Mexican Police Accused of Killing 11 Striking Teachers in Oaxaca

We turn now to Mexico where thousands of state security forces raided the southern city of Oaxaca early Wednesday to break up a peaceful teachers strike. According to witness reports, up to eleven people were killed in the raid. Two of the dead were reportedly children asphyxiated by massive amounts of tear gas fired from police helicopters. Up to one hundred people have been detained. The local radio station was shut down and four of its workers have allegedly disappeared. Several women have accused police of sexual assault. The state government in Oaxaca has denied all of these allegations. After the worst of the raid was over, the union retook Oaxaca's city center. This is a member of the teachers union speaking in Oaxaca yesterday.

* Striking Oaxaca teacher, speaking Wednesday.

For the past twenty-three days more than seventy thousand members of Mexico's National Education Workers Union have held their annual strike in Oaxaca. The teachers have staged an encampment and various forms of direct action to press the state governor for an increase in resources to fund Mexico's education system.

* Alma Delia Santos, a local teacher who is part of the striking component of the National Education Workers Union in Mexico, Section 22. She has been on strike and witnessed yesterday's events.

To place the current struggle of the teachers union in historical context we turn to a documentary titled 'Granito de Arena' or 'Grain of Sand. It's produced by independent film maker Jill Freidberg. She spent several years in Oaxaca documenting the history, and the current state of the education workers' union.

* Excerpt of Granito De Arena
* Jill Freidberg, filmmaker who spent two years in Southern Mexico producing the documentary "Granito De Arena", which documents the teacher's union movement in Oaxaca. She joins us on the line from Seattle.

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http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/15/1411208