Mexico: Weekly Newsletter
We hereby share an unofficial translation of the part on Mexico of the latest Weekly Newsletter published by Sol Rojo.
As the war against the people intensifies, the popular masses across the country are raising their just demands and their will to struggle.
In Sinaloa, rural communities in the municipality of El Rosario have set up a roadblock in opposition to the Santa María thermoelectric dam mega-project, which is being carried out by ICA (the company owned by Carlos Slim, the richest man in Mexico and one of the richest in the world). The population denounces that, along with this mega-project, violence against communities has intensified at the hands of organized crime. This is nothing new. As we know, behind every mega-project are the interests of imperialism, the big bourgeoisie, and latifundium, who act in collusion and use the armed forces and criminal groups to “impose their order.”
According to the protesters’ complaints, the construction of the dam has brought more violence to the region amid the war between factions of the same criminal group, which reached its one-year anniversary on September 9. The communities of Santa María, Charco Hondo, La Rastra, Jalpa, Corral de Piedra, Las Negras, and Maloya report that there is no medical service, medicine, or health personnel in rural clinics, that teachers are unable to teach due to fear, that the electricity service is irregular and lacks maintenance, and that Diconsa stores have been abandoned by the government and food supplies have been complicated by the reactionary violence that plagues the entire State. This blockade must be understood in the context of the population’s mobilizations demanding peace and expressing their rejection of the governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Moya, who is accused of having ties to drug traffickers.
In Veracruz, groups of mothers and families searching for their loved ones protested during the Independence Day celebrations in Xalapa, the state capital, and in the municipality of Poza Rica. In both places, the groups took to the public squares with banners, posters, and chants demanding that the disappeared be presented alive. In Xalapa, they chanted over and over again: “Long live the searching mothers!” and “They took them alive, we want them back alive!” Despite the governor’s official speech on “security,” national celebrations were canceled in at least five municipalities in the State .
In Oaxaca, where according to the state government “peace and security reigns,” the national holidays were marred by attacks and murders. At least six municipalities canceled the Independence Day ceremony due to the level of violence and insecurity. In contrast, Section XXII of the SNTE-CNTE once again organized the Grito Magisterial-Popular celebrations, which arose in rejection of the repression against the CNTE in September 2013 when Enrique Peña Nieto’s federal government evicted the CNTE’s national encampment in Mexico City’s main square in rejection of the misnamed “educational reform.” Since then, every September 15, Section XXII in Oaxaca has carried out this activity in protest of the regime’s official ceremonies.
In Mexico City, students from the Carmen Serdán Rural Teachers’ College in Teteles, Puebla, mobilized a march on September 14 that started at the Ángel de la Independencia and headed toward the Zócalo, which they were unable to enter due to the city government’s police deployment. The young teacher training students denounce the campaign of repression, harassment, criminalization, and persecution against them by the Puebla government, which has repressed them in recent days. They also denounce Mario Delgado, Secretary of Public Education, for attacking the Rural Normal School and forcing the enrollment of external students who do not meet the socioeconomic profile for admission. This is a tactic with which the regime seeks to displace the children of poor peasants and undermine the teacher training movement, which has been a bastion of the revolutionary left in our country.
Stop the war against the people!
