Chiapas teachers sign truce

 

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Chiapas Teachers Agree to “Truce” and Return to their Workplaces

With thanks to the Chiapas Support Committee for their recent translations about the struggle of the Chiapas teachers

 

Chiapas teachers hold press conference in Tuxtla. Photo: Isaín Mandujano/Chiapas PARALELO

By: Angeles Mariscal

[The teachers warned that they would not allow those who presented the evaluation to return to their workplaces. Photo: Isaín Mandujano/Chiapas PARALELO]

After the exchange of five police, who members of the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) had retained, for six teachers detained during demonstrations, the labour strike and demonstrations that some 50,000 teachers maintained for three days in Chiapas was suspended.

Since this morning, demonstrators took down the occupation they had on the principal plaza of the capital of Chiapas, and initiated the return to their workplaces.

The suspension of the labour strike was announced after the CNTE of Chiapas classified as positive having achieved the liberation of their compañeros who were detained during last Tuesday’s confrontations and the suspension of the evaluation of the second block of teachers that were going to be evaluated.

Another 2,300 were present during the first day that this process was carried out, the same day that members of the Coordinator were in the midst of protests. It was during those protests that a teacher David Ruiz Estudillo died from being run over and the police detained another six demonstrators.

The teachers carried out different actions to achieve their liberation, among them the retention of five police, two of them women, who they liberated Wednesday night, after holding them for 8 hours in the centre of the place where they were demonstrating, and when the state government released the six detainees.

Early this morning the CNTE of Chiapas held an assembly in which they agreed to maintain a “truce” and to return to their workplaces. In the voice of one of their leaders, Pedro Gómez Bamaca, they warned that: “the Labour Reform will not happen in Chiapas,” and for that they announced that next December 18 they will be added to the protest actions in Mexico City.”

They will not permit those who attended the evaluation to return to work

The CNTE’s assembly in Chiapas also agreed that they would not permit the 2,300 teachers who attended their evaluation exam last Tuesday to return to their workplaces.

According to the Coordinator, we’re dealing with teachers who entered teaching in 2014, when the Education Reform was already in effect. The Secretariat of Education issued them contracts wherein it establishes that in order to remain they are obliged to be present and to pass the exams.

Versions of dissident teachers maintain that facing the refusal of several of them to participate in the process, the Secretariat of Education offered them all permanent contracts, independent of the result they obtain on the tests; all in exchange for accepting being present at the evaluation processes.

Before abandoning the occupation, members of the Coordinator demanded the exit of Ricardo Aguilar Gordillo, Secretary of Education in Chiapas, who they accused of not working to overcome the education backlog –Chiapas occupies first place at the national level- and contrived the whole strategy for breaking the dissident teachers.

The Chiapas government asserts that it reduced the conflict with the teachers

Hours after the exchange of police for the detained teachers, the state government issued a press release wherein it asserted that it achieved reducing the teacher conflict and the return of the teachers to their workplaces, through the dialogue with the CNTE’s leaders.

“The Secretary General of Government, Juan Carlos Gómez Aranda, asserted that the Chiapas government is and will be respectful of the free expression of ideas, as long as these ideas don’t violate the rights and freedoms of citizens,” the communication points out.

It adds that the six people that were liberated –three teachers, two normalistas and a father- are “under the legal conditions described in Article 140 of the National Code of Criminal Procedure.”

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Originally Published in Spanish by Chiapas PARALELO

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Re-published with English interpretation by Compamanuel.com

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