Latin America news in brief

ARGENTINA
Strikes spread after cops kill teacher

Teachers had been striking for a month in the province of Neuquén in Patagonia when on April 3 they decided to raise the struggle a notch and block the road on Route 22. Under orders of the right-wing Gov. Jorge Sobisch, police moved to violently stop the action. One particularly brutal cop, who had been charged in prior violent attacks and was a member of the Special Group for Police Operations—sort of an Argentine SWAT team—fired a tear-gas canister from six feet away that smashed the head of chemistry teacher Carlos Fuentealba.

In response to this provocation, teachers supported by other workers held a mobilization of tens of thousands in Buenos Aires and a national strike of all teachers on April 9. It was supported by the Confederation of Educational Workers for the Republic of Argentina (CTERA) and by the two main labor confederations. The main demands were for a living wage for teachers—which they are not paid at present—and for Sobisch to step down as governor of Neuquén.

Sobisch, a notorious right-winger, has had to criticize the cop who did the killing and has lost much of his political support, but he has so far refused to resign. The struggle continues against him and on April 16, 30,000 workers marched in the city of Neuquén (La Jornada-Mexico) to condemn the governor, whom they consider responsible for Fuentealba’s death. Another 180 protests and public meetings took place throughout the country. Sobisch’s attempt to gain support by raising teachers’ wages by decree the night before the demonstration failed miserably.

While the national government, led by President Nestor Kirchner, has criticized Sobisch and the police for their violence and has so far escaped blame for the repression, some left-wing forces have raised the following question: “If the president insists on an economic policy that holds down wages, doesn’t it make such confrontations between the workers and the state inevitable?”

MEXICO
FLOC organizer found killed in office

An organizer of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO (FLOC), Santiago Rafael Cruz, was found beaten to death in the FLOC office in Monterrey, Mexico, on April 9, according to the FLOC web site. FLOC is a labor union that has organized migrant farm workers in North Carolina and Ohio. FLOC’s founder and current president is Baldemar Velásquez, and the group has organized workers for struggles against both growers and agribusiness.

Cruz, who was originally from Mexico, had been living in Toledo, Ohio, before FLOC sent him to recruit migrant workers for a guest worker program in February. On its Web site, FLOC said Cruz’s job “involved helping H2A ‘guest workers’ going to work in the fields of North Carolina under FLOC contracts with the visa processing process, investigating and helping resolve grievances concerning abuses in the recruiting system and employment conditions, and managing the office administration.”

FLOC connected Cruz’s killing to his work: “We have put up with constant attacks in both the U.S. and Mexico, including having our staff harassed, our office burglarized and broken into several times, and a number of other attempted break-ins,” the site read. “Now the attacks have come to this.” (www.floc.com)

ECUADOR
Overwhelming YES for Constitutional Assembly

By a landslide, 82 percent of Ecuador’s over 6 million voters approved the formation of a Constituent Assembly with full powers, which will be elected next August or September. The vote, taken April 15, was a virtual referendum on the new Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, who had staked his political future on its outcome. Only 12 percent voted no, and even in centers of strength for the neo-liberal parties and the oligarchy like Guayaquil, the yes vote won by 2-1.

Popular demonstrations celebrated the victory, and Correa announced in its aftermath that Ecuador had paid off its debt to the International Monetary Fund and would ask the IMF and the World Bank to leave the country. It is expected that the vote will strengthen Correa’s hand in carrying out his promises to remove the U.S. military base at Manta and to carry out popular reforms.

The neo-liberal parties who opposed the Constituent Assembly ran a campaign based on baiting Correa for his friendly relations with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, who is seen as the most radical of the left-leaning political leaders voted into office in Latin America in the last few years. Correa said after the victory that the “fear campaign had failed.” Chávez, who was with President Evo Morales of Bolivia at a public meeting, congratulated Correa and the Ecuadoran people for the victory.

With a population of over 13 million people, Ecuador is the biggest producer of bananas in South America and possesses the fourth-biggest supply of petroleum. In April 2005 a mass uprising deposed President Lucio Gutiérrez, who had betrayed his campaign promises by suddenly announcing he was “the best ally of Bush in Latin America.” A year later a mass uprising of peasants and Indigenous peoples threw out Gutiérrez’s successor, Alfredo Palacios.

—John Catalinotto