Mexico

Stop the repression in Oaxaca

The struggle in Oaxaca was one of high points of workers struggle anywhere in the world last year. Now the movement of teachers and others in APPO is facing savage repression. We need to tell the story of the Oaxacan commune and make practical solidarity with workers under attack. (For an eyewitness...

Mexico on 1 December

The latest issue of Mexican Labor News and Analysis is now available online. I think this is one of the best sources on the real balance of forces in Mexico today.

It has a sober analysis of the situation with the inauguration of Calderón, the repression in Oaxaca and the Zapatistas. The editor...

Oaxaca keeps up the fight!

By Jack Staunton La lucha continua – the struggle continues! That’s the message from teachers, activists and other workers in Oaxaca, despite the wave of repression against them from Mexican police over the past two weeks. After the invasion of the city of Oaxaca by over 4,500 Mexican state police, it looked as if the five-month workers’ revolt had been crushed. The teachers’ strike, which had set off the massive social struggle and the occupation of the city by a mass organising assembly (APPO), was declared over by the leadership of their union (the SNTE) on 27 October. But the people of...

Revolt in Oaxaca ends

The five-month popular occupation of Oaxaca, Mexico, was crushed on the 27-29 October when thousands of federal riot police invaded the city, killing at least three protesters and an American journalist working for Indymedia. Hundreds were reported to be injured. The city had been under the control of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO), a coalition of indigenous, trade union and student activists created in response to the state governor Ulises Ruiz’s failed attempt to evict striking teachers in June. Protestors used barricades made of corrugated iron, buses and lorries to...

Sham democracy in Mexico

BY Paul Hampton THE Mexican elections on 2 July were fixed in favour of the conservative candidate, according to a host of reports by observers. Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) has declared himself the winner with 35.88%. But the main challenger, Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the liberal nationalist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), given 35.31%, has said a fraud has been committed. The old ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) came a distant third. The whole thing looks like a repeat of the 1988 election, when Cuauhtemoc Cardenas of the PRD...

Teachers jailed and killed

Three hundred thousand marched into Oaxaca, Mexico on 16 June, to support striking teachers whose encampment was brutally attacked by police two days earlier. Led by Section 22 of the SNTE teachers union, the march was supported by university students, local health and university workers and numerous other union, popular and left wing organisations. The demonstrators demanded the resignation of state governor Ulises Ruiz Ortíz of the right-wing Institutional Revolutionary Party, widely accused of corruption. On 14 June 20 teachers were arrested, and eight “disappeared” after a police attack...

Mexican elections on 2 July

The presidential elections in Mexico on 2 July are taking place amid turmoil. There are bitter strikes taking place by miners and teachers, which have met with repression. An independent union front, the National Front for Unity and Union Autonomy (FNUAS) has called a general strike for 28 June...

Mexico: strikers shot and killed during steel mill occupation

Police shot and killed two workers, another was crushed to death in a melee, and over 40 others were wounded, most by gunshots, when authorities launched an assault to expel striking workers occupying the SICARTSA steel mill in Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan, Mexico on 20 April. Reports from the scene suggest that others may also have been killed or may die from their wounds. Workers and townspeople retook the plant, but were then besieged by the police. Parts of the plant have been taken over by the Mexican Army and the Mexican Navy. Mexican unions have demanded the resignation of the country's...

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