Government threatens to crush teachers’ protests

Catholic bishops in Oaxaca, southern Mexico, have called for open negotiations and a peaceful resolution to the conflict between the Government and a teachers’ union over educational reforms that has left eight people dead.

On Sunday 19 June during an operation to end road blockades organised by the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) in Nochixtlán, Oaxaca, police reportedly opened fire on the protesters. Most of the dead were either local supporters of the union or bystanders, and were not themselves teachers. Local and international press documented the police’s use of firearms. The operation failed to remove the blockades.

Negotiations between the federal Government and CNTE have yielded few results and on Friday 1 July, the home secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said that “Time had run out” and the Government would take the “necessary decisions” to end the protests. In the midst of the violent repression, Catholic bishops in Oaxaca have called for open negotiations and a peaceful resolution.
CNTE members have been blockading major roads since late May in protest over President Enrique Peña Nieto’s reforms, with the blockades in the southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas impeding commercial and individual transport to Mexico City.

CNTE has protested against the education reforms since they became law in February 2013. The union contends that the reforms are a move towards privatisation of public education in Mexico and threaten teachers’ job security.

The measures include standardised tests to evaluate teachers and reduce union decision-making power in hiring. CNTE argues that a standardised model is not the solution for improving public education, especially in southern Mexico, which is home to diverse indigenous communities.

Tensions increased in the past month when the Government announced the firing of 4,000 teachers in Michoacán, Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas. Then, on 12 June, two CNTE leaders were arrested on corruption charges.

There have been conflicting reports of food, medicine and gasoline shortages in Oaxaca and Chiapas due to the blockades. Walmart is one company that has been feeling the impact. It announced at the end of June that it is considering closing stores in the two states.

The Catholic Church in Oaxaca has appealed for dialogue between the union and the federal Government.

Seven bishops from different regions of Oaxaca called for “a general truce and setting the foundation for a constructive and transparent dialogue”. On 29 June in Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, which has been another point of conflict, Bishop Arturo Lonas Reyes held a Mass in the name of peace and called for an end to the repression against teachers.

In Chiapas, Catholics from 15 parishes around the state marched in the capital Tuxtla Gutiérrez in support of the teachers’ union, and urged the federal Government to restore dialogue with CNTE.