Mexican Teachers Face 'Military Offensive' as Strike Continues

Mexican teachers continued striking Thursday—the first day of the second month of action—amid a “big media, police and military offensive” led by the government to repress protests, CNTE teacher’s union leader Armando Azpeitia Diaz told teleSUR.

OPINION:
Is Another 'Oaxaca Commune' in the Works?

“They are obstructing the processes of a supposedly democratic country,” said Azpeitia Diaz, who is an organizor with the CNTE in Hidalgo and is part of the national leadership.

Police blocked a 32-bus caravan from Chiapas on Thursday from entering Mexico City, where it planned to join a national march on Friday and occupy La Ciudadela with other striking teachers. Protesters also clashed with police in Guerrero and Oaxaca, where teachers burned riot gear and uniforms taken from police.

WATCH: Mexico: Teachers Believe Reform is Discriminatory

Students and their parents have joined the teachers, as did telecommunications and oil workers and professors from UNAM, Latin America’s largest university.

While Mexican media has focused on lost class time because of the strikes, CNTE members say that the figures are exaggerated, as are the reports of violence in what has in large part been peaceful resistance. They also say that they have the support of their communities and are not unfairly hurting their students, who are more severely affected by far-reaching privatizations.

The chief of staff of President Enrique Peña Nieto said Monday that the government was already preparing to fire teachers who missed more than four days of classes—about 4,300—and would lower the pay of those who protest. The CNTE sees the reforms as an excuse to lay off teachers.

GALLERY:
Mexico Commemorates 45 Years Since Halconazo Student Massacre

In the southern states, CNTE members escalated road blockades and established encampments, reacting to the police’s detention of two leaders of Oaxaca’s faction of the CNTE.

Azpeitia Diaz said that the state does not understand that since it is a grassroots movement, leaders come and go on a rotating basis, but nonetheless CNTE members announced they would increase their protest actions, seeing the arrests as illegal for citing spurious charges. Chiapas activists surrounded by police held signs reading, “Teachers of Chiapas are kidnapped by the federal police.”

At least 24 more trade unionists from the CNTE teachers union in Oaxaca have outstanding arrest warrants and could be detained at any time, a spokesperson for Mexico's attorney general announced Monday.

Renato Sales Heredia, national security commissioner, stated Tuesday that the government will use force to repress mobilizations by striking teachers and their sympathizers, who insisted they would continue until they win a meeting with the federal government without preconditions, which currently stand at full acceptance of the reforms.

Azpeitia Diaz called both the reforms and the repression a “cleansing” of the poor southern states of their militant organizers, who have long defended plurality and access to education. The states, which have seen some of the heaviest violence in the country, are largely rural and have high Indigenous populations.