In Oaxaca Mega-March, 400,000 Send A Firm No to the Repression by Governor Ortíz

By Nancy Davies
The Other Journalism with the Other Campaign in Oaxaca

June 17, 2006

OAXACA CITY, June 16: The third teachers’ mega-march in Oaxaca on June 16 brought out all sectors of civil society in a vast repudiation of the repressive policies of Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortíz (universally known as “URO”). The march was the direct response to the brutal police attack on the encampment of striking teachers in the center of the city at dawn on June 14 — a straw that broke the camel’s back.

First estimates of the number of marchers are 400,000. A smaller march took place on Thursday, June 15.

The first marchers arrived at Llano Park at twilight in the rain; the end of the march arrived around 10:00 p.m. Along the route, supporters on the sidewalks held up signs and handed the chanting marchers food and water. No signs were about salaries, education or classrooms – the entire march, every shout, chant and banner, repeated the same theme: Ulises out.

Oaxaca united in a very disciplined and focused show of strength against the governor.

The struggle by Section 22 of the National Education Workers’ Union has not been a simple question of teachers’ salaries, nor of the pitiful level of education in this, Mexico’s second-poorest state. From the first days of the strike nearly four weeks ago, the idea of impeaching URO was mentioned. The calls to oust him gain strength even while renewed labor negotiations take place.

Since the attack on June 14, a civil movement has emerged and coalesced around Section 22’s aggressive demand that URO go, an event which would break the grip of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI in its Spanish initials) in Oaxaca. The demand has united all levels of Oaxaca society.

The next presidential election (Mexico has six-year terms) takes place on July 2, and URO is best buddies with PRI presidential candidate Roberto Madrazo. According to popular accounts, URO siphoned off hundreds of millions of pesos in public funds from the extraordinary number of undesired public works undertaken in the city of Oaxaca in the past year. The funds are alleged to have gone toward the election campaign of Madrazo.

The extraordinary convergence of support for Section 22 has produced an unprecedented set of events:

1. Radio Universidad of the Benito Juarez Autonomous University of Oaxaca (UABJO) was taken over by students dedicated to maintaining contact and communications in support of the teachers, whose station was destroyed.
2. Thousands of people from civil society have rallied in the city, responding not only with food and clothing but with their physical presence.
3. First victory: teachers taken prisoner when police attacked Radio Plantón, the striking teachers’ radio station, on June 14 were released on the night of the 15th..
4. Second victory: seven municipal offices (city halls) were captured by teachers around Oaxaca state, which included the re-taking of the San Blas Atempa municipal building.
5. Support and solidarity messages have been received from other Mexican states around the country.
6. The outpouring of concern by non-governmental organizations regarding the attack of June 14 includes Amnesty International. This was the second attack by police forces in Oaxaca this spring; the first one took place on May 1 with the arrest of several reporters covering the labor march.
7. National and international civil groups recognize of Oaxaca’s struggle, as evidenced by international and national calls in solidarity with the teachers of Section 22.
8. Papers of impeachment of URO have been introduced.

Enrique Rueda Pacheco has been relentless in calling for URO’s impeachment. The night before the super mega-march URO was presented with a social movement quickly growing beyond his control. He then offered to negotiate with Section 22, using the monetary figures which last week he claimed were unaffordable. A truce was mediated by the Secretary of the Interior, between Section 22 and the state government.

After Radio Plantón was destroyed, left-leaning students of UABJO took control of Radio Universidad, 1400 AM. The students have been supporting the strike twenty-four hours a day as a news center. They broadcast calls for food, water and clothing to replace the destroyed and burned belongings of teachers who had been camped in the zocalo. They broadcast phone calls from students and teachers, calls from people shouting or weeping. They broadcast information, meeting places for groups, speeches by students and professors, declamations of stories and poems, and a teacher singing Venceremos inside the radio station. During the astonishing civil society response, the students maintain guards outside the studio. Radio Universidad has been the closet thing to free radio Oaxaca has experienced.

Today a weeping teacher exclaimed on the air, “We avenge our dead!” One of the unconfirmed dead was a child from the town of Villa Alta. Names of the dead and injured were not released for family security reasons, and true numbers remain a secret. Gossip is everywhere, including the assertion that URO has the bodies under lock and key in a morgue. Although the names of the wounded, including police, have been made public, the names of the alleged dead and their numbers have not.

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