Ris­ing ten­sions between the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment and the Nation­al Coor­di­na­tion of Edu­ca­tion Work­ers (CNTE), the lead­ers of the inde­pen­dent teach­ers move­ment with­in the Nation­al Union of Edu­ca­tion Work­ers (SNTE), cul­mi­nat­ed Sun­day evening in vio­lent clash­es that left eight dead and 53 civil­ians and 55 police offi­cers injured in Oax­a­ca state, accord­ing to reports.

Teach­ers from the CNTE are protest­ing in oppo­si­tion to a part of Mexico’s edu­ca­tion reform that calls for the manda­to­ry test­ing of teach­ers, in addi­tion to the arrests of union lead­ers on mon­ey laun­der­ing and oth­er charges that pro­test­ers feel are unsub­stan­ti­at­ed. Accord­ing to reports, pro­test­ers armed with molo­tov cock­tails and rocks clashed with armed fed­er­al and state police offi­cers across sev­er­al munic­i­pal­i­ties in Oax­a­ca state, pri­mar­i­ly in Nochixtlán where the vio­lence esca­lat­ed about 50 miles north­west of Oaxaca’s his­toric center.

In 2013 Enrique Peña Nieto’s admin­is­tra­tion adopt­ed an Edu­ca­tion Reform Bill. Among oth­er things, the bill cre­at­ed an inde­pen­dent body called the Insti­tu­to Nacional para la Evaluación de la Educación (Nation­al Insti­tute for the Eval­u­a­tion of Edu­ca­tion) to eval­u­ate teachers.

The reform cre­at­ed a mer­it-based pay and pro­mo­tion sys­tem, new tests for teach­ers enter­ing the field (tests that teach­ers say take pow­er away from ​“nor­mals,” Mexico’s local teacher schools that have often pro­vid­ed a path to upward mobil­i­ty for young teach­ers from poor fam­i­lies and have often been the site of polit­i­cal rad­i­cal­iza­tion, as David Bacon explains ) and more fed­er­al over­sight. The bill shift­ed con­trol from Mexico’s teach­ers union, Nation­al Union of Edu­ca­tion Work­ers (SNTE), to the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and caused an uproar with­in the CNTE.

Since then, teach­ers have orga­nized and led protests across the south­ern Mex­i­can states of Oax­a­ca, Guer­rero and Michoacán in oppo­si­tion to the reforms. In response, the gov­ern­ment has ini­ti­at­ed sev­er­al efforts to thwart the protests. In May, Edu­ca­tion Sec­re­tary Aure­lio Nuño May­er announced the fir­ing of 3,000 teach­ers in Oax­a­ca, Guer­rero and Michoacán after they had not worked for three days. A month lat­er, they start­ed to tar­get union leaders.

In 2010 Oaxaca’s state teacher’s union, Sec­tion 22, pro­posed their own set of edu­ca­tion reforms that focused on rec­og­niz­ing indige­nous cul­tures and form­ing alliances between teach­ers and their com­mu­ni­ties. On June 11 and 12 of this year, Ruben Nuñez and Fran­cis­co Vil­lalo­bos, the union’s sec­re­tary gen­er­al and sec­re­tary of orga­ni­za­tion, respec­tive­ly, were detained by fed­er­al agents under alle­ga­tions of mon­ey laun­der­ing and oth­er charges, accord­ing to reports. Their deten­tions fur­ther ignit­ed the frus­tra­tion of the CNTE against neolib­er­al edu­ca­tion reforms backed by the rul­ing Insti­tu­tion­al Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Par­ty (PRI).

Video of the clash­es shows CNTE sup­port­ers and fed­er­al and state agents divid­ed by block­ades of burn­ing vehi­cles as thick, black smoke bil­lows into the air. Despite state­ments from Mexico’s fed­er­al gov­ern­ment claim­ing that agents that had par­tic­i­pat­ed in the oper­a­tion were not car­ry­ing guns and were ambushed by pro­test­ers, sev­er­al shots can be heard on more than one occa­sion as pro­test­ers appear to stand hun­dreds of feet away.

In a series of pho­tos pub­lished by Refor­ma Nacional on Twit­ter, at least one agent appears to be aim­ing an auto­mat­ic weapon towards the crowd of pro­test­ers. Anoth­er pho­to pub­lished by Mex­i­can reporter Diego Enrique Osorno shows an agent stand­ing watch as at least a dozen detained pro­test­ers lie face down in the back of a pick­up truck with their hands wrapped around their heads. Eye wit­ness accounts of the clash­es appear to con­tra­dict the offi­cial state­ment released by the government.

What’s more, reports have sur­faced from the Mex­i­can out­let Sin Embar­go claim­ing that local hos­pi­tals in Nochixtlán have been closed to the pub­lic and are only being used to treat wound­ed police offi­cers. Many local reporters have also claimed to be direct­ly tar­get­ed by police for tak­ing video and shoot­ing pho­tographs of the clash­es. Accord­ing to the Mex­i­can Nation­al Com­mis­sion of Human Rights, local reporter Elpidio Ramos Zárate of the news­pa­per El Sur del Itsmo was among the eight killed thus far.

Oax­a­ca has long been a focal point for oppo­si­tion against the rul­ing PRI. In 2006 Oaxaca’s teacher’s union held their annu­al strike to nego­ti­ate con­tracts for the fol­low­ing year. Only this time the strikes also demand­ed the oust­ing of then gov­er­nor Ulis­es Ruiz Ortiz. In response, police opened fire on the non­vi­o­lent pro­test­ers, spark­ing a con­flict that last­ed sev­en months and left more than a dozen dead. Mul­ti­ple human rights groups gen­er­at­ed reports that sug­gest the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment may have used death squads and sum­ma­ry executions.

The Nation­al Human Rights Com­mis­sion (CNDH) has announced that they will be open­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion into the vio­lence, accord­ing to the Mex­i­can pub­li­ca­tion Pro­ce­so. The group explained that they will gath­er all the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion to deter­mine who was respon­si­ble for the eight deaths and more than 100 wounded.

With ten­sions expect­ed to con­tin­ue to rise after the vio­lent clash between pro­test­ers and police, the inves­ti­ga­tion by the CNDH will be crit­i­cal as more cit­i­zens con­tin­ue to orga­nize and protest around the coun­try in sup­port of their teachers.