Mexico 2

The Current Struggle of Oaxaca.

by Nancy Romer.

[Nancy Romer is professor of psychology at Brooklyn
College and University-Wide Officer of the Professional
Staff Congress-CUNY, American Federation of Teachers
Local 2334.]

I have been in Mexico City for the last week observing
and participating in the struggle that has captured the
dreams and fears of the Mexican people--the struggle
for workers rights and democracy in Oaxaca, a poor
state with a mostly indigenous population.

Reeling from the movement of international capital and
the concomitant movement of people from the Mexican
country side to the cities, the people of Oaxaca have
created a struggle that has wide implications.
Beginning in May, the teachers of the "democratic" wing
of the national teachers union (section 22 of the
SNTE), began a strike and encampment in the zocalo
(main square) of Oaxaca, fully supported by parents and students, demanding higher salaries and support for buildings, supplies and money for students so they won't have to work. Teachers in Oaxaca as teachers everywhere are civic and political activists who participate effectively in their communities; particularly in Oaxaca, their relationships to their communities are part of their everyday lives. The dynamic coalition of parents, teachers, and students is a model for all of us who want to see the schools be transformed into institutions that serve the needs of the people, especially the poor, instead of creating testing factories that sort people for the corporate economy. It also presents a model of how unions can engage in societal demands greater than the narrow confines of their contracts.

Met with violent repression from the Mexican
government, the teachers' struggle expanded into a
mass-based coalition, APPO (Popular Assembly of the
Peoples of Oaxaca), that includes people from over 935
groups of unions, civic organizations, neighborhoods,
churches, universities, and beyond. Their demands have
expanded to include the removal of the hated
conservative governor Ulises Ruiz, who has given rich
state contracts to construction companies of his
friends and relatives to the detriment of the people's
basic services and has sold off historically
significant publicly-owned works of art for his own aggrandizement. Oaxaquenos report that the city has become much more difficult to transverse with Ulises' expensive and hated construction projects. His administration is considered so corrupt that the people of Oaxaca have developed an alternate government structure to provide basic services. APPO has also demanded a new state constitution that would use traditionally indigenous decision-making processes that they view as more truly democratic than the present state constitution.'

Lees verder: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1108-30.htm