Dear Supporters of the teachers’ and popular movement
>> in Oaxaca:
>>
>> Yesterday afternoon (Friday, October 27) I was at the
>> Planton (encampment) in Mexico City with the 21 hunger
>> strikers and the 400 remaining teachers and activists
>> from Oaxaca who arrived here October 9 following their
>> 500-kilometer walk.
>>
>> Just moments after the riot police (granaderos) charged
>> the encampment to dislodge us from in front of the
>> Hemiciclio a Juarez building, we learned that in the city
>> of Oaxaca, armed goons â€" under direct orders from PRI
>> Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz â€" had charged the barricades
>> in a major operation to remove all the Section 22
>> teachers and APPO supporters from the downtown section of
>> the city, which has been occupied by the movement since
>> June 14.
>>
>> The teachers’ union and APPO had called on their
>> supporters to join them in a major mobilization on Friday
>> to demand the immediate resignation of Ruiz Ortiz.
>>
>> Three people were killed in this assault: IndyMedia
>> photographer Bradely Roland Will from New York, Section
>> 22 teacher Emilio Alonso Fabian and community activist
>> Esteban Ruiz. At least 23 others were seriously injured,
>> and are currently in the hospital. This brings to 14 the
>> number of people who have been killed on the APPO
>> barricades.
>>
>> We later learned that in the neighboring municipality of
>> Santa Maria Coyotepec, 20 striking teachers were arrested
>> by the police and carted off to jail. Thirteen of them
>> had gunshot wounds. The teachers and their supporters had
>> organized a protest and encampment in front of the
>> Municipal Building to demand the ouster of Ruiz Ortiz.
>>
>> The Mexican newspaper La Jornada also reports this
>> morning (October 28) that as many 50 teachers who were on
>> picket duty in front of the office of Ruiz Ortiz in the
>> city of Oaxaca have been disappeared. At this writing,
>> their whereabouts are still unknown.
>>
>> In a statement issued Friday night, leaders of Section 22
>> and APPO said this operation was masterminded by Ruiz
>> Ortiz and Elpidio Concha Arellando, state president of
>> the PRI-controlled CNC peasant federation, and was
>> carried out both by plain-clothes cops and members of the
>> CNC and PRI. The movement leaders also said the Friday
>> assault was the first stage of a two-day effort to
>> destroy the movement. They warned that a major police
>> operation could take place today in Oaxaca against the
>> teachers and APPO activists.
>>
>> Both Ruiz Ortiz and Concha Arellanado had made public
>> statements during the past 10 days warning that the
>> Section 22-APPO downtown encampment would no longer be
>> standing after October 28. Concha Arellanado was the most
>> explicit, stating on October 16 that “we, the PRI
>> activist, will take matters into our own hands in the
>> event the federal government fails to put a halt by next
>> Saturday to the continued occupation and vandalism of our
>> state by these radical elements; we will carry out any
>> and all actions necessary to restore order, the rule of
>> law and social peace.�
>>
>> Indeed, the federal government had hoped the barricades
>> would be torn down and the teachers would be back to work
>> by now. Interior Minister Carlos Abascal Carranza,
>> wielding both a carrot and a stick, had been pressing the
>> leadership of the teachers’ union over the past 10 days
>> to agree to the negotiated settlement worked out in
>> common on October 10 in Mexico City.
>>
>> The carrot was the creation of a Senate Commission to see
>> if there was a basis for impeaching Ruiz Ortiz and a
>> pledge to address some of the teachers’ wage and
>> workplace demands. The stick was the deployment to Oaxaca
>> of more than 3,000 Army and Marine troops poised to enter
>> the city of Oaxaca on a moment’s notice to smash the
>> strike and the mass movement that was generated to
>> support the teachers.
>>
>> Abascal Carranza has had a willing partner in this effort
>> to ram through the government’s proposed settlement:
>> Enrique Rueda Pacheco, the general secretary of Section
>> 22 of the teachers’ union.
>>
>> The main problem for the government is that Rueda Pacheco
>> has not been successful to date in getting the teachers
>> to end their strike and return to the classrooms. The
>> main problem was that the Senate Commission, as expected,
>> ruled that there was no basis for impeaching Ruiz Ortiz.
>> A full vote by the Mexican Senate ratified the
>> Commission’s findings. The teachers â€" like the rest
>> of the indigenous and community activists in APPO -- are
>> steadfast in their commitment to get rid of Ruiz Ortiz,
>> who represents the worst of the corrupt and repressive
>> holdovers of the 70-year PRI regime that ruled Mexico
>> with an iron fist. They don’t believe it will be safe
>> for them to return to work as long as Ruiz Ortiz is
>> governor. They fear individual and collective retaliation
>> by the governor and his death squads.
>>
>> One week ago, Rueda Pacheco succeeded in getting his
>> union leadership to send out a ballot to all the
>> state’s 70,000 teachers that effectively would have
>> ended the strike. But an angry 10-hour session of the
>> Section 22 Delegates’ Assembly, the union’s highest
>> leadership body, on October 21 repudiated this maneuver
>> by Rueda Pacheco and his clique. The Assembly called for
>> a new ballot on ending the strike and a new
>> “consultation� of the members on October 23-24.
