FW: Mexican Teachers Need Our Support NOW!

[Marilyn Langlois <langlois-rine@comcast.net>]

Thanks Rich for the link on Japanese teachers resisting.  Here's more on
resistance in Mexico--

Marilyn
----------
From: Jonah Zern <jzern1@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: KPFA Education Collective mailing list <kpfaed@lists.kpfa.org>
Date: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 21:16:19 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [KPFAed] Mexican Teachers Need Our Support NOW!

From: "Teachers 4 Social Justice"
<teachers4socialjustice@yahoo.com>

Many of you learned of the struggle of Mexican
Teachers last weekend at  the screening of Granito de
Arena (Grain of Sand).

Those teachers urgently need our solidarity. Now.

Over 70,000 public schoolteachers, in the Mexican
state of Oaxaca, have  been on strike for 12 days, and
are maintaining a massive encampment in
the streets of Oaxaca City. They have achieved a scale
of mobilization  and popular support that they have
not seen in over a decade. On Friday, June 2nd,
thousands of students, parents, and members of civil
society joined them in a march that made front-page
news around the country.

Now the governor of Oaxaca, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, and
Mexican president Vicente Fox are threatening to
unleash the Federal police on the striking
teachers.  The Federal police are already on stand-by
outside the Oaxacan city limits and could take action
as soon as Monday, June 5th.
Background info is below.

You can write directly to the governor of Oaxaca.
Write in English or  Spanish. Just write.  You can
fill out a comment form on his website at:
http://www.gobiernodeoaxaca.gob.mx/web/index.php?option=com_contact&Itemid=3

Background:

Among the striking teachers' demands are: salary raise
for all teachers  in the state; increased funding and
infrastructure for the state's
public schools; and school breakfasts, school
supplies, shoes and eyeglasses for Oaxaca's most
marginalized students. One of their principal
demands this year is a cost-of-living adjustment for
those teachers living and working in Oaxaca's tourist
centers where teachers can no longer
afford the skyrocketing cost of living.

Oaxaca governor, Ulises Ruiz, has offered the teachers
what they consider an insufficient amount (approx. six
million USD). Hoping to pressure
the governor into negotiations, the teachers have
taken to the streets each day of the strike,
increasing the impact of their actions with
each day that the governor refuses to negotiate. Last
Thursday, they blockaded the Oaxaca airport for most
of the day. In another action they
removed and destroyed political campaign posters. One
afternoon they delivered the "remains" of the city's
new parking meters to the doorstep of
the state capitol building.

The governor, together with the right-wing Parents
Association (which does NOT represent the majority of
parents in the state), began a media campaign
discrediting the teachers, and blaming them for the
state's educational shortcomings. 300 municipal
politicians who belong to the governor's political
party, the PRI, have come out against the strike,
threatening to take over the schools if the teachers
don't return to work  on Monday, June 5th.

Finally, the governor has threatened that teachers who
do not return to work on Monday will be fined and/or
fired. And the state senate voted
on Thursday to approve the use of Federal police
forces to break the strike and to remove the teachers
from their encampment. There are currently 1500
federal police waiting on the outskirts of Oaxaca
City.

Less than a month away from national elections, Mexico
is currently embroiled in a climate of extreme
repression. In the past two months, federal police
forces have been used to brutally attack striking
miners in the state of Michoacan, and farmers in the
community of San Salvador Atenco. In both cases,
people were arrested, beaten and killed for
standing up for their rights. And in the case of
Atenco, numerous women were sexually assaulted by
police. Right-wing presidential candidates are
provoking the violence, and then using the conflicts
as examples of their ability to restore order and
maintain the peace. In this context, the
threats to use federal police forces against the
teachers should be taken VERY seriously.

Please support these teachers by emailing the Oaxacan
state governor, Ulises Ruiz.




*********************************
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