Mexican Teachers Strike Braves Murderous Repression Quadratín
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Internationalist No. 43 May-June 2016 50¢ Yet Another Massacre: For a National Strike Against the Criminal Government Mexican Teachers Strike Braves Murderous Repression Quadratín The Battle of Oaxaca Airport, May 26. After hundreds of teachers blockaded the entrance, Federal Police issued an ultimatum. Teachers refused to move. As cops were preparing to strike, hundreds more teachers came up from behind, encircling them. After a tense stand-off, police were forced to retreat. The following article is translated activists and parents could be the detonator By the current count, according to strikers and their supporters. After pass- from a supplement to Revolución Perma- for an explosion of class struggle around spokesmen for the National Coordinating ing through the barricades at Nochixtlán, nente, newspaper of the Grupo Internacio- the country. The protesters are fighting Committee of Education Workers (CNTE), the police came across ferocious resistance nalista, Mexican section of the League for against the disastrous “educational reform” the toll of that fateful Sunday the 19th in from barricades in Huitzo, and then at the the Fourth International. which seeks to destroy independent Nochixtlán is eight dead, 22 disappeared intersection of Hacienda Blanca. And once JUNE 20 – Mexico has just had its Bloody teacher unionism. For five days they and 94 injured, 45 of them by bullets. The the convoy of buses and pick-up trucks of Sunday. In Russia, the police attack on a defended a barricade on the superhighway Federal Police, who at first denied using the Federal Police passed, the barricades march of workers who only wanted to to Mexico City, managing to stop a firearms, finally had to admit, in the face of were rebuilt. The effect of the repression present a petition to the Tsar sparked the caravan of the Federal Police. Yesterday, photos and videos showing cops firing with has been to further exacerbate the anger of 1905 Revolution. In Mexico of 2016, the the federales took their revenge. But abandon, that it was the uniformed police the population. massacre of Sunday, June 19 in Nochixtlán, instead of frightening people, it had the who shot the activists. Even so, the hail Today tens of thousands filled the Oaxaca against teachers, students, social opposite effect. of bullets and gas did not intimidate the continued on page 11 Photos: Mario Jiménez Leyva/Noticias On June 12, police evicted protest encampment in front of Oaxaca state Following the massacre at Nochixtlán on June 19, teachers continued to education institute, then pursued striking teachers who set up flaming resist advance of Federal Police in Huitzo and Hacienda Blanca (above). barricades as they retreated to the Zócalo (main square). After cop convoy passed, barricades were rebuilt. Imperialist Offensive Threatens Slaughter Defend Raqqa – Drive U.S./NATO Imperialists Out of Syria and Iraq! MAY 31 – A new stage has opened in the the offensive began: “Splitting off from the fighting in Syria and Iraq with the launch- Delil Souleiman/Agence France-Presse reporters who flew in with him, Votel then ing of offensives against the Islamic State visited several other undisclosed locations” (I.S.) by U.S. imperialism and its allies. (AP dispatch, 22 May). On May 24 the Syrian Democratic Forces As part of the operation, warplanes (SDF), a military front dominated by the of the U.S.-led “Coalition” dropped leaf- Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), lets on Raqqa saying “This is the time you announced the beginning of a drive on the have been waiting for. It is time to leave de facto capital of the I.S. in Raqqa. The Raqqa” with a cartoon showing fleeing ci- YPG has had a semi-alliance with the U.S. vilians. While a direct attack on the I.S. military, relying on U.S. air strikes since “capital” may or may not be imminent, that the I.S. siege of the Kurdish city of Kobanê is clearly the ultimate aim of the current of- on the Turkish border in late 2014, even as fensive, spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG- Turkey (a member of the NATO military led Syrian Democratic Forces, under the alliance) has continued to attack the Syr- command of U.S. imperialism. According ian Kurdish region. But now the Kurdish to the modus operandi of the Yankee im- militias are directly participating in a mili- perialists, this will likely be accompanied tary operation under U.S. command and to- by horrendous terror bombing (“shock gether with U.S. special forces at the front. U.S. special forces commandos sighted May 26 in village of Fatisah, Syria, and awe”), and the resulting casualties The League for the Fourth Internation- barely 2 kilometers from the front of fighting with the Islamic State. They dismissed as “collateral damage.” With al declared from the outset of U.S. inter- are part of U.S.