Mexico Week In Review: 02.12-02.18

[cisdc]

Mexico Week In Review: 02.12-02.18
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Published since 1994, 'Mexico Week In Review' is a service of the
Committee of Indigenous Solidarity (CIS).  CIS is a Washington, D.C.
based activist group committed to the ongoing struggles of Indigenous
peoples in the Americas.  CIS is actively supporting the struggles
of the Indigenous peoples of Mexico while simultaneously combating
related structures of oppression within our own communities.

To view newsletter archives, visit: 
http://lists.mutualaid.org/pipermail/mexico-week/

"Para Todos, Todo; Para Nosotros Nada"
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ONE YEAR LATER: MINE SAFETY PROBLEMS REMAIN

Using picks, shovels and even their hands, hundreds of coal miners 
have worked around the clock for a year to recover the bodies of 65 
co-workers lost in an explosion. So far, frustrated searchers have 
only found two. Just as frustrating, for some, is how little has been 
done to improve mine safety nationwide, despite an outcry over the 
tragedy. The disaster at Pasta de Conchos mine has raised important 
questions about almost every aspect of mine operations in Mexico, 
from government oversight, to the integrity of the miners' union and 
the pressures miners are under to disregard built-in safety measures.

A special prosecutor has recommended criminal charges of negligent 
homicide against 11 mine officials and federal inspectors. The 
government has already charged the former leader of the miner's union 
with stealing $55 million from his members. Now, he is a fugitive. 
Some miners doubt mine owners will ever adopt new safety measures 
despite the disaster at Pasta de Conchos, which is permanently 
closed. "That mine has no remedy because they never took precautions, 
and I doubt they will start now," said Ricardo Ramirez, 25, who 
survived the blast.

Nor can they understand the agonizing pace of recovering remains. Six 
months ago, Rolando Alcocer, whose 54-year-old brother was killed, 
moved to a tent outside the gates of the mine, about 85 miles 
southwest of the Texas border. Nearby is a makeshift altar where a 
glass case holds photos of the dead miners, surrounded by votive 
candles and plastic flowers. "I want them to see that we have not 
forgotten and that we will not leave until they give us our 
relatives," Alcocer said. There is still no official ruling on the 
cause of the Feb. 19, 2006, explosion. But investigators found 
problems with the ventilation system that cleared the mine of 
explosive methane gas. Some miners say gas detectors were routinely 
disabled by their co-workers to avoid shutdowns and protect the 
productivity bonuses they depended on to supplement their meager 
salaries.

Reforms in mining regulation did not come easily in the United States 
either - it was only last year, after deadly coal mining accidents at 
the Sago mine in West Virginia and the Darby mine in southeastern 
Kentucky that President Bush signed the first major overhaul of U.S. 
mine safety laws in three decades. The reforms required that miners, 
for example, be given more emergency oxygen and that rescue crews be 
in position to respond more quickly to accidents.

Although the Pasta de Conchos tragedy provoked outrage in Mexico, no 
concrete measures have been taken to improve miners' safety. Mexico's 
powerful trade unions have proved feeble advocates for improved 
safety. In January, a coal miner was crushed to death and four others 
were injured after the collapse of a mineshaft in Nueva Rosita, a 
town near San Juan de Sabinas. The incident led to fresh demands by 
state officials for increased inspections. So far, that has not 
happened. Only five inspectors are responsible for more than 100 
coalmines in Coahuila state, where the Pasta de Conchos mine is 
located. The company that owns Pasta de Conchos - Grupo Mexico SA de 
CV, a railroad and mining giant with operations in Mexico, Peru and 
the United States - insists the mine met all safety standards and 
denies that precautions were ignored. As for the cause, the company 
says they must first dig down to the original site of the blast 
before drawing conclusions. The company paid each family of a dead 
miner a one-time sum of $75,000, and gives them weekly payments of 
about $350. Only two bodies have been recovered, because the use of 
power tools could ignite pockets of seeping methane gas. Experts say 
it could be years before all the missing are found.

Relatives plan to gather at the mine Sunday night for a vigil, 
followed by a Mass on Monday. Supporters of ousted union leader, 
Napoleon Gomez Urrutia, said they will strike Monday to mark the 
anniversary of what Gomez has dubbed work-related homicide. Gomez 
himself has been a divisive figure in the disaster: He faces both 
charges of fraud and corruption, and allegations that he was slow to 
respond after the explosion, enraging workers' families. But 
thousands in the 250,000-member Mining and Metal workers union he 
represented went on strike in March after the federal government 
charged him with allegedly misappropriating $55 million paid to the 
union in a 1990 privatization of two copper mines. The government 
then certified a rival leader of the union. Supporters of Gomez, who 
fled to Canada, say he is being persecuted for alleging a government 
cover up for Grupo Mexico's negligence.

