 Oaxaca teachers regroup after police assault, June 14, 2006. Photo: Reuters/Daniel Aguilar |
Just one month after bloody clashes between residents of San Salvador Atenco and Mexican police, the Mexican government faced off against workers with violence and repression.
This time the battles were in Oaxaca, the capital city of the southern Mexican state with the same name. In the early hours of June 14, striking teachers from the National Education Workers Union (SNTE) awoke to a vicious attack by over 1,700 Oaxaca police officers. Just before dawn, officers arrived at the city’s central historic square, where striking teachers along with their families and supporters had been camped out for nearly four weeks.
The SNTE, representing some 70,000 teachers, was demanding higher wages, increased student scholarships and greater funding for poverty-ridden schools that in many cases lack even the most basic sanitary facilities.
Determined to clear the area, police officers brutally attacked sleeping teachers, dragging them out of their tents and dropping dozens of canisters of tear gas from helicopters and grenade launchers onto their encampment. The attack was witnessed by the press, international observers and members of Mexico’s national human rights commission. Four people were killed and nearly 100 people were injured in the attack.
Protesters scrambled across the plaza at the onset of the attack, trying desperately to shield themselves from the police attack. Despite the onslaught, the teachers were able to reunite and reorganize themselves to reverse the course of the street battle. Arming themselves with sticks and stones and anything else they could salvage from the street fight, they sent riot police running as they confronted their assailants in a united effort to resist the violent cop attack.
“Cover your faces with wet rags and handkerchiefs to protect yourselves from the tear gas,” instructed union secretary general Enrique Pacheco just moments after the invasion. “We will confront this attack with a fiery heart and a tempered mind. We will defend this space, just like we have done for the past 26 years of struggle.”
Having successfully driven the police out of their tent city, teachers reoccupied the city’s main plaza and slowly rebuilt their encampment.
For more than 25 years, the SNTE has been struggling for adequate aid to educators and students in Oaxaca’s schools. During the latest protests, the union denounced the governor of Oaxaca for spending more than $175 million renovating the city’s tourist areas. It claimed that the renovations were excuses for Gov. Ulises Ruiz and his party—the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled the country for decades—to skim money for themselves.
Teachers also questioned almost $8 million that the governor reportedly spent in contributions to the PRI election campaign.
All these expenses came while the government claims there is no money for education.
A social movement
The turn of events has raised the stakes in what began as a union struggle. As high school history teacher Eduardo Reyes told the June 22 New York Times, “It is no longer a teachers’ strike, it is a social movement.”
The teachers’ initial demands have evolved into a political call for Gov. Ruiz’s resignation. This has generated tremendous support from labor, civil rights, Indigenous and community organizations nationwide, including participants in the Zapatista-initiated “Other Campaign” (la otra campaña). The “Other Campaign” is a grassroots national movement aimed at creating a people’s alternative to the government’s corruption.
By June 22, the New York Times reported that the cultural center of Oaxaca had become a giant protest camp. Teachers blocked highways around the state trying to keep people from entering the airport and Oaxaca city, and the Times reported that teachers controlled the entire center of the town. “Everywhere, banners, posters and graffiti are calling for Mr. Ruiz to step down.”
The Times report described a huge red banner in the central square reading, “Popular Revolutionary Front, Building the Proletariat’s Power.” Surrounding the stone structure were the words, “Ulises is a murderer,” referring to the governor.
Government must resign
Three days after the police attack on June 17, the SNTE brought out over 160,000 supporters to demonstrate against the governor and show the strength and support for their continued struggle. The resignation of the governor, now a principal demand of the teachers’ union, has gained unprecedented support among Oaxaca’s citizens.
On the defensive, Ruiz responded to the people’s demands by claiming that they were manipulated by the social democratic Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD). He pointed to the July 2 presidential elections, where PRD candidate Andrés López Obrador was running neck-and-neck with the more conservative candidate of the governing National Action Party, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa.
Class struggles like the battles in Oaxaca and San Salvador Atenco show that independent of the presidential elections, it is the growing struggles of Mexico’s workers, peasants and Indigenous communities that will be decisive in the coming period. Mexicans are increasingly determined to stand against state violence, repression, fear and intimidation.
