New Documentary: Oaxaca Ingobernable

Since June of 2016 — ten years since the uprising that for more than six months this state in the south of Mexico participated in — professors and communities from the eight regions of Oaxaca returned to the streets.

Their main demand is the repeal not only of the educational reform, but also of the whole package of structural reforms better known as the “Pact for Mexico,” which the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto—under the influence of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank—has been trying to impose since 2013.

With these reforms, which seek to privatize education as well as sectors like agriculture, health care, telecommunications, and energy, the Mexican government is directly threatening not just the teachers union but also the people of Mexico in general. Therefore, the movement is not limited to the teachers: “This stopped being a teachers’ movement and it is now a social movement. Why? Because we the people are the ones being most harmed by this in every aspect. For this reason all of the communities are organizing in order to raise our voices,” explained a woman from the Oaxacan town of San Pablo Huitzo.

In contrast to the experience of 2006, during which the resistance was mainly concentrated in the city of Oaxaca, in 2016 blockades were established in practically the whole state. What has not changed is the government’s response to the protests, which continues to be characterized by brutal repression. To this date, hundreds of people have been injured and more than ten assassinated by elements of the police and the government’s gendarmerie.

With this documentary, we want to make public what took place between June and August of 2016, through the voices of the citizens, teachers, mothers, and municipal authorities of Oaxaca.

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This post is also available in: Spanish