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<h1><b>Police Unleash Repression Against Oaxaca
Teachers</b></h1><font size=3>
<a href="http://www.narconews.com/Issue41/article1898.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.narconews.com/Issue41/article1898.html<br><br>
</a></font><h2><b>Growing Demand for Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz’
Removal<br><br>
<br><br>
</b></h2><h3><b>By James Daria and Dul Santamaría<br>
The Ricardo Flores Magòn Brigade Reporting for Narco News from
Oaxaca</b></h3><font size=3>June 15, 2006<br><br>
<b>OAXACA CITY, June 14:</b> 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
<a href="http://www.narconews.com/Issue41//Issue41/article1896.html">a
path of destruction resembling a war
</a><a href="http://www.narconews.com/Issue41//Issue41/article1896.html">
zone</a>.<br><br>
<i>Foto: <a href="http://vientos.info">Centro de Medios Libres<br>
</a></i>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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
<i><a href="http://vientos.info">Centro de Medios Libres<br>
</a></i>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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
<br>
</font><h5><b>Teachers on Strike</b></h5><font size=3>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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
<br>
</font><h5><b>The Mega-March and Political
“Trial”</b></h5><font size=3>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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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
<a href="http://www.narconews.com/Issue41//Issue40/article1677.html">San
Blas Atempa</a> associations; the International Network of Indigenous
Oaxacans;, the Health Union; the residents of Crespo Street and of the
Jalatlaco and Fortin neighborhoods, and others.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
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