Popular struggles on this planet:
Resistance and Repression in Mexico
Some of you -especially the activists among you- might have heard of Oaxaca and what has been going on there the past few months. But since the mainstream media doesn't report much about it, I want to do my part in spreading the news.
What is Oaxaca?
Oaxaca is the name of both a state in Mexico and the state's capital city. Here I focus more on the city Oaxaca.
Its estimated population is 530,000. Oaxaca is the site of the Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca. The Universidad de Mesoamérica also has a base in the city.
So what happened in Oaxaca?
Everything kicked off on May 22nd this year, when teachers and their supporters went on strike and demonstrated against a corrupt authoritarian state regime, guilty also of seriously underfunding local education. Included on their list of demands were outrageous requests for more textbooks, breakfasts for schoolchildren, scholarships, uniforms, shoes, medical services and better pay. Oh, and last but not least the resignation of the Governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, after he sent over 3,000 police into the city centre to break the occupation. He has been busy using the usual array of tactics available to Mexican cops, with disappearances, beatings and torture being used against so called 'subversive elements'.
The Zócalo - a central town square - of Oaxaca was the site of a massive teachers' strike. Of note, 2006 is the 25th year running that Oaxaca's teachers have staged a strike; usually it lasts a week or two, they receive a small raise, and then get back to work. The strike this year was initially called in protest against the lack of funding for teachers and rural schools.
When the 3,000 armed servants of the government arrived a three-day long street battle took place and it was initially thought to have resulted in several deaths, but Amnesty International has since confirmed that although there were over one hundred people 
hospitalized, none of the injuries were fatal. (according to the BBC: Mexico teachers clash with police)
On June 7th the teachers held their second "megamarch" in less than a week, with an estimated 120,000 teachers and supporters walking 12 km to the Plaza de la Danza, where unionists and social activists held a "people's impeachment" for Gov. Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. The jury's decision will be presented to the legislature as a formal petition for impeachment. Reporters said the demonstration was the largest in the state's history.
Support for the Oaxaca teachers was the focus of one of three demonstrations held in Mexico City on June 10. In the morning some 4,000 teachers from the states of Michoacan, Oaxaca, Tlaxcala and Guerrero marched from the Angel of Independence in a demonstration called by the National Workers Coordinating Committee (CNTE), a dissident rank-and-file caucus in the SNTE, to demand an end to violence against women, campesinos, unionists, students and teachers.
Shortly before 5AM on June 14, hundreds of state and local police agents used tear gas and pepper spray to break up an encampment that up to 40,000 striking teachers had maintained since May 22nd in the central plaza of Oaxaca, capital of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. The agents, including special riot police from the state attorney general's office and the Oaxaca municipal government, were supported by a helicopter, from which an agent hurled dozens of tear gas grenades. The teachers fled into nearby streets as police agents destroyed their encampment, invaded the headquarters of their union, the National Education Workers Union (SNTE), and smashed furniture there. Police agents also destroyed the equipment of the union's radio station, Radio Planton. Soon after, though, students at the Benito Juarez Autonomous University of Oaxaca seized the uni station which had a much more powerful transmitter.* Nice try!
The teachers regrouped in less than an hour. Armed with clubs and covering their faces with dampened cloths as protection against the tear gas, the teachers counter-attacked with rocks and hurled tear gas grenades back at the agents. Groups of teachers seized buses and used them as battering rams against the police. As of 9:30 AM the police had retreated and the teachers had regained the main plaza. The police arrested 10 teachers during the confrontation, but the teachers captured eight agents of the preventive police, including operational subdirector Margarito Lopez, and two men who were seen throwing tear gas grenades from a hotel. What?! 10 people arrested? Shit, during a student demo in Germany, when we just block some streets the police arrests more people! Well done, guys!!
Since the attack on teachers by the police on June 14, Oaxaca has been in a state of civil rebellion.
This major police operation generated huge protests in Oaxaca and other Mexican states. Hundreds of teachers occupied the state Education Secretariat offices in the neighboring state of Guerrero on June 14 to show support for the Oaxaca teachers. San Salvador Atenco residents issued an "alert" in support of the teachers and demanded a "people's punishment" for Gov. Ruiz.
