Mexico: Government ultimatum against striking teachers

by wsws (reposted)

Tue, Oct 17, 2006 7:36AM

The Mexican government has threatened striking teachers in the city of Oaxaca with police and military repression this week unless they accept a negotiated agreement between the Vicente Fox government, the teachers union and the Oaxacan Peoples Popular Assembly (APPO). On October 12, striking teachers voted to reject the deal.

In reality the repression has already begun. What for months took the form of a medium-intensity conflict between the strikers and government vigilantes has substantially escalated. On Saturday a squad composed of soldiers in civilian clothing killed a striker and wounded several others.

Earlier in the week, an APPO group that was attempting to persuade police officers to vacate their station was fired upon, presumably by the police themselves. Also last week a vigilante group violently occupied a regional community radio station operated by the Nahuatl and Mazateca Indians. When Mazateca women attempted to march into Oaxaca in protest, a “human chain” organized by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which controls the state government, blocked the only road out of the town of Mazatlan-Villa Flores.

More
http://wsws.org/articles/2006/oct2006/mex-o17.shtml

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