Teachers maintain strike in Oaxaca

Shortly before dawn on June 14, hundreds of Mexican state and local police used tear gas and pepper spray to break up an encampment of up to 40,000 striking teachers in the city of Oaxaca. The police, including special riot units from the state attorney general's office and the Oaxaca municipal government, were supported by a helicopter dispersing dozens of tear gas canisters. The teachers fled the city's main square as police destroyed their encampment and ransacked the headquarters of their union. Police also destroyed the equipment of the union's radio station Radio Planton ("Radio Sit-in") and four of its workers disappeared. Five women were reportedly raped by police after they were found hiding in a nearby school. The teachers regrouped in less than an hour. Armed with clubs and covering their faces with dampened cloths as protection against the tear gas, the teachers counterattacked with rocks and hurled tear gas grenades back at the police. Groups of teachers seized buses and used them as battering rams against the police who had retreated by mid-morning as the union regained control of the main plaza. The police arrested 10 teachers during the confrontation, but the teachers captured eight police officers and two men who were seen throwing tear gas grenades from a nearby hotel. According to initial reports from the union and local human rights groups, 92 people were injured in the melee and four were killed. Two of the dead were reportedly children asphyxiated by massive amounts of tear gas fired from police helicopters. Subsequent reports claimed that as many as 11 people were killed. The deaths have not been confirmed and the government has strongly denied that there were any fatalities. In addition to maintaining the encampment in the plaza, striking teachers blocked 56 downtown streets, held brief sit-ins at various government buildings and organized two "megamarches," reportedly the largest demonstrations in the state of Oaxaca's history. In what he called an effort to "ease tensions" the day after the police raid, Oaxaca Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz agreed to release the 10 arrested teachers, to suspend 25 arrest warrants against union leaders, and to pay for damage caused by the police attack, including the destruction of the Radio Planton equipment. Shortly before the arrested teachers were released, strikers freed the captured police and the two men seized at the hotel. The police operation generated major protests elsewhere in the state of Oaxaca and other Mexican states. Hundreds of teachers occupied the state education secretariat offices in the neighboring state of Guerrero on June 14 to show support for the Oaxaca teachers. San Salvador Atenco residents issued an "alert" in support of the teachers and demanded a "people's punishment" for Governor Ruiz. In the southeastern state of Chiapas, teachers marched on June 16 to express solidarity with Oaxaca teachers and to push their own demands. Thousands demonstrated in Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala, and about 1,000 marched in San Cristobal de las Casas. Tens of thousands of striking teachers and their supporters marched through Oaxaca on June 16 in a demonstration attended by as many as 300,000 people. The strike, which began as a demand for significant wage increases, has evolved into a political dispute, with the teachers now calling for the resignation or impeachment of Ruiz. Thousands of teachers have occupied the center of Oaxaca city since mid-May, pitching tents in the main plaza. A day after the raid on the union encampment, the federal Interior Ministry sent mediators to the state. The mediators later rejected a demand by the teachers union that the government establish a special body to study impeachment proceedings against the governor. Enrique Rueda Pacheco, a leader of the teachers union, said the resignation of the governor has become a demand not just of the teachers but also "of all the people of Oaxaca." The teachers have vowed to continue the strike, and have threatened to disrupt voting in Oaxaca for the July 2 presidential election. This week they blocked employee access to the state office of the Federal Electoral Institute. President Vicente Fox's spokesman Ruben Aguilar said the upheaval in Oaxaca was not a sign of instability around the presidential vote. "In no way does the government consider them hot spots or insoluble problems, much less do they put at risk the electoral process," he said. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Mexican telephone and university workers are threatening a 24-hour strike just days before the presidential elections to pressure the government to end a long-running mining dispute.