Source: Associated Press: 02/18
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FOUR POLICE OFFICERS MURDERED

Assailants shot dead four police officers in the western Mexican city 
of Aguascalientes, the latest in a wave of slayings of law 
enforcement officers across Mexico. The city police officers had 
arrived at the scene of a car crash when they encountered several men 
unloading firearms out of a vehicle and tried to arrest them, 
Aguascalientes state attorney general Xavier Gonzalez told a news 
conference.

A second vehicle arrived at the scene with about eight armed men, who 
fired on the officers, Gonzalez said. Three died immediately and the 
fourth died later in a hospital, he said. Last week, more than a 
dozen armed men killed five agents and two secretaries in 
simultaneous attacks on two offices of the state attorney general in 
Acapulco.

Since Jan. 1, assailants have also killed six state and municipal 
police officers around the northern industrial city of Monterrey. 
Investigators say the attacks on police are related to drug cartels 
that make billions of dollars smuggling narcotics to the United 
States. President Felipe Calderon has sent more than 24,000 police 
and soldiers to areas ravaged by killings and promised there will be 
"no truce or quarter" against crime gangs whom he called the "enemies 
of Mexico. However, his offensive has not stopped the violence 
against police officers.

Source: Associated Press: 02/15
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ZAPATISTAS SHOWCASE THEIR AUTONOMOUS SCHOOL SYSTEM TO THE NATION AND THE WORLD

When the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN, in its Spanish 
initials) began the public phase of its struggle on New Year's Eve, 
1993, it made eleven demands, one of which was "education" (the 
others were: work, land, shelter, food, health, independence, 
freedom, democracy, justice, and peace). Thirteen years later, they 
have seen that demand met as never before in the highlands and 
jungles of Chiapas. But it was not the Mexican government or any 
other institution that complied. They did it for themselves.

Whereas prior to the rebellion in these rural lands of Mexico's 
poorest state schools were few and far between, Zapatista communities 
have built new ones, trained teachers from their own ranks, and 
widened the scope of what kind of education their children receive. 
And they did this without accepting a peso from the government.

On December 31, 2006, thousands of Zapatistas and visitors from 
throughout Mexico and the world met in the mountain town of Oventic 
for the Gathering of the Zapatista Peoples and the Peoples of the 
World, where an entire session was dedicated to "The Other Education" 
and civilian authorities from throughout EZLN territory explained 
what they have done, and what they still hope to do.

The main idea behind the creation of the Other Education is to teach 
the youth the history, language and culture of the people, and 
educate them to provide for their community, something that the 
government was never able to do. Representatives Lucio and Magdalena 
spoke from Caracol II ("caracol" is the term used to describe five 
governmental centers of the EZLN), with its seat in Oventic. They 
explained: "Because of the poor quality of government education, we 
have begun to create our own. The model of education from the 
government served only to destroy the mother earth and all of 
humanity, to develop studies favoring the interests of those in 
power."

They desired a model of education which would keep their youth close 
to their communities and productive for the common good. "The 
government didn't give us our schools, we had to construct them 
ourselves, since 1998. The government doesn't recognize these 
schools. They are for our people here in the forest. It has cost us a 
lot, but they are growing," says Gustavo, from Caracol III, with its 
seat in La Garrucha.

Saul, a Zapatista educator, describes how after 1994 the government 
teachers still tried to come to autonomous, rebel territory, but now 
as spies. "Let's go see what they are doing, those Zapatistas. What 
kind of movement do they have there?" They were arriving with 
supplies by way of the army, using the helicopters to bring school 
materials, etc. "We said, `No more. This is not right,'" recounts 
Saul. "It has not been easy, we ourselves don't know how to read. But 
we are getting better and learning all the time. We are now able to 
teach our culture, language and history." These are the humble 
beginnings of the Other Education.

While creating autonomous education has it's challenges, and the 
Zapatista comandantes say that the people of the communities, 
learning as they go, form it from below. "We learn as we walk, side 
by side with our education," explains Concepcion from Caracol V, its 
seat in Roberto Barrios. "We began to think, what would our education 
look like?"

