Mexico
Content about workers' struggles and events in Mexico.
Attempted murder of APPO activist
In the latest of a string of intimidations and attacks, an attempt is made on the life of the libertarian activist and former APPO Councillor Ruben Valencia Nunez.
Oaxaca of Magon
City of Resistance
Saturday 10th January 2009-01-11
Urgent Action: ATTEMPTED MURDER OF COMRADE RUBÉN VALENCIA NÚÑEZ
We wish to denounce the intimidatory actions that have endangered the life of our comrade in the popular movement in Oaxaca
FACTS:
APPO prisoner on hunger strike
Following harrassment and abuse of political prisoners in Oaxaca, a hunger strike has commenced for their liberation.
Oaxaca, 28th November 2008
Compañeras and compañeros of all the organisations, collectives and individuals of Oaxaca and the World, of the Other Campaign, of National and International Human Rights Organisations, to the communication media, to the members and sympathisers of the APPO in Mexico and the World.
Reporter kidnapped and tortured in Oaxaca
In the increasingly tense climate of repression against the social movement which has been escalating these past couple of weeks, a journalist from the Noticias newspaper was abducted by security forces.
By Scott Campbell
Pedro Matias, a well-known reporter who writes for Noticias, a local daily paper, as well as the national weekly Proceso, was kidnapped, beaten, tortured and robbed on Saturday night in Oaxaca. Reporters Without Borders states that,
Mexico: Morelos teachers' strikers now seek "solution"
After two violent and tense months, striking teachers in the Mexican state of Morelos have started negotiations with the state over an education reform bill being forced through parliament with the support of the teachers' union head.
The last week have seen motorway blockades, occupations, national demonstrations and police violence that the people of Morelos had not seen in a long while, but now moves are being made towards a statewide deal on the Alianza por la Calidad Educativa (ACE) bill, co-written by Elba Ester Gordillo - head of the Sindicato Nacional para los Trabajadores en la Educación (SNTE), the teac
"You don't mess with the government, idiots": Six killed at archealogical site occupation in Chiapas, Mexico
Mexican police on Friday shot and killed six peasants during and after an operation to end the popular occupation of an archealogical tourist site near Miguel Hidalgo, Chiapas.
The site at Chinkultic had been occupied by members of its surrounding villages since 7 September, following what villagers saw as its neglect by the INAH (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia) - the state institution charged with maintaining the country's thousands of ruins sites - and the concentration of profits from tourism in the municipality (one of the poorest in Mexico) ou
Mexico: Guerrero teachers occupy electoral institute in protest at educational reform bill
Schoolteachers and teachers in training have occupied the electoral institute's state offices in Chilpancingo, Guerrero and are threatening to destroy the ballots of today's statewide municipal elections.
Around 300 teachers started Sunday with the occupation and "liberation" of a motorway tollbooth near to Chilpancingo, giving free passage to motorists, a tactic also used in support of the 50 day long (and counting!) teachers' strike in the bordering state of Morelos, which is also in protest
Mexico: Morelos teachers' strike continues with national support
Schoolteachers in the state of Morelos today complete their 48th day of an indefinite strike against proposed a educational reform being forced through by their union leader which would remove their job security. Yesterday their march was joined by other teachers from around the country.
As well as striking, the teachers - from Sección 19 of the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores para la Educación (SNTE) - have established a plantón (permanent encampment) in the city of Cuernavaca and also have employed motorway blockades, the "liberation" of tollbooths and even marched 85km north to Mexico City in order to demand the reform's reversal.
Notes from Oaxaca
The following collection of articles on Oaxacan radical movements between January and September 2008 was translated from a number of different sources and posted to libcom's forums. They provide a number of useful insights into the situation in the volatile Mexican region.
The background:
In 2006 the Mexican state of Oaxaca was embroiled in a conflict that lasted more than seven months and resulted in at least eighteen deaths and the temporary occupation of the capital city of Oaxaca by the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO).
To Lorenzo San Pablo Cervantes
Two years on from your murder, this movement continues forward, despite all the differences and finds its way by means of honest and faternal dialogue. It is in this way, through that brotherhood and honesty of which you were an example, that we believe we have found a clear and solid form of linking together the different resistances and of constructing alternatives to this dominatory system that keeps Oaxaca and the entire world under its yoke.
“The true man goes to the roots.
To be radical is no more that this: he who goes to the roots.
He who does not see things in their depth should not call himself radical.
Nor that man who does not aid the security and speech of other men.”
José Marti
Compañero Lorenzo San Pablo:
Oaxaca: Overcoming the Fear. The long struggle for dignity
Article analysing the Oaxcan social movement from within, looking at its history, present and future and identifying obstacles to be overcome. Written by activists intimately involved with grassroots organisation and struggle.
(This article was prepared for a special edition of the magazine “La Guillotina” dedicated to the topic “Re-thinking the Left in Mexico”)
“This is not a movement of leaders, but of bases”
