Thousands of teachers protested in southern Mexico on Monday (Jun 20) to denounce the deaths of eight people after violent weekend clashes that police blamed on unidentified gunmen. Protesters shouted “assassins” at the police.
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One of the provisions in the reform was considered as a threat to teacher’s job security and the 1.5 million members of the union were ready to fight it. Elba Esther Gordillo, head of the CNTE from the past 23 years, had rejected moves to link a teacher’s continued employment to an evaluation.
The reforms will require teachers to undergo performance evaluations before being placed in public schools. Traffic flow resumed for about two hours following dialogue between unarmed police and demonstrators from the National Coordinator of Education Workers, or CNTE.
Violence broke out between protesters and Mexican Federal Police as the police were trying to clear a road blocked with protesters.
But later the crowd swelled to about 2,000 protesters, some of them armed with gasoline bombs and powerful fireworks, Galindo added. “Local media also reported dozens of injured protesting teachers and dozens of arrests, however authorities have not said anything on this case”.
“The police obligation is to protect the population”, he remarked.
According to SinEmbargo’s article, Mexico’s Federal Police Commissioner Enrique Galindo said that armed cops did show up to the operation.
In a statement, the National Security Commission denied federal forces had used firearms against protesters, saying images circulating online of police with rifles were faked.
“Lines of investigation are being built”, Carrillo told a news conference, adding that “nothing will be ruled out”. Three federal police officers were still being held in Nochixtlan, he said.
The unrest has escalated since police arrested the leader of the local teachers’ union earlier this month. He said they arrived later after determining that shots had been fired at police officers.
More than 100 people were wounded before police pulled back.
It said 20 people were missing.
About 100 to 150 protesters maintained the highway blockade in Nochixtlan Monday.
The groups demand the state immediately release detained teachers and call for solidarity from civil society against the “neoliberal capitalist reform that they call ‘education reform'”. The union says that teachers that have refused to be evaluated have been fired.
According to Professor Lynn Stephen, director of the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies at the University of OR says he suspect that this confrontation is about more than education reform.
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In his book “We Are the Face of Oaxaca: Testimony and Social Movements”, that includes interviews with the members of the teachers union. The agency overseeing the federal police said its internal affairs department would also investigate the clashes in Asuncion Nochixtlan.
