Oaxaca 2016: “This is not a teachers struggle, it belongs to the people of Mexico”

marcha-ayuujk-oaxaca

By Simón Sedillo and Niñx Salvaje
Photos by Radio Jenpoj and Estereo Comunal Yeelatoo
SubVersiones
July 3, 2016
Translated by Scott Campbell

In Oaxaca, 12 people were killed by police between June 19 and 26, 2016, while participating in the current rebellion happening in the state. One of those killed was a teacher, the rest were part of the people. Despite the violent repression, a multitude of blockades remain in place throughout the state, be they temporary or permanent. In addition, thousands of men and women, children, young people, elders and entire communities have rallied in support of the teachers, in repudiation of the repression and against the structural reforms and neoliberal policies that threaten communities. In this context, one thing is clear: the struggle in Oaxaca is not just a teachers struggle but belongs to the peoples who for their part are also fighting for life, territory and autonomy. In Oaxaca, the peoples’ resistance does not begin nor end with the teachers: it began centuries ago and the road ahead is long.

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Mexican police brutally attack Oaxaca’s striking teachers

Originally published by ROAR Magazine
June 21, 2016
By Scott Campbell

In a statement released on Friday, June 17, the Zapatistas posed the following questions regarding the ongoing national teachers’ strike in Mexico:

They have beaten them, gassed them, imprisoned them, threatened them, fired them unjustly, slandered them, and declared a de facto state-of-siege in Mexico City. What’s next? Will they disappear them? Will they murder them? Seriously? The ‘education’ reform will be born upon the blood and cadavers of the teachers?

On Sunday, June 19, the state answered these questions with an emphatic “Yes”. The response came in the form of machine-gun fire from Federal Police directed at teachers and residents defending a highway blockade in Nochixtlán, a town in the southern state of Oaxaca and roughly 80 kilometers northwest of the capital city of that state, also called Oaxaca.

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Statement 0.2: Ungovernable Oaxaca. Black June, Oaxaca de Magón

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In solidarity with the uprising in Oaxaca, Avenida Insurgentes Sur – a major thoroughfare in Mexico City – is blocked on Monday near the campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Published by Proyecto Ambulante
June 21, 2016
Translated by Scott Campbell

Our rage cannot be contained by police bullets, by the State’s jails, by the media’s lies. Our dead will not be forgotten, their combative spirit has spread so that we may take justice into our hands.

Nochixtlán and Oaxaca resisted as the Isthmus region has resisted, demonstrating to the powerful that we don’t fear them, that we will confront them, we will defeat them; in the cold Mixteca the frontline has not been neglected. In spite of the pain that invades the people, they know the worst way to remember those who died in battle is to abandon the war.

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Major State Repression in Oaxaca: Several Killed, Dozens Wounded and Detained

UPDATE 3: Scroll down or click here to updates as of 2pm Oaxaca time on July 3.
UPDATE 2: Scroll down or click here to see updates as of 1am Oaxaca time on June 24.
UPDATE: Scroll down or click here to see updates as of 2am Oaxaca time on June 21.

nochixtlan-police-barricade

By Scott Campbell
Este texto también está disponible en español en El Enemigo Común.

The looming federal police attack on the people and striking teachers of Oaxaca, Mexico has begun. There are reports of between six and eight demonstrators killed Sunday morning at the teachers-peoples highway blockade in Nochixtlán, northwest of the city of Oaxaca. The eight dead that the movement is confirming are Oscar Aguilar Ramírez, 25, Andrés Sanabria García, 23, Anselmo Cruz Aquino, 33, Yalit Jiménez Santiago, 28, Oscar Nicolás Santiago, Omar González Santiago, 22, Antonio Perez García, and Jesús Cadena Sánchez, 19. They were shot and killed when police opened fire with live ammunition on the blockade. At least 45 others have been hospitalized with injuries, the majority gunshot wounds, and 22 have been disappeared.

BACKGROUND ARTICLES:

This piece will focus on currently developing events. For information on what led to this situation, please see the following articles:

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Updated: After Police Attack, Barricades Reappear in Oaxaca

UPDATE: Scroll down or click here to see updates as of 12am Oaxaca time on June 14.

Este texto también está disponible en español en El Enemigo Común.
By Scott Campbell

In the waning minutes of June 11, federal police, the federal gendarmarie, and state police carried out a violent raid against striking teachers blockading the Oaxaca State Institute of Public Education (IEEPO). The attack comes almost ten years to the day when a similar state attack on striking teachers on June 14, 2006, led to a five-month, statewide rebellion.

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