Teacher protests spread nationwide after deadly clashes in Oaxaca
Violent clashes between federal police and teachers blocking a major highway in Oaxaca left eight people dead Sunday.
Police say they were forced to use their weapons after they were fired upon by demonstrators as they tried to clear a major highway intersection northwest of the state capital that had been blocked by dissident teachers for six days. The incident left left 53 civilians and 55 police officers injured. Twenty-three arrests were made.
While there have been no further clashes in Oaxaca since Sunday, teachers and their supporters continue to block as many as 18 highways. Goods trucks from Mexico City, Puebla, Veracruz and other major cities are being prevented from arriving at their destinations. Hotels, restaurants and other tourist services say they are loosing money and there’s even talk if canceling the state’s major July visitor attraction, the Guelaguetza.
The tense situation prompted the U.S. State Department to prohibit their employees from traveling to Oaxaca and warn citizens of the risks involved.
President Enrique Peña Nieto ordered an immediate inquiry into Sunday’s incident and sent his condolences to the families of those killed.
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The teachers are part of a union breakaway group that rejects the federal education reform package passed in 2013. The legislation introduced a national evaluation system for all teachers, reduced the influence of unions and seeks to end corrupt practices, such as the “sale” and “passing down” of teaching positions to family members.
The Oaxaca teachers began the protest at the government’s refusal to discuss the reform and the arrest of two of their representatives last week on what they claim are bogus charges. While millions of teachers across Mexico have accepted the reforms and taken the evaluation teats, some dissident groups say they do not take into account regional differences, especially in rural and marginalized zones.
The blockade was called by local members of the National Coordinating Committee of Education Workers (CNTE), a radical offshoot of the much larger teachers union, the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación or SNTE.
According to some reports, none of the eight people who died in Sunday’s clashes were teachers. One CNTE representative said some were parents who had joined the protest to “defend education.”
Oaxaca Governor Gabino Cué Monteagudo lamented the deaths but said had blockages continued there would have been serious shortages of medicines, gasoline and fuel in many parts of the state. The protests have also interrupted public transport services in the state.
Sporadic disturbances continued in several parts of Oaxaca through Monday and Tuesday. A reporter was shot to death as he took pictures of vandals looting an OXXO store, while a Bodega Aurrera was attacked and a Nissan agency damaged in Juchitán. Further incidents of looting and vandalism were reported in Oaxaca City, Salina Cruz and Tehuantepec.
Some reports suggest that Sunday’s violence kicked in when members of radical civic organizations joined in the protest. Last month marked the tenth anniversary of the start of a seven-month teachers strike in the state that led to the occupation of Oaxaca City by the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca. Seventeen people died in a series of clashes with federal forces that also claimed the life of U.S. journalist Brad Will.
In a bid to avoid the dispute escalating into a repeat of 2006, Mexico’s Interior Minister Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong met with representatives of the CNTE in a a hastily arranged meeting Wednesday.
Rallies in support of the dissident teachers were called in many parts of Mexico this week, On Wednesday, some 2,000 teachers affiliated to the Frente Magisterial de Jalisco marched in the Guadalajara city center and later filled the Plaza de Liberation. Earlier that day, a smaller number staged a small protest outside the U.S. Consulate General to demand that the United States stop sending arms to Mexico until the facts behind last weekend’s fatal clash in Oaxaca are fully known.
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