Repression in Mexico – an urgent appeal

Students are fighting for their dreams and are being met by violent repression.  Chilean youth have mounted the largest demonstrations since Pinochet’s murderous regime took power. Yet, they continue their struggles for jobs and educational opportunity. The latest chapter in this story is being written in Mexico. Protestors have been “disappeared.” We know what that likely means if international protests are not mounted.The US chapter of the Trinational Coalition in Defense of Public Education has received an urgent appeal from our members in Mexico, asking for our support.  Below you will find a translation of their declaration, explaining what has occurred.You can send your letters of support and protest of this violent repression to María de la Luz Arriaga Lemus at mariluzarriaga@gmail.com.  COALICIÓN TRINACIONAL EN DEFENSA DE LA EDUCACION PÚBLICASECCIÓN MEXICANA In December 1 the people of Mexico made legitimate use of their constitutional right to protest, to demonstrate and to change the political regime. Tens of thousands of workers, youth, women, and the people in general, poured into the streets throughout the country to reject the buying of votes, and the use of the proceeds of crime by the PRI to seize control of the government in order to maintain the privileges of big international financial capital and the parasitic businesses that profit from the public coffer.  In a concerted action, Peña Nieto (de facto President, from the PRI party), Calderón (outgoing President, PAN) and Ebrard (Mayor of Mexico Federal District, PRD), supended individual rights, kidnapped the legislatura, and walled off more than 8 kilometres of the historic centre of the city since November 25. The military and police arrogance in the heart of national politics could not prevent the December 1st demonstrations that rejected the electoral fraud and labour code “reforms.” In the face of this, the commercial TV networks set up a montage of “institutional Normality, beside constant repetition of images of provocateurs, trying to pass them off as members of YoSoy#132 in order to justify the mass acts of violence carried out against citizens who protested peacefully.  We energetically reject the strategy orchestrated by the federal government and the government of Mexico City, the police brutality, the government provocations (photos of provocateurs committing acts of destruction and later hanging out behind police lines can be seen on the IDEA facebook site at <idea-network-red-sepa>) and the television smear campaign that attempts to obscure the social protest against electoral fraud and the imposition of neoliberal reforms. The federal and local state violence has taken the life of a demonstrator (who is in a coma), destroyed the eye of a 20-year old youth, wounded dozens more, and has resulted in more than 100 people arbitrarily arrested, who are now being arraigned in turbid and unjust ways. Meanwhile, the provocateurs, protected by the riot police, federales, and presidential guard, are free. It is important to point out that in the face of their failure at San Lázaro (congress), (the police) carried out attacks and arrests in Pino Suárez, Regina, Madero, and the Eje Central, as far as  2 kilometers from the clashes at San Lázaro, where the police carried out wide-scale provocations, smashing windows and store displays along Juarez Ave in order to justify the illegal arrests, including of members of MORENA along Insurgentes Ave and Reforma. Those responsible for the police brutality should be punished. An inquiry should be launched of the Secretary of the Interior, the head of Public Security and the Federal Police, the Minister of the Interior and the Attorney General of the Federal District. A political case should be launched against Marcelo Ebrard (Federal District Mayor) for his participation in this operation, hiding his hand behind a call for investigations in to the provocateurs while rushing to “indemnise the businesspeople” who seek to profit form thioer smashed windows with one billion pesos. In Mexico there is no democracy. The militarized change of government took place in the midst of an unprecedented wave of state violence. The democratic transition has failed, electoral fraud, criminalization of social struggles and the militarization of the country has prevented the establishment of civil and democratic liberties that the national oligarchy at the service of transnational capital attempts cynically to feign. The demonstrations of rejection of vote-buying, state violence and the economic model show the failure of the spectacle that they try to present with the transition of powers. At the international level, it is very clear the climate of violence and the distancing of the government form the people. We demand the immediate and unconditional release of those who were arrested last December 1, and of all the political prisoners that resulted from the events of December 1. We also demand that those who were disappeared (during the police operation), be presented alive. We will struggle energetically until every last one has been freed. We demand an in-depth and transparent investigation into the provocations and government violence. This will require that the Secretaries of the Interior (Miguel Angel Osorio Chong) and of Public Security ( Manuel Mondragón) step down from their posts, because of their possible connections to the repressionWe demand an immediate explication from the National and the Federal District Human Rights Commission regarding the violations of constitutional guarantees and police brutality.We demand adequate medical attention for the victims of the repression. This is something the Red Cross has been unable to offer.We call on the forces of democracy and the left to launch the broadest information campaign possible to promote mobilizations against state violence, respect for popular sovereignty, and rejection of neoliberal policies, and for participation a huge demonstration on December 10, the International Day of Human Rights.