In Oaxaca, Mourning Those Killed During Teacher Protests Over Education Reforms Samuel Gilbert - Al Jazeera
go to original November 24, 2016

A print on the wall in Oaxaca commemorating the 43 students that disappeared in Guerrero (Gabriela Campos/Al Jazeera)

It is November 2, the Day of the Dead in Mexico, and the family of Anselmo Cruz Aquino has gathered by a cross on a roadside in Nochixtlan, Oaxaca. It marks the spot where the 33-year-old was shot and killed last summer during a clash between the federal police and a dissident wing of the Mexican teachers' union, the National Coordinator of Education Workers, or CNTE.

"We are here with pain," says Anselmo's brother, Jose.

His brother, he explains, was not involved in the union's protest, during which it had blockaded the city, forcing the government to airlift supplies into it. According to Jose, Anselmo was walking home when he was shot; the spot where he was shot is some distance from where the blockades were.

Jose says he blames the government for his brother's death, adding: "We demand justice." Anselmo's father, who asked that his name not be used, agrees. "I blame the municipal politicians. They allowed the federal police to come and remove the blockade," he says.

The clashes, in which eight were killed and 100 injured, were the continuation of a 10-year battle waged by Oaxaca's teachers' union against a series of education reforms by the federal government that they argue cements the cultural domination of the southern states over this historically marginalized region.

The union is particularly opposed to a reform that would introduce a federal teacher evaluation that many see as a thinly veiled attempt to fire them and break up their union.

"We are not against an exam for teachers," says David, a union teacher who asked that his full name not be revealed. "[But] what comes with this exam is mass firings, followed by the hiring of teachers that are privately contracted. This would mean that the unions will disappear."

But for many teachers, the issue runs much deeper than exams. Their fight, they say, is against a system that threatens to impose a singular view of Mexican culture and history while destroying the diverse mosaic of identities that characterize the country's indigenous and mestizo, those of mixed indigenous and Spanish descent, cultures.

Read the rest at Al Jazeera

Related: Oaxaca Teachers Speak in US on Indigenous Struggle, Labor (Workers.org)

Related: Two People Killed as Chiapas Teachers Clash in Confrontation Between Members of SNTE and CNTE Teachers' Unions (Mexico News Daily)

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