Mexico: Government ultimatum against striking teachers

[IndianaGreen]

Mexico: Government ultimatum against striking teachers

By Rafael Azul and Julio Ponce
17 October 2006

The Mexican government has threatened striking teachers in the city of Oaxaca with police and military repression this week unless they accept a negotiated agreement between the Vicente Fox government, the teachers union and the Oaxacan Peoples Popular Assembly (APPO). On October 12, striking teachers voted to reject the deal.

In reality the repression has already begun. What for months took the form of a medium-intensity conflict between the strikers and government vigilantes has substantially escalated. On Saturday a squad composed of soldiers in civilian clothing killed a striker and wounded several others.

Earlier in the week, an APPO group that was attempting to persuade police officers to vacate their station was fired upon, presumably by the police themselves. Also last week a vigilante group violently occupied a regional community radio station operated by the Nahuatl and Mazateca Indians. When Mazateca women attempted to march into Oaxaca in protest, a “human chain” organized by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which controls the state government, blocked the only road out of the town of Mazatlan-Villa Flores.

In its October 15 issue, the Mexican political magazine Proceso described the contents of a document in its possession—Plan Hierro (Iron Plan). The plan gives details on the tactics that security forces are to follow in taking control of Oaxaca, a city of 250,000 inhabitants. Proceso spoke to a priest who asked that his identity not be revealed. He said, “We now live in fear; we never imagined that we would witness scenes similar to Central America in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Police in civilian disguise that resort to illogical and uncontrolled acts of repression such as arbitrary detentions and shooting at protests.” President Fox has so far held back from implementing the plan. Three thousand federal police and several contingents of army and navy troops have been mobilized and could quickly enter the city. Striking teachers indicate that the state government has hired a mercenary group—Grupo Zeta—to carry out assassinations and other acts of state terrorism.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/oct2006/mex-o17.shtml

[bluestateguy]

1. I wonder what President Obrador will do about it

Since he claims to be the president of Mexico I'm sure he will get the government to fix this problem.

[IndianaGreen]

4. Obrador would have sacked the corrupt PRI governor of Oaxaca

but American puppet Calderon will sent the troops and the death squads, as any good protege of the Bush dictatorship would do.

[Vidar]

5. Well said.

[acmejack]

2. Isn't that special?

Teach or die.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Not good. I was hoping a compromise would be agreed upon, so the

people could begin the long, painstaking process of reforming Oaxaca state government, and Mexico as a whole.

But maybe it still will. I can hardly blame the teachers for voting against an agreement while they are surrounded with military force, and members of their peaceful protest are being picked off--killed, kidnapped, beaten up--by paramilitary forces. I'm not yet familiar with the agreement they rejected, but they have so far had very reasonable demands (as has the protest as a whole), and I suspect the "no" vote has to do with violence and threatened violence. Fox/Calderon are not in a strong position, for all their military force. If they attack Oxaca's teachers and this peaceful, orderly (and huge) group of protesters, there could well be an even bigger uprising in Mexico, involving other southern states and Mexico City. Millions of people support these protesters.

Let's hope that negotiations go forward, that the agreement is amended, and that there is a re-vote.