[News] Police Unleash Repression Against Oaxaca Teachers

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Police Unleash Repression Against Oaxaca Teachers

http://www.narconews.com/Issue41/article1898.html


Growing Demand for Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz’ Removal





By James Daria and Dul Santamaría
The Ricardo Flores Magòn Brigade Reporting for Narco News from Oaxaca

June 15, 2006

OAXACA CITY, June 14: The expected but unwanted 
eviction of the members and supporters of the 
Oaxaca Democratic Teachers’ Union, Section 22 of 
the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE in 
its Spanish initials) occupying the Oaxaca City 
central square occurred on Wednesday, June 14. 
The operation began at 4:00 in the morning, with 
approximately 2500 state judicial police entering 
the teachers’ camp, using violence and teargas, 
among other weapons, to attack the protesters. 
This operation, according to Oaxaca Attorney 
General Lizbeth Caña, was carried out with 
warrants to raid the union hall and the Teachers’ 
Hotel, and with arrest warrants against leaders 
of the SNTE section 22, including Secretary 
General Enrique Rueda Pacheco, who appears to 
remain free at the moment. In order to execute 
the raid, they ejected not only the teachers and 
the organizations supporting them, but also 
children and elderly people. In their wake, the 
police left 
<http://www.narconews.com/Issue41//Issue41/article1896.html>a 
path of destruction resembling a war 
<http://www.narconews.com/Issue41//Issue41/article1896.html>zone.

Foto: <http://vientos.info>Centro de Medios Libres
One of the state forces’ first actions was to 
take over the union’s buildings, in order to 
capture the leaders and cut off broadcasts from 
Radio Plantón. The radio station’s chief said 
that he was able to escape but that inside the 
Union Hotel others were arrested, including a 
union secretary and hotel employee. Narco News 
later learned that among the first arrests were 
four Radio Plantón journalists: Arcelio Ruiz 
Villanueva, Ociel Martínez Martínez, Eduardo 
Castellanos Morales and Roberto Gazga. The state 
attorney general’s office says that it arrested 
nine people in this building, claiming the 
detainees had firearms and high-caliber 
ammunition. But after they retook the building, 
teachers there said that this claim was just a police set-up.

As dawn broke, the Special Operations Police Unit 
and the Judicial Police clashed with protesters 
in a fight to control the main square, or Zócalo. 
The police used tear gasses of different types, 
which were launched by hand, by grenade 
launchers, and tossed from state government 
helicopters overhead. These gas canisters were 
dropped indiscriminately, as corroborated by one 
Narco News reporter who found 35 gas canisters 
along a single city block, all made in the United 
States. The teachers carried sticks, machetes, 
rocks, and some were able to protect themselves 
with shields and helmets they pulled off their 
attackers. Teachers’ brigades were organized to 
help provide water, vinegar and Coca-Cola, to 
help counteract the effects of the gas. Contrary 
to what we heard reported in the mass media, we 
saw not a single teacher carrying firearms or Molotov cocktails.

<http://vientos.info>Centro de Medios Libres
The confrontation continued until 9:30 a.m., when 
the police retreated and the teachers retook the 
Zócalo, but according to the teachers and others 
there, the security forces are regrouping in the 
southeast of the city, waiting for further 
orders. Another intervention and more violence 
are therefore expected. The teachers and social 
organizations are also reorganizing to reinforce 
their occupation of the Zócalo and unite forces 
to push back the repression. Students from the 
Benito Juárez Autonomous University gave a show 
of solidarity by taking over the university radio 
station after broadcasts from Radio Plantón were 
cut off, in order to continue reporting. Other 
marches and actions are also being organized, 
which could include teachers from other states 
who are mobilizing to travel to Oaxaca.

According to Section 22’s public relations 
secretary, in an interview with Radio Educación, 
there have been three deaths ­ which allegedly 
include a child who suffocated after inhaling the 
tear gas ­ and more than twenty people injured 
who are now at different hospitals across the 
city. There are unconfirmed reports of several people disappeared.

One week earlier, on Wednesday, June 7, Oaxaca 
Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz was symbolically 
tried, hung and burned in effigy by Section 22, 
social organizations and the people in general. 
This “trial” occurred after a large mobilization 
to unite the voices of dissent from different 
sectors of society. More than 70,000 Oaxacan 
teachers participated in this mega-march, along 
with teachers from other states, parent 
associations, students, social organizations, 
indigenous people, and others. According to 
Section 22 Secretary General Enrique Rueda 
Pacheco, there were a total of 250,000 marchers, 
making it one of the most important demonstrations in the history of Oaxaca.

The march’s main theme was the popular trial of 
Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, but there were also demands 
for better-quality education, scholarships, 
school uniforms and supplies for the most 
marginalized and poor communities, as well as a pay increase for the teachers.



Teachers on Strike

Section 22, the Oaxaca teachers’ union, has a 
26-year history of social and workers’ struggle 
to defend gains and win improvements in education 
and teachers’ salaries. Part of their strategy is 
a strike held every year as their contracts are renewed.

