Mexican public schools began the academic year August 29th, but at least 52 schools in Acapulco remain shuttered due to extortion threats targeting teachers and schools in the city’s rural outskirts and working class neighborhoods.
Earlier this week, the Guerrero state governor announced a major security operation would protect the city’s schools and ordered teachers back to work. He also questioned the authenticity of the flyers that have circulated threatening school staff.
One such flyer, supposedly received by a financial administrator in the public school system, demanded a full list of all employees who make more than the equivalent of $1500 a month, along with copies of their official identification, home addresses, places of employment and land line phone numbers. The letter demanded payment of half of the teachers’ salaries by October 1st.
The state’s teachers’ union met with federal authorities Wednesday to discuss possible security measures. But for now, teachers are continuing with their de-facto strike.
The city of Acapulco has been hard hit by drug war related violence in the past two years. The state of Guerrero registered more than 500 murders in August alone.
The teachers' protest camp in downtown Oaxaca City
The Sección 22 union local representing public school teachers in Oaxaca announced today that it will maintain its strike through Friday, June 3rd. The strike began on May 23rd and is part of what has become a ritual in budget negotiations with the state government.
Oaxacan teachers have used the tactic of camping out in the streets during May negotiations for nearly three decades now. While it’s effectiveness as a pressure tactic is questionable given its repeated use, it is a common ground for teachers from around the state to meet and it establishes a certain cohesion among the union’s membership.
The camp itself is massive, taking up around 20 city blocks in the state capital, including the central plaza, known as the zócalo.
At least five miners died as a result of an explosion at the Sabinas coal mine in the state of Coahuila. At deadline, another nine miners remained trapped below the surface. Mexico’s Labor Secretary expressed pessimism that any of the trapped miners are alive.
The disaster was a reminder of the 2006 tragedy at the Pasta de Conchos coal mine in which the bodies of 63 dead miners were never recovered. Reforms made to Mexico’s mining law after the 2006 explosion were touted as a way to improve mine safety. Yet, Tuesday’s explosion and the 2006 one share the same origin; a build-up of flammable methane gas.
Government oversight of the mine was so lax that regulatory agencies apparently didn’t even have complete or up-to-date information on its operations. The mine, operated by a little-known firm named Binsa, had only been open for 20 days.
[Note: This is a transcript of a report that originally aired on Free Speech Radio News]
The former government palace the night of Sept. 15th during the "Grito"
Today Mexico marks the 200th anniversary of its declaration of independence from Spanish rule. Mexico’s federal government spent months hyping up the celebrations which are estimated to have cost more than $230 million. But hard economic times, social grievances, and Drug War-related bloodshed have dampened the celebratory mood.
Mexican independence celebrations kick off each year in central plazas on the night of September 15th with a group yell known as the “grito”.
But this year, at least a dozen cities – most notably Ciudad Juárez – had to cancel the ritual due to security concerns. The extreme violence of President Calderón’s Drug War is just one of the factors contributing to the less-than-celebratory mood at Bicentennial events.
Mexico se alista para celebrar el segundo centenar de años de independencia de España. La plaza central de la ciudad de Oaxaca, más conocida como Zócalo y Alameda de León, es una muestra de todas las divisiones sociales vigentes ante este particular evento.
Durante un breve recorrido por el zócalo es posible encontrar además de toda la parafernalia patriota, a familias disfrutando presentaciones de payasos, grupos de turistas comiendo en los restaurantes al aire libre, un kiosko decorado con pintura de aerosol mostrando demandas políticas y, sobre todo, 3 diferentes campamentos de protesta ubicados justo frente a lo que alguna vez fue la sede del gobierno del estado.
Este edificio es ahora conocido como Ex-Palacio de Gobierno porque el gobernador saliente Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, trasladó hace algunos años las oficinas gubernamentales fuera de los límites de la ciudad. Pero este histórico edificio continúa hospedando en sus alrededores múltiples grupos sociales que llegan hasta este céntrico lugar de la plaza central de la capital oaxaqueña.