One of the most important aspects of the Other Education is to 
recover cultural values, the ways of speaking and understanding each 
other within communities. This is something that was lost with the 
government education and that people are very excited to initiate 
again, especially through the native languages Tzotzil, Tzeltal, 
Tojolabal and Chol, among others. It is essential that the classes 
are taught in the local native language, not only because of the 
cultural significance, but because this is the language spoke 
primarily in the home and in which their children can best understand.

As 18-year-old local graduate, Lucio, explains "We speak our own 
language. We are in resistance. Our education teaches us what is 
neo-liberalism, what it means to be autonomous. The government 
teachers often didn't show up, because they said they weren't well 
paid. They tried to tell us to look for work alone, to not struggle 
or resist against the government. But we believe that we do 
everything for everyone. We have to do it together."

In addition to the importance of learning about the local history, 
culture and language, the representatives of Caracol III also brought 
up the critical need for environmental studies and gender equality 
through education. "The environment is the fountain of life. We must 
learn about conservation of bio-diversity. We believe in an 
environmental education that supports the care of our Mother Earth in 
a conscious, critical and reflective way. We want to teach solutions. 
We also want our children to learn about freedom, dignity and to 
value human beings, both men and women."

The four main areas of study in the Other Education are:

* History: of the local region, the Zapatista struggle, Mexico and 
the world. * Language: local languages and Spanish. * Math, and; * 
Agro-Ecology- how to take care of the environment through practices 
of organic agriculture and rejection of trans-genetic seeds, among 
other methods.

The students also learn about ways to provide for their communities 
while in school, such as growing gardens, how to produce crops, 
problems with the Earth and how to raise animals such as chickens, 
sheep and pigs. In this way they are able to learn practical 
knowledge and also gain income to support the "promoters of 
education," (the Zapatista term for teacher), who are local, unpaid 
and do the work out of their own desire to raise the consciousness in 
their communities.

The promoters come from the same community in which they teach. 
Therefore they understand the culture, native language and history 
and are able to impart that upon their students, rather than someone 
from the outside coming with their own cultural views and ways of 
being. In this way the community is able to decide what the students 
learn. "Before we had government teachers. We saw that they were not 
teaching what we wanted our children to learn. It was just another 
tool of the federal government," describes Saul from Caracol I. 
Representatives from Caracol IV add, "The government teachers were 
not teaching about our own culture and our own language. So we as a 
community and as parents began to organize ourselves through meetings 
with other Zapatistas to plan the Other Education. From these 
meetings, we agreed to take our children out of the government 
schools and to name our own promoters of education."

These promoters are trained by professionals, and then turn around 
and train another generation of local promoters from their 
communities. It's important to note that these promoters are learning 
alongside their students. It's not the type of education where the 
teacher knows everything, and the students know nothing. Rather, they 
are promoters, people from within the community committed to 
promoting different types of work and knowledge. As a representative 
from Caracol I describes, "We've created 72 new autonomous schools, 
and trained 20 educational promoters. These 20 promoters then in turn 
trained another 80 promoters, becoming the first generation of our 
autonomous education. We are now in the 3rd generation of promoters 
and have 147 promoters working with 1,726 students."

Within the schools, the students aren't organized by grades, nor are 
they evaluated by tests or given final scores, the typical practice 
in government schools. Instead, if there are numerous promoters in a 
particular community, the children are divided by age and level of 
knowledge. But, in many cases there is just one promoter per 
community and there is no division of students, but rather a 
multi-level classroom in which the older students also teach the 
younger ones. This is much different from the government schools, 
where in many cases the indigenous children were marginalized, made 
fun of, and punished for speaking their native language. There was no 
appreciation of the richness of different people and their different 
ways of being.

The concept of collective work is one of the main tenants of 
Zapatista life. Each member of the community does a job, and the 
results are shared, including farming, transportation, education, 
etc. describes Jesus from Caracol IV. "What we believe in is 
collectivism, to support our community as a whole. We want our 
children to know this and to wake up to the value of life, and where 
they are at in the world. Children lose their culture when they go to 
school and learn things that don't go with this form of life." In 
contrast, with the government schools, each person is encouraged to 
succeed for his or herself, which usually means finding work far away 
in the city or with big business. "Our children don't go to the city 
to continue working on their individual job, they begin to support 
their community upon graduating," insists a representative of Caracol 
IV.

