Radical farmers win in Mexico's airport battle

SAN SALVADOR ATENCO, Mexico -- Farmers supported by anarchists and anti-globalization activists released their last hostages Monday after winning the freedom of jailed comrades, a victory in their battle to halt construction of a new Mexico City airport.

Machetes and highway blockades bested the federal government and the courts in the five-day standoff, and some Mexicans said the big loser may have been Mexico's faltering transition to full democracy after seven decades of almost single-party rule.

"All they (the government) has done is to release some criminals," hotel owner Antonio Nieto said of the protesters who were arrested last week after clashing with police. The last remaining 10 activists were freed Sunday, after protesters repeatedly threatened to kill their hostages.

Like the rest of the residents of Atenco, Nieto has had to live for the last nine months under a self-appointed government of radical groups opposed to the airport. The almost weekly protests have ruined business, blocked highways, and practically run out of town those who disagree with them.

Protest leaders planned Monday to remove impromptu checkpoints and barricades of burned-out cars, allowing hundreds of truckers to pass after days of waiting.

The farmers saw it as a victory, and urged others to repeat it throughout the country. Some of the dozens of radical groups that streamed into Atenco during the standoff pledged to block roads throughout the nation in the coming weeks to protest against everything from free trade to labor laws.

"We give our thanks to these brothers. Without them, our victory would not have been possible," said protest leader Ignacio Del Valle, referring to anarchist student strikers who shuttered the nation's largest university for more than a year.

, and a Mexico City neighborhood group known for hijacking buses and carrying poles and bats to protest marches. "We may be aggressive, we may be rebellious, but we are right."

This violent style of politics was once a mainstay in Mexico, especially during the 1910-17 revolution, which gave birth to the often rapacious armies of Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa.

But many Mexicans had hoped to leave that behind with more independent courts and electoral authorities, and with Fox, Mexico's first opposition candidate ever elected to the presidency.

But they may not be able to.

"Villa and Zapata always carried machetes," said David Pajaro, a protest leader. "The machete is in our blood."

President Vicente Fox's administration stayed away for months after the protesters drove out the town's mayor in October because he was willing to discuss the airport project.

First, Fox agreed to delay work on the planned $2.3 billion terminal until courts ruled on the farmers' legal challenges to the expropriation of their land. Months later, those cases have yet to be heard.

Mexico City's current airport is operating at capacity and cannot be expanded. Construction of the new, six-runway airport would use most of the fields outside of San Salvador Atenco as buffer zones, but leave the town itself untouched.

At the height of the standoff, government officials conceded for the first time that the plan could possibly be modified or canceled.

The federal expropriation ruling in October offered villagers about 60 cents a square yard for most land. Creel said that price was forced by law, but he said additional compensation such as new land or schools was possible.

One of the final four hostages released Monday -- Isaac Astudillo, a bank guard who was pulled from his car by protesters on Thursday -- said "Fox came out of this looking bad, with his tail between his legs."