What Can School Workers Do? Look to Oaxaca

[Rich Gibson <rgibson@pipeline.com>]

> <http://www.narconews.com/Issue46/article2768.html>http://www.narconews.com/Issue46/article2768.html
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> Oaxaca Declines to be â??Governedâ??
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> The Struggle Shifts from the City to Land and Water Issues
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> By Nancy Davies
> Commentary from Oaxaca
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> August 24, 2007
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> Last year in 2006 the state of 
> <http://www.narconews.com/otroperiodismo/oaxaca/en.html>Oaxaca 
> was clearly ungovernable, although neither the 
> state nor federal authorities would formally so 
> declare, because they could not throw out the 
> governor â?? the state because the governorâ??s 
> PRI rules all three branches of power; the feds 
> because the weak president Calderón requires 
> the assistance of the PRI. But ungovernability 
> was no secret; unions were on strike, roads were 
> blockaded, government offices were blocked for 
> business, the governor and legislatures went 
> hiding, and the citizens took the streets, while 
> dirty-war arrests, murder and torture shadowed daily life.
>
> Flash forward one year and here is the scene: 
> the state of Oaxaca, despite a Federal 
> Preventive Police unit on every corner, is 
> ungovernable. Arrests and violations of human 
> rights, in the same dirty war, continue.
>
> []
>
> Photos: D.R. 2007 Nancy Davies
> ?The teachers union Section 22, mover of the 
> Movement, was split by the governor so that a 
> new small sector called Section 59 supported him 
> and the PRI. Now two union sectors oppose 
> UROâ??s failing government. Section 59 is 
> banging down the doors of the education building 
> to protest the governorâ??s failure to fulfill 
> his promises to these teachers. What a surprise.
>
> About two hundred schools remain in the control 
> of Section 59; in others the two contentious 
> sections work in the same building, causing 
> significant stress. Section 22 refuses to accept 
> the existence of Section 59, and now, since 59 
> has figured out that they backed a governor who 
> ignores them, Section 22 is going about the 
> delicate business of wooing 59 back into the 
> fold. The power of 70,000 united teachers was and would be overwhelming.
>
> The strength of the secretary general of Section 
> 22 , like his predecessor Enrique Rueda Pacheco, 
> is wobbly, to say the least. According to a 
> teacher who spoke about the situation, Rueda 
> Pacheco was simultaneously wooed and threatened 
> by the governor. His family were threatened with 
> death if Rueda did not accept the government 
> pay-off. Rueda has left Mexico ? nobody knows to 
> whicch country ? and according to this teacher, 
> once he was gone the government cut off the money they had promised him.
>
> The possibility now is that Ezekial Rosales has 
> fallen under the same threats. It seems to be 
> standard procedure to threaten to murder 
> children of activists (as we know from Dr. 
> Bertha Muñoz). However, according to many 
> others, such as APPO counselor Marcelino Coache 
> Verano, the all-out call by Section 22 and/or 
> the APPO has not been issued; if the teachers 
> were summoned to the streets or encampments, 
> Coache claims, they would all respond regardless 
> of the plight of their secretary, along with the APPO.
>
> ?Several other unions are, have been, or are 
> about to go on strikke. The unions which are 
> government unions, that is, work for the state, 
> and receive their salaries from the state, are 
> unhappy. In addition to teachers, the university 
> education workers, health care workers, even 
> local police and firefighters protest. On August 
> 22 Las Noticiasâ?? headline reads STEUABJO 
> BLOCKADES THE HIGHWAY. These are the staff of 
> the main university of Oaxaca. Also on page one, 
> the police in Xoxocotlan protested the removal of their chief.
>
> ?In the past two months the taxi drivers have 
> blocked roads to prrotest the incompetence and 
> criminal actions of the government in 
> distributing cab licenses for bribe money ?what 
> a surprise? so that there are now thouhousands 
> of taxis on the roads, with no resolution to the 
> license scandal in sight. The bus drivers have 
> blocked the highways with buses, complaining 
> about their work conditions and the dreadful 
> condition of aging buses, which occasionally 
> fall of the mountain roads due to the crumbling 
> condition of the roads themselves.
>
> ?The citizens have taken to the streets. Not the 
> APPO ? itâ??s the PRI-supporting mmerchants. 
> Another surprise! They protested the government 
> intention to close further streets around the 
> central zócalo, to repave and repair them, to 
> turn them into pedestrian streets. This was 
> after the merchants complained of 
> near-bankruptcy during the teacher encampment 
> when few cars drove into the center. Once again 
> the people ? only the label has changed? are 
> tearing out thethe parking meters (allegedly 
> owned by private persons) and on the streets 
> scheduled for construction, they forcefully 
> removed the orange cones and blocked the workers.
