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News :: struggles |
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Oaxaca, Mexico Teachers Strike Solidarity Needed |
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by Si Se Puede Los Angeles Labor Collective |
13 Jun 2006
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Over 70,000 public schoolteachers, in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, have been on strike for 12 days, and are maintaining a massive encampment in the streets of Oaxaca City. They have achieved a scale of mobilization and popular support that they have not seen in over a decade. On Friday, June 2nd, thousands of students, parents, and members of civil society joined them in a march that made front-page news around the country.
Now the governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, and Mexican president Vicente Fox are threatening to unleash the Federal police on the striking teachers. |
Some of you have worked directly with the public schoolteachers in Oaxaca. Others of you have learned about their struggle through the documentary film, Granito de Arena (Grain of Sand).
Those teachers urgently need your solidarity. Now.
Over 70,000 public schoolteachers, in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, have been on strike for 12 days, and are maintaining a massive encampment in the streets of Oaxaca City. They have achieved a scale of mobilization and popular support that they have not seen in over a decade. On Friday, June 2nd, thousands of students, parents, and members of civil society joined them in a march that made front-page news around the country.
Now the governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, and Mexican president Vicente Fox are threatening to unleash the Federal police on the striking teachers.
Below is some background on the strike. After that, I've included a letter that I will be sending to several national and state newspapers in Mexico City and Oaxaca, letting the state and national government know that the Oaxacan teachers aren't alone. Essentially that "the whole world is watching."
Please review the background and the letter, and then let me know if you are willing to include your name on the letter. Reply to me directly (not "reply to all"). And reply as soon as you possibly can. The Federal police are already on stand-by outside the Oaxacan city limits and could take action as soon as Monday, June 5th.
You can also write directly to the governor of Oaxaca. Write in English or Spanish. Just write. His email is unreliable, but you can fill out a comment form on his website at:
http://www.gobiernodeoaxaca.gob.mx/web/index.php?option=com_contact&Item
Background:
Among the striking teachers' demands are: salary raise for all teachers in the state; increased funding and infrastructure for the state's public schools; and school breakfasts, school supplies, shoes and eyeglasses for Oaxaca's most marginalized students. One of their principal demands this year is a cost-of-living adjustment for those teachers living and working in Oaxaca's tourist centers wher! e teache rs can no longer afford the skyrocketing cost of living.
Oaxaca governor, Ulises Ruiz, has offered the teachers what they consider an insufficient amount (approx. six million USD). Hoping to pressure the governor into negotiations, the teachers have taken to the streets each day of the strike, increasing the impact of their actions with each day that the governor refuses to negotiate. Last Thursday, they blockaded the Oaxaca airport for most of the day. In another action they removed and destroyed political campaign posters. One afternoon they delivered the "remains" of the city's new parking meters to the doorstep of the state capitol building.
The governor, together with the right-wing Parents Association (which does NOT represent the majority of parents in the state), began a media campaign discrediting the teachers, and blaming them for the state's educational shortcomings. 300 municipal politicians who belong to the governor's political party, the PRI, have come out against the strike, threatening to take over the schools if the teachers don't return to work on Monday, June 5th.
Finally, the governor has threatened that teachers who do not return to work on Monday will be fined and/or fired. And the state senate voted on Thursday to approve the use of Federal police forces to break the strike and to remove the teachers from their encampment. There are currently 1500 federal police waiting on the outskirts of Oaxaca City.
Less than a month away from national elections, Mexico is currently embroiled in a climate of extreme repression. In the past two months, federal police forces have been used to brutally attack striking miners in the state of Michoacan, and farmers in the community of San Salvador Atenco. In both cases, people were arrested, beaten and killed for standing up for their rights. And in the case of Atenco, numerous women were sexually assaulted by police. Right-wing presidential candidates are provoking the violence, and then using the conflicts as examples o! f their ability to restore order and maintain the peace. In this context, the threats to use federal police forces against the teachers should be taken VERY seriously.
Please read the following short letter and let me know ASAP if you are willing to add your name to the list of people signing on to the letter. The letter will be sent to national and state newspapers, and to President Vicente Fox and Oaxacan state governor, Ulises Ruiz.
Letter:
To Mexican President, Vicente Fox:
To Governor of the State of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz.
To Local, State, and National Print Media:
The below-signed are schoolteachers, students, parents, and activists from various parts of the United States of America. We are writing to express our indignation over recent threats to use federal police forces to dislodge the 70,000 public schoolteachers on strike in the state of Oaxaca. Quite simply, we wish to express our solidarity with the striking teachers in Oaxaca, and to inform President Vicente Fox, as well as Oaxacan state governor, Ulises Ruiz, that the teachers in Oaxaca are not alone; that we are paying attention; and that any attack against them is an attack against us. Just as communities around the world mobilized in response to the repression carried out against the people of San Salvador Atenco,
any repression against the striking teachers in Oaxaca will also be met with protests in distinct parts of the US.
Public education is a universal right. It is the State's responsibility to provide the necessary funding and infrastructure for public education. And it is the right of teachers around the world, as educators and as workers, to take action when the State does not fulfill this responsibility. The Oaxacan teachers' demands are just and necessary.
We demand the following:
1) Immediate withdrawal of the federal police forces waiting on the outskirts of Oaxaca City.
2) Immediate withdrawal of all threats to use force to end the teachers' strike and/or to dislodge their encampment.
3) That the state government of Oaxaca return to the negotiating table with the striking teachers.
4) That the state government, the national and state electronic media, and the Parents Association, cease its media campaign to publicly discredit the teachers.
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Support the Struggle in Oaxaca, and the Consejo Indigena Popular de Oaxaca - Ricardo Flores Magon speaking tour(US westcoast and southwest at the present moment only):
Call to Endorse the Speaking Tour of the Consejo Indigena Popular de Oaxaca Ricardo Flores Magon / Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca Ricardo Flores Magon
Were calling for organizations and individuals to sponsor the speaking tour of the CIPO-RFM by giving 20 dollars, and your name will go on the flyer for the event as well as mentioned in the program for the speaking tour.
Through the tour we want to:
-Connect the struggles in Mexico to our struggles here (The struggles will spill over the borders and influence each other)
-Tie it into the anti HR 4437 movement, anti-minutemen movement, and immigrant rights movement
- Raise consciousness for people from Mexico and create dialogues in these communities
-Our responsibility is fight on this side of the border in solidarity with the people of Mexico and around the world
-Organize and connect to other Anarchists from other countries, learn from their struggle and adapt it to our own struggle here
-Build solidarity
-To gain inspiration, and to strengthen our own movements
-Seeing the interconnectedness of building autonomy in communities
Wherever people struggle, we should be there, and speak to it to whatever capacity we can
Speaking tour organized and sponsored by the Si Se Puede Los Angeles Labor Collective
To endorse the Speaking Tour email ciporfmsolidaridad (at) yahoo.com |
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