>>
>> The results of that balloting were made public on
>> Thursday, October 27: The Delegates Assembly, held the
>> previous day, certified that 31,078 teachers voted to
>> return to work this coming week, while 20,387 voted to
>> continue the strike. This vote reflected the exhaustion
>> and desperate situation facing teachers after a bitter
>> five-month strike. For the past two months, the teachers
>> have not received their wages or any funding from their
>> union. Many have lost their homes and cars. Countless
>> families have been broken up.
>>
>> The Delegates Assembly on October 26 took note of this
>> membership consultation, but it did not vote to return to
>> work on Monday, October 30 â€" as Abascal Carranza and
>> Ruiz Ortiz had hoped. The Assembly said the teachers
>> would return to work ONLY if certain conditions and
>> guarantees were met: the safety of all the teachers had
>> to be guaranteed, all wages lost during the strike had to
>> be repaid, all the political prisoners held in the state
>> of Oaxaca had to be freed, and a government fund had to
>> be set up to cover the long-term expenses of the families
>> of the 11 teachers and activists killed during the
>> strike.
>>
>> And the Delegates Assembly took another equally important
>> decision. It voted to reject the government’s demand to
>> end the encampment and tear down the barricades. The
>> Delegates Assembly stated they would not drop their
>> commitment to remove Ruiz Ortiz from office, even if they
>> were compelled to return to work. They said they remained
>> committed to APPO and would send teachers every day, on a
>> rotating basis, to staff the barricades and encampment.
>>
>> This last decision by the Delegates Assembly infuriated
>> Ruiz Ortiz and his supporters, who expected that a
>> decision to return to work would be accompanied by an end
>> to APPO and to the downtown occupation and encampment.
>>
>> A meeting was scheduled in Mexico City between the
>> Section 22 leadership and Abascal Carranza for today
>> (October 28) in which the government was to give their
>> response to the teachers’ conditions.
>>
>> In the interim, however, the violence instigated by Ruiz
>> Ortiz on October 27 has disrupted this attempt to work
>> out the final details of a settlement.
>>
>> I spoke late last night over the phone with Augusto Reyes
>> Medina, a member of the Executive Committee of Section
>> 22. He said the union leadership was holding an emergency
>> Delegates Assembly today (October 28) to discuss what to
>> do next in light of the new killings and the fact a
>> climate of peace does not exist for the teachers to
>> return to work.
>>
>> Reyes Medina told me he had met earlier in the evening
>> with dozens of general secretaries of local chapters of
>> the union from across the state. He and these delegates
>> to the Assembly, he said, had drafted a letter to the
>> Delegates Assembly and to all the teachers in Oaxaca in
>> which they state that the conditions for returning to
>> work stipulated by the October 26 Delegates Assembly do
>> not exist.
>>
>> “No matter what Abascal Carranza tells our Section 22
>> delegation about ensuring the safety and protection of
>> our teachers,� Reyes Medina said, “the fact is that
>> he does not call the shots in Oaxaca. Nor has Abascal
>> Carranza lifted a finger thus far to rein in Ruiz Ortiz,
>> much less get rid of him. As everyone knows, there is an
>> open alliance between the PAN and the PRI on this issue
>> today. … As long as the assassins of our 14 teachers
>> and supporters remain unpunished, as long as the No. 1
>> assassin, Ruiz Ortiz, remains at the helm of the state,
>> we will be gunned down one by one, or in clusters, by the
>> governor and his goons. Of this we can be sure. This is
>> how Ruiz Ortiz functions.�
>>
>> Reyes Medina said he and a large wing of the local
>> leaders of the union would call on the Delegates Assembly
>> to put the decision to return to work on hold until the
>> only real guarantee to ensure the safe return to the
>> classrooms is enacted: the punishment of those
>> responsible for the killings and the removal from office
>> of Ruiz Ortiz.
>>
>> I will keep you posted later today on the decisions of
>> today’s Delegates Assembly.
>>
>> In the meantime, I believe it is urgent that all
>> supporters of the teachers’ and popular movement in
>> Oaxaca organize this coming week emergency protest
>> actions in front of Mexican embassies and consulates to
>> demand an end to the repression in Oaxaca and the arrest
>> and punishment of all those responsible for the violence
>> against the teachers and the APPO activists. The earlier
>> these emergency protests, the better.
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>> Alan Benjamin
>>
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/oaxacastudyactiongroup/message/1096
"
. . . In the meantime, I believe it is urgent that all supporters of the teachers and popular movement in Oaxaca organize this coming week emergency protest actions in front of Mexican embassies and consulates to demand an end to the repression in Oaxaca and the arrest and punishment of all those responsible for the violence against the teachers and the APPO activists. . . ."
"
Supporters of the teachers?" ...
The teachers voted to end their strike and return to classes.
"
Popular movement in Oaxaca?"
Parents have begun taking over their local schools and sending machete-carrying APPO activists home without their shirts.
"
. . . demand an end to the repression in Oaxaca and the arrest and punishment of all those responsible for the violence against the teachers and the APPO activists. . . ."
And what about the APPO seizure of both privately and publicly-owned radio stations they have used for broadcasts? What about APPO's destruction of the privately-owned businesses in downtown Oaxaca whose proprietors were deemed opposed to their protest? What about the killing of two dissident SNTE union members for opposing the APPO protest? What about the harm done to thousands of poor Oaxacans who depend every year on the
Guelaguetza folk festival for their biggest chunk of annual income who saw that money lost when APPO shut the festival down? What about the harm done to hundreds of thousands of children who have had their opportunity for a basic education stripped from them?
Friggin' leftist dribble! I'm sick of their lies!