In Oaxaca itself, more than 1,000 people blocked the highway in Matias Romero in the eastern part of the state on June 15; the action was called by the Union of Indigenous Communities of the Northern Zone of the Isthmus (UCIZONI) to support the teachers and to protest Ruiz's "orchestrated repression" against teachers and indigenous communities. On June 16 at least tens of thousands of teachers and their supporters marched for six hours in the capital despite a rainstorm. Organizers said 400,000 people participated, twice as many as in the June 7 march; the state Public Safety Secretariat put the number at 70,000, and the governor's office said only 15,000 people marched.
In the southeastern state of Chiapas, teachers marched on June 16 to express solidarity with Oaxaca teachers and to push their own demands. Thousands demonstrated in Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala, and about 1,000 marched in San Cristobal de las Casas; there was also a march in Tuxtla Gutierrez, the state capital. Also on June 16, supporters of the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) occupied the Basic Education Institute in the state of Morelos and blocked the road between Tlaquiltenango and Jojutla.
On June 17, the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO, from the initials of the Spanish name) declared itself the governing body of Oaxaca. The Popular Assembly (which was formed this year in June) convened representatives of Oaxaca's state regions and municipalities, unions, non-governmental organizations, social organizations, cooperatives, and parents; 365 grassroots organizations altogether. APPO urged everyone to organize popular assemblies at every level: neighborhoods, street blocks, unions, and towns. "No leader is going to solve our problems," members of APPO repeat.
APPO received the backing of the Zapatistas and even former presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
The APPO has expanded into other communities around the state of Oaxaca. Since the morning of September 14, for example, striking teachers and APPO members have taken over the municipal building in Huautla de Jiménez, in northern Oaxaca (the state). They also burned tires around the town square, and tried to block traffic by placing chunks of concrete and girders across some city streets.
On October 27, Bradley Roland Will, a Indymedia journalist, Professor Emilio Alonso Fabián and Esteban López Zurrita, both Mexican protesters, were killed by pro-government militia. Oslwaldo Raminez, a photographer for Mexico City daily Milenio was shot in the foot.
Another shooting took place later in the day outside the state prosecutours office, leading to three injuries. President Vicente Fox has declared that federal police will be sent to the city in response to the incidents.
Meanwhile Governeor Ruiz was busy renovating the prison in the city of Tlocolula. He's overseen a development to double its capacity and keen to keep costs low, Ruiz has not bothered building any extensions preferring simply to put a partition wall in each cell.
However many people fear an impending wave of repression that is sure to follow the recapture of the city.
As government top brass debated what to do, primary school teacher, Pánfilo Hernández Vásquez was shot dead as he left a public assembly. His death brings the average number of murdered teachers, activists and indigenous leaders to one a week since May.
I believe right now (3/11) government forces are still attacking people on the campus of Radio Universidad Oaxaca.
"An unrivalled success story", that's what The Economist' investment rag would probably say about Mexico's economy. This is despite the fact that the richest 10% of Mexicans own around 60% of the wealth, a gap that continues to rise, along with the number of poor and hungry, despite all the 'sustained economic growth'.
One of the demands made by the teachers was an increase in the minimum wage. During the 1990s the value of the Mexican minimum wage actually fell by 5%. In Oaxaca the minimum is lower than in most places. Along with Chiapas and Guerrero, Oaxaca is amongst the poorest three states in Mexico.
*On 8th August, police infiltrators poured sulphuric acid on that radio equipment, but by this time TV Caserolas had been running for 8 days. The state-owned Chanel9 station was seized and re-named after the women who had marched on the station banging pots and pans.
Before they were booted out on the 21st August, TV Caserolas had paraded a host of Mexicans on the telly - each of whom gave a withering commentary on what neoliberalism meant to them - the loss of land to developers and the ramshackle rural mountain schools without toilets; the thousands of communities without safe water or sewage systems; the rising cost of food and rent as subsidies are removed in the name of free trade; and of course, the continuing falls in the value of wages.
Acts of solidarity took place in various places around the globe:
For the latest developments check out NarcoNews.Com or Indymedia.Org.
Beides gibt es auch auf deutsch: NarcoNews.Com und De.Indymedia.Org.
For more pictures take a look at this well-done video playing RATM - Renegades of Funk:
Switch off the TV. Talk about this with your friends and family. Inform yourself. Think. Organize acts of solidarity. Resist.
This is not an Oaxacan, but a global struggle.
A global struggle for social justice!
~GlobalPeace&Solidarity~
