John Gibler

John Gibler is a Global Exchange Human Rights Fellow. He reports from Mexico for Flashpoints on KPFA, Democracy Now!, In These Times, Left Turn, Znet, The Indypendent, and other alternative media.  Most of his writings are archived on Global Exchange’s website: www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/mexico/dispatches

Unarmed but Dangerous: Violence and Self-Defense in the Oaxaca Uprising

 

On May 22, the Oaxaca state Section 22 of the National Union of Education Workers went on strike, calling its 70,000 teachers to set up a protest camp in Oaxaca City’s town square, or Zócalo.  Section 22 has been striking annually for 26 years, demanding better pay and a higher education budget for school repairs and supplies.  This year, however, Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) refused to negotiate and instead sent thousands of state police to violently evict the teachers’ camp at dawn on June 14.