Mexico: In the Shadow of the Ayotzinapa Crisis, Autonomies Emerge
Mexico: In the Shadow of the Ayotzinapa Crisis, Autonomies Emerge
Written by Andalusia Knoll Published: 24 February 2015
The enforced disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa rural teachers college has catapulted Mexico’s security crisis into the international spotlight and revealed the deep-seated ties between the government and organized crime. It has also brought to the forefront the dignified struggle and courage of the families of these students who refuse to believe that their sons have been reduced to bags of ashes, which according to the Mexican Government was the fate that they met.
The students were last seen when their bus caravan was violently attacked numerous times by municipal police and armed men in Iguala, Guerrero on September 26, 2014. These attacks left 6 people dead and the 43 students who were detained by police have not been seen since. This attack and enforced disappearance has provoked outrage on national and international scale and a new level of organizing on a local level in dozens of municipalities across Guerrero.
Social activists, campesinos and students have formed the Popular National Assembly and meet on a regular basis at the Ayotzinapa school to strategize and plan actions to demand that the students be returned alive. On October 24th 2014 the assembly voted to advance the movement by trying to take over the city halls in all 81 city halls in Guerrero to “establish popular assemblies, municipal popular councils and exercise power by constructing their own system of justice and community police.”
On November 29th, 2014 members of the CETEG, a state teachers union known for its radical tactics along with the citizen police force took over the Tecoanapa city hall in Southern Guerrero and established the Popular Municipal Assembly. “We asked the municipal president to demand justice regarding the 43 students who were disappeared. We saw his delay in responding because he didn’t want to lose privileges and resources that [former] Governor Aguirre granted him,” said Jose Felix Rosas Rodriguez, teacher and spokesperson for the Popular Movement in Teocoanapa, a largely rural municipality in the Costa Chica region.
More:
http://www.towardfreedom.com/31-archives/americas/3826-mexico-in-the-shadow-of-the-ayotzinapa-crisis-autonomies-emerge
