador after in the presidential election. Conservative Felipe Calderon edged out the leftist in that contest, though the latter rejected the validity of the vote. Fox, due to hand over power Dec. 1 to party colleague Calderon, condemned Monday's attacks. "We totally reject these criminal acts intended to terrify the public," Fox said at the conclusion of a ceremony at his official residence, Los Pinos. "We are going to work hard to get to the bottom of this, and to permanently guarantee the people peace and security. That is one of our principal duties and we are going to continue doing it until Nov. 30," he said. President-elect Calderon spoke in a similar vein, demanding that "the corresponding investigation be carried out in order to punish those responsible." "To incite or resort to violence must be categorically rejected by all Mexicans," he said, adding that "every political demand or social dissent must be resolved through institutional channels and with full respect for the law." EFE ea-gt-act/dgm-cd-dr