VivalaCuarta
16th October 2014, 15:42
Mexico Update: October 14
Teachers and students battle police in Chilpancingo, Guerrero; 48-hour strike in Mexico City colleges and universities
Since the nationwide protests that swept Mexico last Wednesday, October 8 (see "Huge Outrage Over Guerrero Massacre (http://www.internationalist.org/guerreromassacreoutrage1410.html)" on the Internationalist web site), the country has continued to be in an uproar over the massacre in Iguala, Guerrero and the kidnapping (and possible execution) there of scores of students from the teachers college at Ayotzinapa. Yesterday, October 13 there were running battles all day in the Guerrero state capital of Chilpancingo, with teachers and students confronting and breaking through police lines and ending with the offices of the state government and city hall in flames. Today a number of faculties, schools and campuses of the National University and Metropolitan University in Mexico City began a two-day strike in solidarity with the Ayotzinapa students.
Pitched battle in Guerrero
On Sunday night, October 12, state judicial police in Chilpancingo fired on a van including French and German students (one of whom was wounded) from the Monterrey Technological Institute who were returning to Mexico City after a weekend vacation in Acapulco. Since foreigners were involved and the incident could damage the tourist trade, 20 police were detained for questioning.
The clashes on Monday, October 13 began in the morning as militant teachers of the CETEG (Guerrero State Coordinating Committee of Education Workers, affiliated with the national CNTE). Last year the CETEG led off months of teacher walkouts protesting an education "reform" aimed at penalizing educators for the government's sabotage of public education. Offices of the capitalist political parties that voted for the law were torched and the state headquarters of the corporatist pseudo-union, the SNTE, an agency for police control of teachers, was stoned (see "Defend the Independent Teachers of Guerrero! (http://www.internationalist.org/mexnationaleducationstrike1305.html#defendermaestr osguerrero)" on the Internationalist web site).
This time teachers were seeking to enter the Guerrero state Congress building to demand the ouster of governor Ángel Aguirre and the arrest of the mayor of Iguala, but were blocked by a wall of cops. The teachers charged police lines using metal barricades as battering rams. Later a security shack was set afire and teachers were able to open the metal doors using a van. During the fighting in which sticks and tubes were thrown there were numerous injuries on both sides. The teachers have been on strike since October 8 demanding the 43 students be returned alive, with a plantón (encampment) in Chilpancingo's Zócalo (main plaza). The CETEG had given the state government until Monday morning to present the disappeared students, and since their ultimatum was ignored they vowed to radicalize their protest.
Meanwhile, beginning in late morning, students, teachers and parents besieged the complex of buildings housing state offices, setting up barricades with shopping carts from a nearby supermarket. Barbed wire surrounding the buildings was removed. After a time, students withdrew, but then a larger crowd including teachers and parents returned heaving rocks at the police. By the end of the afternoon the main building had burned out. Earlier in the day, teachers occupied toll booths on the Mexico City-Acapulco highway, On their way back to the Zócalo they were joined by others coming from the state government offices and the crowd seized city hall. As they left, fires broke out there as well.
The feelings of rage at the police massacre of students in Iguala and fury at the criminal state and national governments are utterly justified, as is the struggle against them by the working people using whatever means are at hand.
Militant confrontations with the heavily armed forces of repression, whose job is to keep the expressed and exploited down, can have an effect. But to effectively resist and defeat the capitalist state requires the mobilization of an even greater power, that of the working class. Thus it is vital today to struggle for a national strike against the murderous government and to undertake the building of a revolutionary workers party against the PRI, PAN, PRD and the rest of the bosses' parties and politicians including Andrés Manuel López Obrador's Morena.
48-hour strike in Mexico City universities
Public colleges and universities in Mexico City have been in an uproar over the bloodbath in Guerrero ever since police in Iguala attacked the Ayotzinampa students on the night of September 26-27. Calls to return the disappeared students alive dominated the annual October 2 march commemorating the Tlatelolco Massacre in. In addition, students at the National Polytechnical Institute (IPN) have been on strike since late September over new regulations that would effectively exclude many students and curtail the rights of faculty and staff. Although the government ceded many of their demands in principle, students are refusing to go back until this is spelled out. And now professors have added their demands as well.