This year, the strike has lasted longer than 
usual, due to the government’s defiance of the 
teachers’ demands. They have therefore maintained 
their pressure on the governor with an unending 
occupation of the Zócalo area of the city – some 
40 blocks – that started on May 22. The teachers 
there come from all across the state of Oaxaca, 
and engage each day in civil disobedience and 
direct action. These actions include shutting 
down tollbooths, tearing down electoral 
propaganda around the city (elections are July 
2), and others, all characterized by their creativity.

On Friday, June 2, Ulises Ruiz gave the teachers 
an ultimatum, saying they had to return to work 
June 5 and threatening to dock their pay, sue 
them for breach of contract and cancel a $5.2 
million dollar package that had been proposed to solve the problem.

According to the strikers’ radio station, Radio 
Plantón (which until today had been on the air 
continuously for 13 days), the teachers decided 
to remain on strike. And so they had to double 
their guard in the Zócalo and adopt other 
security practices. They now expected a violent 
intervention on the part of the state.



The Mega-March and Political “Trial”

The reaction from society was mixed. So, with the 
goal of unity, the teachers’ union called a large 
march to unite the popular and democratic forces 
with them, calling for the removal of the current 
governor. The march began at 3:00 in the 
afternoon at the monument to Juárez, and the last 
marchers did not reach the end of the rout ­ the 
Plaza de la Danza ­ until 8:20 that evening.

The march displayed the creativity of society in 
manifesting its dissent. Aside from the usual 
slogans, the people made banners, puppets, 
placards, and even organized a funeral for the 
governor. Many parents along the route, contrary 
to what the mass media reported, made an amazing 
show of support from their balconies.

On the other hand, the part of society that 
doesn’t know the union’s proposals, or is against 
them, was obviously irritated by the delays in 
getting home or to work. The commercial media 
across the state have promoted clashes between 
the protesters and the rest of society, surely 
trying to provoke disturbances to easily justify 
imposing the same “law and order” seen in Atenco.

At the Plaza de la Danza, overflowing with nearly 
300,000 people, the political trial of Governor 
Ulises Ruiz Ortiz began. Ruiz was represented by 
a cloth doll seated on a stage, covered with 
money, and seemingly anxious for the trial to be over.

Participating in this mock trial were members of 
the general society, unions and a great number of 
social organizations, including: the Popular 
Revolutionary Front; the Committee in Defense of 
Indian Rights-Xanica; Section 22 General 
Secretary Enrique Rueda Pacheco, the Wide Front 
of Popular Struggle, the Single Workers’ Union of 
the Santa Cruz Municipal Government; Xoxocotlán; 
defenders of political prisoner Pedro Castillo 
Aragón, the Committee in Defense of the Rights of 
the People; the Front of Democratic Unions and 
Organizations of Oaxaca; the Oaxacan Popular 
Indigenous Council; the Indian Organizations for 
Human Rights in Oaxaca; the Huautleco United 
Front; the 
<http://www.narconews.com/Issue41//Issue40/article1677.html>San 
Blas Atempa associations; the International 
Network of Indigenous Oaxacans;, the Health 
Union; the residents of Crespo Street and of the 
Jalatlaco and Fortin neighborhoods, and others.

The jury was made up of former rector of the 
Benito Juárez Autonomous Univierty of Oaxaca 
Felipe Martínez Soriano; researcher Víctor 
Martines Vázquez, Promotora Nacional contra el 
Neoliberalismo member Omar Garibay Guerral; Jose 
Antonio Almazán of the Mexican Electricians’ 
Union; and Angélica Ayala of the Human Rights 
Observers Network. With their strong voices of 
discontent, these organizations accused the 
governor of being illegitimate, saying he was not 
elected by the Oaxacan people but rather imposed 
as governor through a controversial electoral 
fraud. They also charged him with several crimes 
that the secretary of the jury read off, as the 
crowd shouted slogan after slogan as they heard 
once again each criminal act that Ruiz Ortiz has 
committed. They found him guilty of irreparable 
damage to human patrimony, of the assassination 
of social leaders, of the mismanagement of state 
finances, of “ethnocide,” of violating United 
Nations and UNESCO decrees including the 
guarantee of individual liberties, of promoting 
violence in the state and of being incapable of 
resolving conflicts through politics.

The verdict was GUILTY of the crimes that the 
spokespeople for social, indigenous, civil, 
parent and teacher organizations read off one by 
one. The sentence was: “removal from office for 
lacking the political ability to continue 
governing this state.” The jury agreed to send 
this verdict to the state legislature and await a legal response.

As the trial ended, the effigy of Ulises Ruiz, 
which had been patiently awaiting the decision, 
was hung and set on fire as the teachers and 
other demonstrators applauded and sang, happy to 
see the people’s justice served for once instead 
of the “justice” of those above. It must be 
stressed that the violent response to this event 
from Ulises Ruiz Ortiz came one week later.


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