tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16711557.post116226814721965555..comments2024-01-21T05:43:02.361-05:00Comments on Pan-African News Wire: Detroit & Other National Demonstrations Against the Siege of Oaxaco, Mexico To Be Held on Tuesday, October 31Pan-African News Wirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10958190577776906688noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16711557.post-1162384852063872922006-11-01T07:40:00.000-05:002006-11-01T07:40:00.000-05:00Three thousand teachers from Michoacán state, Mexi...Three thousand teachers from Michoacán state, Mexio,will go to Oaxaca to support<BR/> <BR/>Note by Fred Bergen: What follows is a translation of an excerpt from today's "Political Pulse" column in El Universal (Mexico) by Francisco Cárdenas Cruz. <BR/><BR/>As Working Class Emancipation stated in its call for solidarity demonstrations, the struggle in Oaxaca is not over, despite the attacks of the state and its<BR/>paramilitary thugs and the betrayals by leaders of the<BR/>SNTE. Yesterday at noon, I represented Working Class<BR/>Emancipation at a demonstration by anarchists and liberals condemning the assassination of comrade<BR/>journalist Bradley Will. While they condemned his assassination and the brutal repression of the Oaxaca Commune, I got the sense that they held out little hope for the future of the struggle now that the PFP and Army have entered Oaxaca city. Their main demand<BR/>was to pressure the US state department to in turn pressure the Mexican government to investigate the murder of Bradley Will. <BR/><BR/>We are the first to say that the situation in Oaxaca is critical, in fact, unlike José Luis Zarco García, who, if I understand<BR/>correctly, claims to have been "surprised" by the attack that was being prepared for at least a month, we warned that the government's "offers" at the<BR/>negotiating table were nothing but traps for the movement. But as long as the people of Oaxaca and<BR/>Mexico have not been completely demoralized by the attacks, as long as they are willing to struggle (as they clearly are), the struggle is not over and we<BR/>revolutionaries have no business giving up and declaring it over. <BR/><BR/>There is a way to win, hinted at by<BR/>this heroic action of the Michoacán teachers: general<BR/>nationwide strike until URO falls! Solidarity actions in the US and elsewhere, centered in the working class and its organizations, have an important role to play in this struggle to defend the Oaxaca Commune, but not by appealing to the genocidal imerialist US ruling<BR/>class to intervene! We should not doubt that the CIA is already intervening, on the same side of the barricades as the PFP and the Army.<BR/><BR/>The recent resolutions by the Mexican legislature calling on URO to resign are too little too late, and offer no solution to current repression or any of the other problems facing the workers and poor people of Oaxaca. As our comrades from the LTS-CC have<BR/>repeatedly emphasized, a change in government "from above" would only give a new face to the same repressive bosses' government. <BR/><BR/>Only a provisional government of the APPO and the worker, peasant, and poor people's organizations that opens the way to a workers' government in Mexico can solve the problems facing the Oaxaca teachers and the rest of Mexico's<BR/>exploited and oppressed.<BR/><BR/>We humbly suggest "immediately" to the teachers in Michoacán deciding when to begin their strike. As the<BR/>emergency declaration of the FT-CI asked, what are the union leaders waiting for to call their members out on strike in solidarity with Oaxaca? More murders? More<BR/>kidnappings? More incursions by the police and army?<BR/><BR/>Three thousand teachers from Michoacán state, Mexio, will go to Oaxaca to support the APPO Marches held in various states denouncing the PFP [Mexican Federal Police] incursion<BR/><BR/>Pablo Salazar [governor of Chiapas state] warns that he will not allow the rule of law to be violated in Chiapas<BR/><BR/>Section 18 of the National Coordinator of Education<BR/>Workers (CNTE, a teachers' union) in Michoacán announced the departure of three thousand teachers yesterday headed for the state of Oaxaca, and an indefinite work stoppage at the over ten thousand schools where the union is represented, in support of<BR/>the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO).<BR/><BR/>Representing the teachers and the members of the Popular Assembly of the People of Michoacán (APPM),<BR/>José Luis Zarco García declared his non-cooperation with Sunday's incursion into Oaxaca by elements of the PFP.<BR/><BR/>He pointed out that the entry of state forces into the city was a surprise, since the dialog with the APPO and the Oaxacan teachers had not concluded.<BR/><BR/>He said that [the SNTE teachers] would not allow the PFP or the Army to stay in Oaxaca, and that "Michoacán is getting organized to add approximately three thousand comrades to the caravan that is leaving the<BR/>DF (Mexico City) for Oaxaca."<BR/><BR/>The teachers of Michoacán and the APPM will declare this Tuesday when the work stoppage will begin in the over ten thousand schools of Michoacán, and will march<BR/>from the offices of the Interior Department to Plaza Melchor Ocampo [a central square in Michoacán<BR/>adjoining the cathedral]. ...Pan-African News Wirehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10958190577776906688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16711557.post-1162270389305557742006-10-30T23:53:00.000-05:002006-10-30T23:53:00.000-05:00Read this excellent letter from Alan Benjamin:Mexi...Read this excellent letter from <BR/>Alan Benjamin:<BR/><BR/>Mexico City Saturday, October 28, 2006<BR/><BR/>Dear Supporters of the teachers and popular movement in Oaxaca:<BR/><BR/>Yesterday afternoon (Friday, October 27) I was at the<BR/>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.<BR/><BR/>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 under direct orders from PRI Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz 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.<BR/><BR/>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.<BR/><BR/>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.<BR/><BR/>We later learned that in the neighboring municipality of<BR/>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.<BR/><BR/>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.<BR/><BR/>In a statement issued Friday night, leaders of Section 22<BR/>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.<BR/><BR/>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<BR/>state by these radical elements; we will carry out any and all actions necessary to restore order, the rule of law and social peace.?"<BR/><BR/>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.<BR/><BR/>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.<BR/><BR/>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. <BR/><BR/>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'like the rest of the indigenous and community activists in APPO -- are<BR/>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<BR/>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.<BR/><BR/>One week ago, Rueda Pacheco succeeded in getting his<BR/>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 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.<BR/><BR/>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<BR/>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.<BR/><BR/>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 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.<BR/><BR/>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.<BR/><BR/>This last decision by the Delegates Assembly infuriated<BR/>Ruiz Ortiz and his supporters, who<BR/>expected that a decision to return to work would be accompanied by an end to APPO and to the downtown occupation and encampment.<BR/><BR/>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<BR/>response to the teacher conditions.<BR/><BR/>In the interim, however, the violence instigated by Ruiz<BR/>Ortiz on October 27 has disrupted this attempt to work out the final details of a settlement.<BR/><BR/>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.<BR/><BR/>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. <BR/><BR/>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. <BR/><BR/>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. <BR/><BR/>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.<BR/><BR/>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.<BR/><BR/>I will keep you posted later today on the decisions of today's Delegates Assembly.<BR/><BR/>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.<BR/><BR/>All the best,<BR/>Alan BenjaminPan-African News Wirehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10958190577776906688noreply@blogger.com