>
> The city of Tlaxiaco protests the August 8 
> transfer of seventy-three persons to another 
> prison, six hours journey for their families, 
> with no advance warning nor discussion of the 
> violation of prisoner rights. Also in the 
> streets are protesters for a town where access 
> to the trash dumps is blockaded, another where a 
> bridge fell down in the rain, and yet another 
> where paved streets have dissolved. Entire 
> communities, like San Pablo Huixtepec, claim 
> they have been abandoned by the government; 
> photos of falling down buildings and 
> half-constructed schools, roads in ruins and 
> black water running where there is no drainage 
> system, are published daily. Poverty continues 
> unabated (according to official reports, 104 
> Oaxaca communities live at the level of African 
> poverty), and despite daily news items about 
> human rights violations, these also continue and 
> nobody is indicted. The savage beating of a 
> electrician on July 16 has slipped into the 
> official territory of â??yes, we will look into itâ?? smoke and mirrors.
>
> []
>
> On August 22, in the Oaxaca streets, marchers 
> observed the first year anniversary of the death 
> of 
> <http://www.narconews.com/Issue42/article2025.html>Lorenzo 
> San Pablo at the hands of the government 
> paramilitaries with a â??March for Justiceâ??. A 
> small but fervent group walked with candles, 
> wooden crosses (saying â??miseryâ??, and 
> â??injusticeâ??), and banners which read â??A 
> person who dies for the people never dies.â?? 
> Moving from the Siete Regiones fountain to the 
> Catedrál on the Alameda in the center city, 
> they stopped en route in the rain to offer a 
> memorial at the spot where San Pablo was shot. 
> Then, many with their faces painted white to 
> depict the ghosts of the dead who walk among us, 
> they continued to the cathedral where a chorus 
> sheltering beneath their umbrellas in the rain 
> sang hymns with political pro-APPO lyrics. On 
> the pavement in front of the Catedrál the 
> traditional sand carpet in memory of a deceased 
> person portrayed the bird of peace and the APPO 
> clenched red fist. A truckload of state troopers 
> armed to riot level patrolled the adjoining streets.
>
> During the week of August 5 four visitors from 
> Catalonia were 
> <https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/08/378129.html>arrested 
> and abused before being deported. But perhaps it 
> was only the rain which kept people from 
> attending the memorial march; many others arrived in time for the mass.
>
> The APPO as an organized body seems virtually 
> invisible as they struggle to plan ways to 
> confront the government. Some say internal 
> disputes have enervated them. Therefore, with an 
> ongoing and visible lack of governability in 
> Oaxaca, one might indeed agree that the APPO is 
> everything and everybody. Or that 
> ungovernability is due to other causes ? perhaps 
> you might say the people do not submitt; perhaps 
> you might say itâ??s the ineptitude of the 
> governor and his cronies. Last week URO went to 
> the United States where he was confronted with 
> protests in several cities, including New York. 
> Protesters in the street threw tomatoes at the 
> restaurant where URO and other governors were 
> said to be dining. Oaxaca human rights 
> violations are so widely known that even in 
> Finland Oaxaca is regarded as an example, 
> according to a man just returned from there, of 
> the struggle for human dignity; information 
> about Oaxaca has reached global levels.
>
> However, within Mexico the best that has been 
> done was a call on the part of the Human Rights 
> Commission sub-procurator, Juan de Dios Castro 
> Lozano, for Ulises Ruiz to resign, for his human 
> rights violations and for the good of the 
> people. Then Castro, a PAN member, the very next 
> day, retracted his statement saying, â??My 
> feelings ran away with me, and I shouldnâ??t 
> have mentioned either the governor or his 
> institutions, although he may have an ideology 
> contrary to that of this (PAN) government,â?? 
> according to an on-line article in La Jornada. 
> When Castro issued his retraction he claimed, 
> nonetheless, that he agrees with the verdict of 
> the National Commission on Human Rights ? there 
> were excesses committed. Yet another surprise.
>
> And speaking of human rights, the attorney for 
> El Comité de Liberacion de Noviembre, the 
> November Committee of Freedom of Oaxaca, was 
> picked up by the police on Wednesday August 22. 
> According to the committee, Alejandro Noyola was 
> driving in his car with his wife when police 
> from Santa Lucía del Camino intercepted him. 
> They dragged him out of his car and took him to 
> the Santa Lucia del Camino prison, claiming a 
> driving infraction. He was later released. 