To the Zapatistas, this means that the students, after finishing 
middle school, address the urgent needs within the community and help 
to educate others. Students are taught how to generate production and 
food, giving them work in farming, arts, health, what the people of 
the area need, rather than some distant far off future. Since the 
autonomous education isn't recognized outside the rebel territory, 
graduates aren't able to continue their studies. As one parent, 
Diego, recounts, "My son graduated last year from the local 
Rebellious Autonomous Middle School, "Escuela Secundaria Rebelde 
Autonoma Zapatista", the first one created in rebel territory, in 
Oventic. He wanted to go on to study but since he couldn't, he ended 
up working at the primary school as a teacher." One of the biggest 
dreams of the Other Education is to one day having an autonomous high 
school and university, so that students will be able to further their 
education.

Although the communities have continued with passion to provide the 
Other Education to their children, it has not been without a 
struggle. Many adults don't know how to read or write. This is one 
reason it is difficult to find promoters that come from the same 
communities. Also, many times promoters are unable to continue 
teaching or training others. Because of the need to provide for their 
families, to buy clothes or food, few make through the completion of 
the training, leaving many still without consistent education.

Another difficulty is the lack of resources. Once it was decided to 
construct everything from below, without help from the government, it 
has been often a struggle to put together materials to build schools 
and provide for the students. "We have a lot more that we want to 
build, but can't because we have no resources." But it is worth it to 
have the freedom of autonomous education, say representatives of 
Caracol IV. "We can give classes to our children in a house or under 
a tree, in doesn't matter. We don't need the money any more from the 
bad government. We see how to help our own promoters and therefore 
help all the people of the community."

Patricia from Caracol III spoke about how everything is built by the 
people, even the schools with roofs of straw and tin. The commitment 
from the community is truly the base of the Other Education. Parents 
will send rations of beans, corn and firewood with their children so 
they can have the food they need while they are at school. Many 
different international groups have supported the Zapatista movement 
giving them a source of income to create more schools, including 
groups from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Greece and the United States, 
among others.

The Other Education is based in the construction of a new world, with 
values of being, not of having. The Zapatistas believe in being 
realistic: figuring out what the community truly needs for its own 
liberation, and educating students around this discovery. Even with 
all of the shortcomings or challenges, as Comandante Concepcion from 
Caracol IV sums up, "Education here is our own. As Zapatistas, we 
began to organize ourselves here in our territory, and it has caused 
us problems. But it's just not the same, the education that the 
government gives, and we began to realize this. They forced us to 
learn whatever they wanted, and we began to resist. The education 
they were giving to our children wasn't good. We had to make the 
change, to create the Other Education."

This dialogue with representatives from the different caracoles was 
one of the first public glimpses for many into the autonomous, 
rebellion world of the Zapatista communities. With an audience so 
full of people from around the world that it overflowed the school, 
the meeting had to be moved outside for more space. It was an 
opportunity to see the blending of locals with black masks and 
intricate embroidery, with students, teachers and others from across 
the world, all together to witness the presentation of an alternative 
to the capitalistic, government system, what can be done when the 
people from below unite to provide for their community.

Many people, including Beatriz Gutierrez, an indigenous teacher from 
Oaxaca, are anxious to take these presentations to the next level. "I 
want to see past the words and really see how it is in the 
classroom." She suggested having a specifically educational meeting, 
in which teachers would unite with a group of 15 students, and 
demonstrate the ways they work in their own classrooms, in this way 
create another form of training. Other people proposed smaller group 
meetings to learn from the varied experiences of the many 
participants. Regardless, as Gustavo, a local Zapatista put it "There 
is no standard, no book that can be written about the right way to 
educate around the world. Each community is different. We will 
continue to learn, to share our ways with the people who come to 
listen."

This meeting of Zapatistas with the peoples of the world is one in 
preparation for a 10-day meeting coming up this July 20-29, where 
participants will travel to each of the different Caracoles in 
Zapatista Territory for an even more in depth glimpse into their 
experience at rebellious, autonomous life over the last 13 years. 
Anyone who is interested is invited to come, to share their own 
visions and experiences in the struggle, as Colonel Insurgente Moises 
reminds the people of the world "Now is the time to organize our 
selves to see how we, together, will be able to confront the bad 
which is neoliberalism, and it's attack on humanity."

Source: NarcoNews - http://www.narconews.com/: 01/06

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The above articles were originally published and copyrighted by the 
listed sources. These articles are offered for educational purposes 
which CIS maintains is  'fair use' of copyrighted material as 
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.

end: Mexico Week In Review: 02.12-02.18
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