-led offensive against the I.S. “capital” of Raqqa. Drive the the Pentagon running down its stocks of vention in September 2014 that the imperi- imperialists out of Syria and Iraq! “smart bombs,” they will likely start using alist invaders are by far the greatest threat oppose all sides; additionally there is the machine guns and grenade launchers in the the 500-lb. “dumb bombs,” “bunker bust- to the working people and oppressed, call- right of communal self-defense of all ethnic/ village of Fatisah near the town of Ayn Issa ers,” and other weapons of mass destruc- ing to drive them out of the region and to religious communities threatened with mas- north of the I.S. capital. The U.S. forces were tion in the U.S. arsenal. defeat them with workers action. Today, in sacres; and the Kurdish struggle for self- in a contested area where offensive opera- The current fighting is distant from the face of the U.S.-led assault, we call to determination. In this complex situation, we tions were underway “less than two kilome- Kurdish ethnic regions, and the population of defend Raqqa against the imperialists and noted from the outset that the character of ters from the area under the control of the ji- both Raqqa and Ain Issa (currently occupied the Kurdish and Arab forces serving as the fighting in Syria could change, depend- hadists” (“A chance encounter on the Syrian by the YPG/SDF) is almost entirely Arab. their ground troops. ing on U.S. intervention. And we stressed front,” AFP dispatch, 27 May). Several com- Moreover, according to the web site Raqqa Is As the LFI has pointed out in previous that only the working class throughout the mandos sported shoulder patches of the YPG Being Silently Slaughtered (29 May), which articles, there are several intertwined and region, fighting on the Trotskyist program including, curiously, of the Kurdish women’s is hostile to the I.S. and whose activists have overlapping wars going on simultaneously of permanent revolution, can cut through militia, the YPJ. been murdered by the jihadis, the hundreds in Syria: the U.S./NATO bombing, where the hatreds and oppression fostered by the Videos also show other U.S. person- of thousands of residents of Raqqa see the we call to drive the imperialists out; an in- feuding bourgeois forces. nel in a vehicle loaded with communica- YPG as a force of would-be conquerors, par- ter-communal/sectarian civil war between The current offensive was prepared by tions gear, evidently running the show (“US ticularly following the atrocities it committed pro-imperialist Islamist militias, Al Qaeda a significant increase of U.S. forces in Syria Commandos Are Fighting the Islamic State burning down Arab homes and expelling Ar- Islamists, the Syrian government, the Islam- from the reported 50 support personnel last on the Frontlines in Syria,” Vice News, 27 abs in its conquest of Tel Abyad last year.1 In ic State and now Kurdish militias operating December, deployed at a remote airfield in May). A U.S. military spokesman in Bagh- doing so, it was engaging in the same kind of outside the Kurdish enclaves, in which we the rear, to the dispatch of an additional 250 dad sought to downplay the importance of “ethnic cleansing” as the other forces in the special forces combat this, saying that the U.S. had been conduct- communalist civil war wracking Syria. We troops, ordered by Pres- ing “advise-and-assist operations” with “el- denounced this at the time: ident Obama on April ements” of the SDF for a number of weeks. “The League for the Fourth International Reuters 24. Now these forces However, the liberal Daily Beast (26 May) has stated that: ‘Proletarian revolution- have been sighted car- web site noted: “The U.S. has said that its aries would defend the Kurdish areas rying out operational forces would not be on the front lines but … against attacks by the Assad regime or the activities at the front. the photos suggest otherwise as U.S. troops Free Syrian Army and certainly against the Islamic State whose victory would On May 26, two days appear to be side-by-side with their local mean wholesale slaughter of Kurds.’ We after the launching of counterparts.” The AFP photographer said the drive against Raqqa, have also reiterated our call for a socialist there were at least 20 American personnel republic of united Kurdistan. At the same a photographer for present, who refused to talk to him. A Syr- time, the LFI has consistently stood for Agence France-Presse ian commander said that American “advis- revolutionary defeatism on all sides in the CENTCOM commander General Joseph Votel flew spotted U.S. comman- ers” were “present at all positions along the communal civil wars wracking Iraq and secretly to area near Raqqa, Syria to inspect forces dos in full combat gear front” (New York Times, 26 May).