Takeover by popular assemblies: Update on teachers strike in Oaxaca

forwarded from the otherpolitics listserve
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Monday, July 24, 2006

Greetings All,

This is to alert you to the extraordinary revolt that has been taking place for the past few weeks in the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. It began when the annual teachers protest encampment in the city square of Oaxaca was attacked by the state police on June 14. The protest rapidly turned into a state-wide revolt of civil society against the state governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, demanding his ouster. What is remarkable is that the uprising has taken the form of popular assemblies. They have already convened half a dozen general state-wide assemblies. Numerous local assemblies have also been convened, and the tactic is spreading. Local town government administrations are being thrown out and replaced by popular assemblies. Now the movement has taken the revolutionary step of demanding that the entire governmental apparatus in the state be replaced by the network of popular assemblies. Thus this revolt has far surpassed the use of neighborhood assemblies in the uprising in Argentina beginning in December 2001, or the revival of the Arsh (traditional network of assemblies) in the great revolt in Algeria beginning in the Spring of 2001, or the organization of neighborhood assemblies in the city of El Alto (one million residents arranged themselves into 600 neighborhood assemblies) in the spectacularuprising in Bolivia in May-June 2005.

The following link will bring you to a short introduction to the uprising by George Salzman and to nearly two dozen links to articles about it, especially to the outstanding on-the-ground reports by one of our very own, a former member of the Lucy Parsons Center, Nancy Davies.

http://site.www.umb.edu/faculty/salzman_g/Strate/2006-07-07.htm

Those links end though on July 7. For more recent reports, by Nancy and others (interspersed with news about the Mexican elections and other Latin America news) go to:

http://www.narconews.com/

A July 22 posting is of the Papers of Impeachment of Governor Ruiz drawn up by a wide swath of civil society in Oaxaca and presented to the national congress on July 21.

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2006/7/22/105442/616

I hope that some of you will circulate this email further. This is a revolt that should be of interest to all anarchists. I have appended below a press release about the articles of impeachment.

All Power to the Assemblies
james


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PRESS RELEASE _NEWS BULLETIN Oaxaca Mexico July 21, 2006

THE POPULAR ASSEMBLY of OAXACA LODGES LEGAL DENUNCIATION of GOVERNOR RUIZ

Acting as the alternative government of the state of Oaxaca, the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) has moved on the legal front to oust the governor of the state. On June 21 the nine page denunciation was handed to the federal congress.

Based on the Constitution of the United States of Mexico, APPO issued its formal denunciation of Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. The denunciation calls for revocation of his post as Governor of the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca. Ruiz is accused of:

1. Violations of Human Rights and Constitutional Guarantees
2. Violation of the Rights to Due Process of the Law
3. Violation of the Right to Free Speech and the Collective Right to Information
4. Violation of Political Rights and Free Elections
5. Violation of Land Rights
6. Violation of Freedom of Religion
7. Violation of the Right of Children and Women
8. Violation of International Accords on Human Rights

The call for Ruiz' removal was compiled and signed by seventy-two civil organizations, each article of denunciation documented with facts and dates. The leader in presenting the denunciation is CIESAS, the top-ranked institute for the study of society and anthropology in Mexico. The denunciation was handed to the legislature of Mexico on July 16, one month
after the governor ordered a pre-dawn attack on striking teachers from the Teachers Union Section 22. The teachers were established in a very large encampment in the historic center of the city, some accompanied by children and family members. The assault, which destroyed the radio station of the teachers as well as their personal possessions, was carried out by combined forces of five police units, supported by helicopters firing tear gas canisters, paralyzing gas, and pepper gas into the sleeping strikers.

The Red Cross attended to 192 people. Fifty-three others were sent to different hospitals. Within three hours the teachers had regrouped and retaken the affected streets.

Within days the teachers' strike grew into a state-wide popular social movement, with its single demand the removal of Governor Ruiz. Ruiz is a member of the Partido Revolucionario Democratico, the PRI, which has controlled Oaxaca for more than seventy-five years.

Outbreaks of the non-violent struggle to control town governments continue throughout the state. Government buildings have been taken over and occupied in the city of Oaxaca, and in nearly twenty-five other cities in the state.

For further information contact Margarita Dalton: mdalton@ciesas.edu.mx