2014: A Political Earthquake Is Shaking Mexico
January 5, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Demonstrators carry posters with the faces of the 43 student activists kidnapped by the government and government-orchestrated cartels in a demonstration in Mexico City, November 5, 2014. Some 25,000 people have been "disappeared" (kidnapped and still missing), and more than 120,000 killed since the start of the U.S.-orchestrated "war on drugs" in Mexico in 2006. Photo: AP
A political earthquake is shaking Mexico in the wake of the abduction and apparent murder of student activists at the hands of the government and the cartels that work with it.
On September 26, 150 students of the men’s rural teacher training college in Ayotzinapa, Mexico (in the state of Guerrero) went to the city of Iguala to raise funds to travel to Mexico City on October 2 to commemorate the anniversary of the 1968 government massacre of hundreds of students and other protesters in Tlatelolco Plaza. That evening, they took three buses from the bus yard, winning over the drivers to give them a ride home, a time-honored tradition among poor youth in Mexico. The Iguala police cut them off on their way out of town and fired on them, shooting two to death on the spot and killing another in the bushes by tearing off his face and gouging out his eyes. The police loaded 43 students in patrol cars, took them to the police station, and there handed them over to a drug trafficking gang.
As the story of what happened began to emerge and the government’s lies that officials were not involved got exposed, protests erupted. Family members seized a radio station; students and relatives marched in the Guerrero state capital, Chilpancingo on October 3, and the protests spread across the country. The fierce struggle of the fellow students and parents against the government’s “disappearing” of the 43 has provided a spark that is spreading like a wildfire. “If you don’t burn, you are ashes,” reads one hand-made sign in a Mexico City march, meaning: How could you not burn with fury and grief for the disappearance of 43 students at the hands of the police; how could you not burn for the disappearance of more than 25,000 people and the deaths of more than 120,000 since the start of the U.S.-orchestrated so-called “war on drugs” in 2006?
November 20 was the fourth of a series of global days of action. It brought tens of thousands of people to the center of Mexico City. Students and faculty at more than 100 public and private universities in several states went on strike in solidarity. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in 120 cities in Mexico and more than 30 cities around the world, from Argentina to Russia and in many places in the U.S. People in the U.S. have a special responsibility to support the struggle of the people in Mexico, and to expose and oppose the moves of the U.S. capitalist-imperialist rulers.
A protest at the Mexican Consulate in El Paso, Texas, November 20, 2014. In response to the massacre of activists in Mexico, people took to the streets in 120 cities in Mexico and more than 30 cities around the world, from Argentina to Russia and in many places in the U.S. People in the U.S. have a special responsibility to support the struggle of the people in Mexico, and to expose and oppose the moves of the U.S. capitalist- imperialist rulers. The upsurge has continued through December with an International Week of Action December 1-8 (including 43 demonstrations in the U.S. that linked up with the Black Lives Matter/I Can't Breathe protests), demonstrations on December 26 at the gates of the infantry battalion in Iguala implicated in the disappearances and another in Mexico City, and a rally called for Washington, DC and 10 other cities on January 5-6 to protest the U.S.-sponsored "Plan Mexico" when Mexico's president Peña Nieto visits the U.S. Photo: AP
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