[cs_edworkers] Oaxaca -- Teachers resist police assault; union leaders arrested
- From: S_ AN <s_an@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2016 14:27:48 -0400
See forwarded message below.
From: internationalistgroup@xxxxxxx
Subject: Oaxaca -- Teachers resist police assault; union leaders arrested
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2016 13:02:15 -0400
Police go past flaming barricade in
Oaxaca early this morning.
Oaxaca Teachers Resist Police
Assault After Arrest of Union
Leaders
OAXACA, Oax., Mexico, 9 a.m. June 12 (Sunday)
Last night, striking teachers fought running battles and resisted
throughout the night against an attack by riot police that finally ended about
3:30 a.m. this morning. The
battle came as teachers in the combative Section 22 took to the streets in
protest of the arrest of a top union leader, Francisco Villalobos.
Demanding immediate freedom for Villalobos, the teachers blockaded the major
highway outside the state board of education (IEEPO), commandeering five buses
to block the road.
The assault against the teachers came at about 11 p.m. last night, as over 1000
riot cops charged,
launching tear gas grenades and trying to dislodge the blockade. Teachers
and supporters fought back with paving stones, and held off waves of cop
charges, until the strikers were finally pushed back. With the police on their
heels, they were chased into the
surrounding neighborhoods, and even as far south as Parque Llano, in the center
of the city. The cops pursued
teachers back to the site of the major teachers plantón (tent city encampment)
in the city's main square, the Zócalo.
However, the cops did not enter the Zócalo, where strikers had sealed off
the entrances with burning barricades and metal barriers to prevent riot
vehicles from entering the square. This morning, the fires smoldered, but the
plantón remains, despite constant rumors of an impending "desalojo"
(eviction) of the tent city.
Also last night in Mexico City, the cops arrested the top leader of
the union, Rubén Núñez Ginez, secretary-general of Section 22, the largest
component of la CNTE (Coordinadora Nacional de
Trabajadores de Educación), the independent
teachers union.
The teachers have been on strike since May 15. They are fighting an all-out
battle against the
government's attempt to enforce the education "reform" legislated in 2013,
which
seeks to undercut public education, penalize indigenous students through
standardized Spanish-language tests, and victimize teachers through punitive
evaluations. This is the same program that the Obama government in the U.S. is
backing, and which has been foisted on educators worldwide through the
imperialist financial institutions, notably the World Bank
and OECD.
Section 22 teachers at barricade in Oaxaca city center, early this
morning.
In Mexico, this "counter-reform" has
been implemented in the states controlled by the government's corporatist
teacher labor body, el SNTE (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la
Educación). These corporatist outfits are not unions at all but state agencies
(literally, they are financed by the government, which also names, and removes,
their leaders) to prevent the rise of genuine workers unions. La CNTE, which
has
battled el SNTE for over 30 years, has resisted the "reform," and now the
government is going in for the kill. It has already announced the firing of
over 4,000 teachers for the "crime" of striking.
There has been massive repression of the teachers' protests for
weeks in the states of Chiapas, Michoacán and Tabasco, where many teachers and
parents were arrested and
wounded in a police attack last Thursday. In Mexico City, the
government has even sealed off the highways for hours barring teachers' buses
from
traveling on the roads to enter the capital to protest. They also kidnapped
hundreds of teachers, putting them
on buses back to their home states, an unprecedented action, and one which
caused much concern after the murder/disappearance of the 43 students
of the Ayotzinapa rural teachers college traveling in buses in neighboring
Guerrero in 2014.
Up till now, in Oaxaca, the teachers' blockades and plantóns have
been allowed to stand, because the capitalist parties wanted to avoid strife
before last Sunday's election. Now the long-time governing party, the PRI,
has won the governorship, and the expected repression following the expected
election result has begun.
CNTE teachers blocked by riot police in Mexico City
yesterday.
Significantly, the arrested
CNTE officials Núñez Ginez and Villalobos
are supporters of the ruling party, the PRI. So the government arrested their
own supporters, trying to intimidate the teachers. But most of the teachers
are far to the left of the PRI. Also, the teachers of Oaxaca have a strong
regional organization,
with enormous support state-wide in the surrounding communities and
pueblos, where the parents know the teachers are the strongest supporters of
public education for the poor and indigenous populations. So it will be hard
for the government to
"decapitate" the CNTE by picking off a few leaders, as they always seek to
do.
Last night's battle will
surely not be the end of this struggle. An important note: Tuesday is June
14th, the tenth anniversary of the historic events of June 14, 2006, the day a
police
assault on the teachers' plantón led to a six-month uprising in the state of
Oaxaca. Many commemorative events are planned.
Interestingly, the charge against Núñez was the alleged stealing
of school textbooks. What? In a country where corruption
is at staggering levels straight up to the president Peña Nieto and
his "White House," paid for by kickbacks, what is this
charge? In fact, the books were being sent from the Education ministry, not to
the great majority of public
schools where Section
22 teachers are in the independent union grouping, the CNTE, but to schools run
by the so-called "Section 59" -- that is, a phantom section of scab
schools controlled by the
SNTE which the government is trying to promote.
P.S. Section 22 has just sent out an appeal to
teachers and the people of Oaxaca in response to the criminal police attack,
calling on everyone -- the 84,000 teachers, solidarity groups, parents,
students
and other working people -- to come out to protest.
Hundreds of teachers blocked Oaxaca's
airport May 26, surrounding and chasing off federal riot cops.
Other related posts:
- » [cs_edworkers] Oaxaca -- Teachers resist police assault; union leaders arrested - S_ AN
