Lessons from Oaxaca/Update from Mexico City

Lessons from Oaxaca
Saturday, December 2nd
2pm at The Women's Building 3543
18th St. San Francisco, CA (2 blocks from 16th St. BART)

Speakers:
Jessie Muldoon, member of OEA* and the International Socialist Organization
Miguel Robles, Comite Defensa del Voto*
Alberto Rojas, United Front of Mexicans Abroad,* spend last week in Mexico as eye-witness for mass marches


Oaxaca, Mexico is occupied. In late October President Fox sent in the
federal police to the state of Oaxaca to crush a six-month strike and
occupation by teachers, indigenous groups, and social movement activists.
70,000 teachers in Section 22 of the SNTE union went on strike in May to
stop the privatization of their public education system, and demand higher
pay and better working conditions. Since then their struggle has been met
with violent repression by police and paramilitaries which has killed at
least 15 protesters, including U.S. Indy Media photojournalist Brad Will.
Yet dozens of civic groups in Oaxaca have united with Section 22 to support
the teachers strike and have formed a broad coalition, the Popular Assembly
of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), which has mobilized activists across the
state to demand the resignation of Oaxaca's Governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, and
push for wider economic demands to improve the lives of ordinary Oaxacans.

After 12 years of the ravaging effects of NAFTA's neo-liberal policies in
Mexico, the heroic struggle in Oaxaca by the teachers of Section 22 have
shown that there is way forward in building grass roots organization in
order to improve the living conditions of ordinary people. Here in the U.S.
working people are also confronted with worsening conditions in the public
school system, lack of affordable health care, downward trend in wages, and
a government bent on waging war for oil and profits abroad. Come to this
panel and hear how we can take from the inspiring lessons from the struggle
in Oaxaca, for our struggles here at home.

*for identification purposes only.

Meeting will be translated.

Meeting sponsored by the International Socialist Organization publisher of Socialist Worker newspaper