On October 8, many of the schools walked out to join the huge demonstration in the center of the Mexican capital. The next day, Thursday, there was an "interuniversity" meeting at the National University to decide on next steps.
Prior to the assembly at the Filosofía y Letras (Philosophy and Literature) faculty of the UNAM, comrades of the Grupo Internacionalista took around a group of teacher college students to meetings in the Philosophy, Psychology and Economics faculties. At the assembly our comrades put forward a motion calling to extend the IPN strike to all the institutions of higher education and in particular to defend the teachers college students under attack in Ayotzinapa. This was defeated, but it was decided to have a two-day strike this week in universities and colleges in the Federal District.
Yesterday, Octobert 13, an assembly in Filosofía of upwards of a thousand students was called to vote on the 48-hour strike, which was approved by a vote of 900 for and 4 against, and to organize it. Our comrades along with a student from Ayotzinapa organized a brigade of students from UPIICSA and ESIME Ticomán aeronautical engineering students of the IPN, who had sparked the strike at the "Poli," that marched with several hundred students around the Interior Circuit of the Ciudad Universitaria (University City), the main UNAM campus to pull out the other faculties.
As of last night, walkouts were scheduled at the UNAM faculties of Philosophy and Literature; Political and Social Sciences; Architecture; Chemistry; Economics; Engineering; Psychology; the National School of Social Work; the Faculties of Higher Studies at Aragón and Zaragoza; 2 campuses of the Colleges of Sciences and Humanities; 2 campuses of the National Preparatory School, and the Xochimilco Campus of the UAM (Autonomous Metropolitan University).
Tomorrow, October 15, caravans from around the country, notably of teachers from Oaxaca and teachers college students from Michoacán will converge on Ayotzinapa in a show of solidarity.
Photos
Students march on University City's Interior Circuit, October 13 calling for walkout in solidarity with Ayotzinapa students.
Teachers charge police lines, Chilpancingo, October 13.
More Guerrero teachers taking care of business.
Guerrero state government forces aflame, October 13.
Students barricade government offices in Chilpancingo, October 13.
Teachers and students battle police in Chilpancingo, Guerrero; 48-hour strike in Mexico City colleges and universities
Since the nationwide protests that swept Mexico last Wednesday, October 8 (see "Huge Outrage Over Guerrero Massacre (http://www.internationalist.org/guerreromassacreoutrage1410.html)" on the Internationalist web site), the country has continued to be in an uproar over the massacre in Iguala, Guerrero and the kidnapping (and possible execution) there of scores of students from the teachers college at Ayotzinapa. Yesterday, October 13 there were running battles all day in the Guerrero state capital of Chilpancingo, with teachers and students confronting and breaking through police lines and ending with the offices of the state government and city hall in flames. Today a number of faculties, schools and campuses of the National University and Metropolitan University in Mexico City began a two-day strike in solidarity with the Ayotzinapa students.
Pitched battle in Guerrero
On Sunday night, October 12, state judicial police in Chilpancingo fired on a van including French and German students (one of whom was wounded) from the Monterrey Technological Institute who were returning to Mexico City after a weekend vacation in Acapulco. Since foreigners were involved and the incident could damage the tourist trade, 20 police were detained for questioning.
The clashes on Monday, October 13 began in the morning as militant teachers of the CETEG (Guerrero State Coordinating Committee of Education Workers, affiliated with the national CNTE). Last year the CETEG led off months of teacher walkouts protesting an education "reform" aimed at penalizing educators for the government's sabotage of public education. Offices of the capitalist political parties that voted for the law were torched and the state headquarters of the corporatist pseudo-union, the SNTE, an agency for police control of teachers, was stoned (see "Defend the Independent Teachers of Guerrero! (http://www.internationalist.org/mexnationaleducationstrike1305.html#defendermaestr osguerrero)" on the Internationalist web site).