> Noyola says he has been persecuted since July 19 
> when he filed for court protection for the lives 
> of five lawyers, including himself, defending human rights cases.
>
> The year of the uprising has not yet come to an end.
>
> Meanwhile, in other parts of the state, the 
> transnational projects continue and a meeting 
> has been called for the â??Defense of the Land 
> and National Sovereignty and for the Right of 
> the Indian Peoples to be Consultedâ?? (see below 
> for the formal convocation). The struggle at the 
> base has overtly shifted to the indigenous 
> populations who demand control over their land 
> and water. Although it was reported as long ago 
> as last year that residents of the indigenous 
> communities were organizing, too many actions 
> were going on in the big cities for the rural 
> areas to receive much attention. Then we were 
> regaled with stories of â??throw the rascals 
> outâ?? in many rural towns. Now struggles over 
> mining, forests, land, and water have come to the fore.
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> For the actors, this the sequence of focus on 
> the various Movement players: the teachers in 
> Section 22, then the APPO, then civil society 
> and non-governmental organizations, and now the 
> indigenous and rural populations. The Popular 
> Movement doesnâ??t die. It changes form and 
> location. The demands for justice continue.
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> CONVOCATION
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> MEXICAN MEETING FOR THE DEFENSE OF THE LAND AND NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY
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> AND FOR THE RIGHT OF THE INDIAN PEOPLES TO BE CONSULTED
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> In these last years, with the imposition of 
> mega-projects like the Plan Puebla-Panama damage 
> and violence to the indigenous and rural 
> populations has been intensifying. The grand 
> programs of investment in energy projects which 
> the federal government is promoting are oriented 
> to benefit the transnational corporations. They 
> donâ??t take into account the rights of the 
> communities affected nor the high environmental 
> and economic costs which the carrying out of 
> these projects entails. Furthermore, the Mexican 
> government violates international accords and 
> treaties like national legislation, since in the 
> execution of these programs the affected 
> indigenous communities have been neither informed nor consulted.
>
> With these mega-projects the federal government 
> also is promoting the privatization of the 
> energy industry, which is a national patrimony, 
> to benefit mainly North American and Spanish 
> corporations The Federal Electric Commission in 
> spite of being a public business is acting as if 
> it were the property of a group of politicians 
> and technocrats, offering bad service with high 
> costs and constructing works which mean the 
> dislocation of entire populations as recently 
> occurred with the indigenous communities of the zone El Cajón in Nayarit.
>
> At this very moment the second phase of a 
> gigantic eo-electric park is opening operations, 
> without consultation and as an overt pilfering 
> of socially owned land, to build in the Istmo de 
> Tehuantepec. This mega-project has now meant the 
> ruin of more than 1,000 hectares which are the 
> property of ejidos and communities, all in 
> benefit of the transnational Iberdrola; the 
> operation of 98 air generators in the zone of La 
> Venta has already caused great mortality among 
> birds along with draining the lagoon of 
> Tolistoque, since the environmental impact 
> studies were approved in spite of the great 
> irregularities which they present. Nevertheless, 
> throughout the whole country, entire communities 
> have raised their voices, along with unions, 
> groups of citizens and environmentalists with 
> the goal of stopping the policies which affect 
> the population. Principally in the southeast of 
> our country a movement of civil resistance is 
> growing against the high electric costs. The 
> Guerrero campesinos have managed until now to 
> halt the construction of La Parota dam, 
> converting themselves thereby into a national 
> example of resistance. And in the Istmo de 
> Tehuantepec an important struggle exists against 
> the eolic (wind generator) mega-projects. 
> Nevertheless many of these efforts are carried 
> out in isolation and with small results. The 
> struggles which the peoples and organizations 
> bring forth are unknown by the majority of 
> Mexicans and that prevents a greater solidarity 
> and backing, which is necessary to confront the 
> interests of politicians and transnational corporations.
>
> For all these reasons we communities, ejidos, 
> indigenous and rural organizations, social 
> groups and people listed below sign this call to 
> participate in the Encuentro Mexicano por la 
> Defensa de la Tierra y la Soberanía Nacional y 
> por el Derecho a la Consulta de los Pueblos 
> Indios which will take place between the 22nd 
> and 23rd of September of 2007 in the Zapotec 
> community of La Ventosa, of the municipality of 
> Juchitán, State of Oaxaca. In this meeting we 
> will discuss in worktables as well as in 
> plenaries the struggles of resistance taking 
> place in various parts of the country; we will 
> seek to coordinate actions to confront the great 
> transnational corporations and the hand-over 
> policies of the Mexican State; and we will 
> denounce the grave social and environmental damage which they have caused.
>
>
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