 Special Supplement, March 2000
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| Mexico: All-Out Police Attack on UNAM Student Strike, Over 600 Arrested In a dawn attack, on February 6 some 2,500 troops of Mexico's militarized Federal Police invaded the main campus of the National University (UNAM) where students have been on strike for almost ten months. Backed up by 500 Mexico City riot police, the cops arrested 640 strikers. Earlier in the week police and paid thugs staged a bloody provocation, storming a junior college and arresting more than 250. As earlier in the strike, the PRI government of President Ernesto Zedillo worked in close coordination with the Federal District government controlled by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas' PRD. With close to 1,000 of the courageous student strikers in jail, powerful working-class mobilization is urgently needed against capitalist repression, in Mexico and internationally. Mexico: All-Out Cop Attack on UNAM Student Strike (6 February 2000) UNAM
Strikers Demand Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal,
Workers
Vanguard’s "Virtual Reality" |
Kidnappings
and Thug Assaults Against
Student
Strikers, Leftists
Mobilize
Working-Class
Action to Smash Terror Attacks on Mexico UNAM Strike!
With the strike at Mexico's National University well into its sixth
month, the ruling class is seeking to intimidate students into ending
the
occupation. It is urgently necessary to mobilize working-class action
and
a joint strike of the UNAM and key labor sectors to smash the state
terror
against the strikers. State
Terror Against Mexico UNAM Strike (7 October 1999)
Key
Fight Against the Capitalist Offensive
Mexico:
The Battle for UNAM
Student
Strike Under Siege
Break
with
the Cardenista Popular Front!
Forge a
Revolutionary
Workers Party!
The explosive student strike at the National University of Mexico
(UNAM)
is a political struggle of the first order. With 270,000 students, UNAM
is the largest university in Latin America. Fighting for free public
higher
education, the strike is opposed by all the bourgeois parties,
including
the ruling PRI and the nationalist PRD of Cuauhtémoc
Cárdenas.
It has been the target of threats by President Zedillo and attacks by porros
(paid thugs). The spectre of a repeat of the 1968 army massacre hangs
over
the students. The Grupo Internacionalista has fought for a joint strike
of UNAM students and workers, electrical workers and teachers, and
initiating
worker-student defense brigades. (24 August 1999)
In two parts:
Mexico:
The Battle for UNAM, Part I
Mexico:
The Battle for UNAM, Part II
Defend,
Extend the UNAM Strike!
Cárdenas'
Cops Assault Students –
Break
with the Cárdenas Popular Front!
On August 4 the Mexico City government of Cuauhtémoc
Cárdenas
unleashed a brutal police attack against striking students of the
National
University (UNAM). While various leftists have counted on
Cárdenas
not to intervene, the Trotskyists have warned from the outset that the
popular front would resort to violent repression if they could not
undermine
the strike from within. Cárdenas'
cops attack students (10 August 1999)
In
Face of Threats to UNAM Strike
Worker-Student
Defense Guards Formed
As the strike at Mexico's National University (UNAM) entered its fourth
month, the authorities broke off the phony "dialogue." Facing the
danger
of a police or army attack on the occupied campuses, worker-student
defense
brigades were formed, including several hundred members of the
university
workers union and the powerful Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME).
The Grupo Internacionalista played a key role in initiating the defense
groups, an important development in the class struggle. Mexico:
worker-student defense guards formed (19 July 1999)
Bourgeois
Parties Demand End to Occupation,
Threaten
Police Attack
Mexico
UNAM Strike:
Mobilize
Worker-Student Defense!
Since April 20, students at the Mexico's National University have
occupied
their campuses to protest a drastic fee hike that would exclude tens of
thousands of poor and working-class students. In the face of opposition
from all the capitalist parties, it is necessary to form worker-student
guards to defend the strike, and to mobilize the working class in joint
strike action to extend it. Trotskyists call to break with the
Cárdenas
popular front and forge a revolutionary workers party. Mexico
UNAM strike leaflet (23 June 1999)
In
Defense of Yugoslavia Against NATO Attack
Mexican
Student Strike Sends Aid to Yugoslav Workers
On June 3, a meeting of the Consejo General de Huelga (Strike General
Council), attended by hundreds of striking students at Mexico's
National
University (UNAM), voted for a motion initiated by the Grupo
Internacionalista
to send a contribution to Yugoslav workers being bombed by NATO. UNAM
solidarity with Yugoslav workers (3 June 1999)
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