This time teachers were seeking to enter the Guerrero state Congress building to demand the ouster of governor Ángel Aguirre and the arrest of the mayor of Iguala, but were blocked by a wall of cops. The teachers charged police lines using metal barricades as battering rams. Later a security shack was set afire and teachers were able to open the metal doors using a van. During the fighting in which sticks and tubes were thrown there were numerous injuries on both sides. The teachers have been on strike since October 8 demanding the 43 students be returned alive, with a plantón (encampment) in Chilpancingo's Zócalo (main plaza). The CETEG had given the state government until Monday morning to present the disappeared students, and since their ultimatum was ignored they vowed to radicalize their protest.
Meanwhile, beginning in late morning, students, teachers and parents besieged the complex of buildings housing state offices, setting up barricades with shopping carts from a nearby supermarket. Barbed wire surrounding the buildings was removed. After a time, students withdrew, but then a larger crowd including teachers and parents returned heaving rocks at the police. By the end of the afternoon the main building had burned out. Earlier in the day, teachers occupied toll booths on the Mexico City-Acapulco highway, On their way back to the Zócalo they were joined by others coming from the state government offices and the crowd seized city hall. As they left, fires broke out there as well.
The feelings of rage at the police massacre of students in Iguala and fury at the criminal state and national governments are utterly justified, as is the struggle against them by the working people using whatever means are at hand.
Militant confrontations with the heavily armed forces of repression, whose job is to keep the expressed and exploited down, can have an effect. But to effectively resist and defeat the capitalist state requires the mobilization of an even greater power, that of the working class. Thus it is vital today to struggle for a national strike against the murderous government and to undertake the building of a revolutionary workers party against the PRI, PAN, PRD and the rest of the bosses' parties and politicians including Andrés Manuel López Obrador's Morena.
48-hour strike in Mexico City universities
Public colleges and universities in Mexico City have been in an uproar over the bloodbath in Guerrero ever since police in Iguala attacked the Ayotzinampa students on the night of September 26-27. Calls to return the disappeared students alive dominated the annual October 2 march commemorating the Tlatelolco Massacre in. In addition, students at the National Polytechnical Institute (IPN) have been on strike since late September over new regulations that would effectively exclude many students and curtail the rights of faculty and staff. Although the government ceded many of their demands in principle, students are refusing to go back until this is spelled out. And now professors have added their demands as well.
On October 8, many of the schools walked out to join the huge demonstration in the center of the Mexican capital. The next day, Thursday, there was an "interuniversity" meeting at the National University to decide on next steps.
Prior to the assembly at the Filosofía y Letras (Philosophy and Literature) faculty of the UNAM, comrades of the Grupo Internacionalista took around a group of teacher college students to meetings in the Philosophy, Psychology and Economics faculties. At the assembly our comrades put forward a motion calling to extend the IPN strike to all the institutions of higher education and in particular to defend the teachers college students under attack in Ayotzinapa. This was defeated, but it was decided to have a two-day strike this week in universities and colleges in the Federal District.
Yesterday, Octobert 13, an assembly in Filosofía of upwards of a thousand students was called to vote on the 48-hour strike, which was approved by a vote of 900 for and 4 against, and to organize it. Our comrades along with a student from Ayotzinapa organized a brigade of students from UPIICSA and ESIME Ticomán aeronautical engineering students of the IPN, who had sparked the strike at the "Poli," that marched with several hundred students around the Interior Circuit of the Ciudad Universitaria (University City), the main UNAM campus to pull out the other faculties.
As of last night, walkouts were scheduled at the UNAM faculties of Philosophy and Literature; Political and Social Sciences; Architecture; Chemistry; Economics; Engineering; Psychology; the National School of Social Work; the Faculties of Higher Studies at Aragón and Zaragoza; 2 campuses of the Colleges of Sciences and Humanities; 2 campuses of the National Preparatory School, and the Xochimilco Campus of the UAM (Autonomous Metropolitan University).
Tomorrow, October 15, caravans from around the country, notably of teachers from Oaxaca and teachers college students from Michoacán will converge on Ayotzinapa in a show of solidarity.
Photos
Students march on University City's Interior Circuit, October 13 calling for walkout in solidarity with Ayotzinapa students.
Teachers charge police lines, Chilpancingo, October 13.
More Guerrero teachers taking care of business.
Guerrero state government forces aflame, October 13.
Students barricade government offices in Chilpancingo, October 13.