Mexican Student Strikers Under Threat!

Dear comrades,

The students at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) with 267,000 students have been on strike since April 20^th, that is for nearly 6 months now, resisting an attempt by the university authorities to increase the fees the students have to pay.

This is an extremely important movement which in different occasions has managed to link up with workers on struggle, specially the electricity workers fighting against privatisation and workers at the Instituto Politecnico Nacional.

Socialists organised around thee Committee to Defend State Education (CEDEP) have played a key role in the strike and their proposals for the setting up of an elected central strike committee and to participate in joint demonstrations with the working class were accepted and put into practice.

The strike now, after 6 months of occupation of the different schools is in a low ebb. This has been used by the authorities to try to break the strike. They regularly send gangs of thugs ("porros") to try to expel the students from the different colleges and violence has been used against strike leaders. On October 4^th one of the strike leaders was kidnapped, severly beaten and then released. The day after a group of 200 porros succeded in taking over one of the occupied buildings where our comrades are active. The answer of the strikers came quick and with a mass of students from that and other schools they managed to regain control of the building despite the fact that police was helping the porros.

In one such incident one of the CEDEP leaders and Marxist Juan Pablo Rodriguez was charged by the police with having issued death threats against the "porros". This is a lie, but it is part of the attempts by the authorities to threaten and criminalise the leaders of the strike.

This is a serious case and should be considered as such by all student and youth organisations internationally. We ask you all to do the following:

• send faxes of protest to the Mexican national prosecutor with copies to the lef leaning newspaper La Jornada. The faxes should demand an end of the campaign of violence and intimidation against the strikers and specially against Juan Pablo Rodriguez. The fax numbers are:

Lic Jorge Madrazo
Procurador General de la Republica.
Tel/Fax + (52) 56 26 44 19
La Jornada
fax + (52) 52 62 43 56

Comradely,

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On April 20^th, 1999 the strike began, and more than 95% of activities were suspended.  Thousands of students in general assemblies of the various schools democratically approved the commencement of the strike.  In a parallel fashion in the IPN (National Polytechnic Institute - has about 160,000 students) there developed a general strike organized by the workers and fully supported by the students who are preparing to to throw themselves 100% behind the struggle to defend public education.

In the meantime, the entire bourgeoisie has come out against the mobilization, and has let loose a furious campaign against the movement.   There is not a single commentator from the radio, television, heads of business, the PRI (Revolutionary Institutional party - ruling party), PAN (Party of National Action - conservative party), or the church who have not come out against the strike and blamed it on the existence of "subversive elements".  They fear the strike, as it threatens to spread to the other major schools in the country, and it is filling the workers f Mexico with enthusiasm.

This campaign of defamation is proof of the fear the bourgeoisie has of the movement, because they know it has the strength and will to toss government plans to privitize education into the trash can - at least for the time being.

It’s obvious there are "subversive elements", and without a doubt it is the bourgeoisie and its representatives at the Rectory (head of the UNAM  administration) who dare give away 700 billion pesos ($76 billion US) to the bankers and corporations who have reduced real wages by 30%, and on top of that want to destroy public education - attempting to convert the right to education into a privilege only for those who can pay.

No more subsidies to the bourgeoisie!  The money from the Fobaproa (a government-sponsored program which bailed out corrupt banks)  should go to education!