Battling Barbarism in Paradise: Zihuatanejo's Popular Azuetense Movement Kent Paterson - CIP Americas
go to original March 5, 2015

At the entrance to city hall in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, banners drape the fence and the shuttered gate.  One message reads: “43 students still missing and something of us disappeared with them. Justice for Ayotizinapa.”

The city hall in the Guerrero coastal city was occupied by protesters during the wave of mass outrage that swept Mexico and the world following the brutal killings and forced disappearances of students from the Ayotzinapa rural teachers’ college by police and gunmen linked to organized crime in Iguala, Guerrero, last September.

Former Iguala Mayor Luis Abarca and dozens of other suspects are under arrest in connection with the bloodbath.

Although the Zihuatanejo protesters, now organized as the Popular Azuetense Movement (MPA), do not have an ongoing presence at the government complex, which nevertheless has been virtually abandoned by the local authorities, they conduct weekly meetings there to discuss and strategize the future course of the local Ayotzinapa justice movement.

“The movement is reactivating, even though many thought it would fall apart,” educator and MPA activist Malaquias Perez told a recent gathering.

Linked to the larger National Popular Assembly, a grouping of social movements that emerged after the Ayotzinapa atrocity, the MPA includes teachers, students, environmentalists and others with a vision for a better world. Educators from the Guerrero State Coordinator of Education Workers (Ceteg) play an important role in the movement.

The name “Azuetense” comes from the title of the municipality for which Zihuatanejo serves as the seat of government, Zihutanejo de Azuetense.

Read the rest at CIP Americas

Photo: rafaganoticiera.com

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