Mexico protests: ‘Bring them home alive!’

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On Nov. 20, rallies took place in Mexico and around the world protesting the disappearance of 43 students after a police attack in the state of Guerrero, and demanding that the Mexican government account for their fate. From Mexico City to Buenos Aires to London to New York City, chants rang out for “Justicia!” (Justice!).

The abducted youths were enrolled at the Teach­ ers College of Ayotzinapa, a school whose student body is known for its social activism and leftist politics. On Sept. 26, they were riding on buses into the city of Iguala, Guerrero, on their way to a protest in Mexico City, when police intercepted them and opened fire on the buses. They shot and killed six of the students and detained 43 others who had not managed to flee. The bodies of the murdered students were left in the street for five hours until the authorities decided to intervene.

Over a month later, federal officials apprehend­ ed members of a criminal gang, who allegedly confessed that the police in Iguala had turned the 43 students over to them. Supposedly, the gang members shot the students, burned their bodies, and then threw bags containing their ashes into a river. To date, however, these allegations have not been verified by independent forensics teams that were called in to investigate. The demand remains, “Vivos los queremos!” (We want them alive!)

It was discovered soon after the abductions that the police were responding to orders from Iguala’s migration legislation. All sections of the ruling class understand well that cheap labor with zero benefits is a prized commodity. Obama’s supposed three-year reprieve from government deportation is little more than existing policy, in which immigration officials, in collusion with corporate America, selectively deter­ mine who will be deported and who are still urgently required to service corporate interests.

This unofficial selective persecution and deporta­ tion policy serves capitalism well. Lower wages to immigrants, if wages are paid at all via employer preplanned deportations arranged before pay day, al­ ways exercise a downward pressure on the wages of all U.S. workers, including and especially union mem­ bers. The wage differential also serves capitalism’s need to divide workers by race and legal status, with the ruling class ever placing the blame for unemploy­ ment not on its failing system but rather on immi­ grants who “illegally” take the jobs of “Americans.”

Government-promoted reactionary patriotism is routinely employed to scapegoat the most oppressed and exploited. Obama’s spokespersons took care to stress that the new plan was both temporary and subject to cancellation at any time by any president.

“Deferred action [that is, postponing deportation punishment] is not a pathway to citizenship. It is not legal status. It simply says that for three years, you are not a law-enforcement priority, and [we] are not going to go after you,” said one senior official. “It is mayor, Jose Luis Abarca, whose wife was sched­ uled to give a political speech the same day close to where the police attacked the buses. Her family has been linked to the drug syndicate, Guerrero Unidos. After being confronted with the charges, Abarca and his wife fled the area, but they were located and arrested on Nov. 4.

In the past decade, more than 100,000 people have been confirmed killed in abductions in Mex­ ico, while well over 22,000 others (according to official figures) are still missing. Mexicans have increasingly expressed their indignation over the federal authorities’ reticence to take effec­ tive measures to locate the victims, and to put an end to the violence, lawlessness, and corruption that has become endemic throughout much of the country. The police attack on the Ayotzinapa stu­ dents and the disappearance of the 43 were the last straw for many people.

Tens of thousands of protesters converged in Mexico City’s central square, the Zocalo, on Nov. 20 to demand action from the federal government in finding the 43. Many chanted, “We are all Ayotzinapa!” Students from the teachers’ college have been in several confrontations with the police over the years. On Dec. 12, 2011, state judicial po­ lice shot and killed two Ayotzinapa students dur­ ing a protest.

More and more, demands call for the resignation of President Enrique Peña Nieto, who in turn has accused protesters and “outside agitators” of try­ ing to “destabilize” the country. n temporary and it is revocable.”

Working people have nothing to gain by faint praise or other attributions of support to Obama’s racist and anti-immigrant policies—in this case, a policy likely announced with great fanfare to crudely manufacture Obama’s future “legacy” as a humanistic president concerned with the plight of the poor and oppressed.

All “reforms” extracted from corporate America are derived from the independent self-organization and fightback of working people. The growing immigrant rights movement has increasingly demanded an im­ mediate end to all deportations, immediate amnesty and legalization, full benefits to all undocumented workers, and an immediate end to the militarization of the borders. The unity of the broad working class in defense of full rights for immigrants is a prereq­ uisite to winning real victories for all the oppressed and indeed, for all workers.

Subordination of this critical struggle to support for “The Great Deporter,” or any other posturing politi­ cian, only furthers illusions in the credibility of the racist capitalist system.

The massive mobilizations in virtually every U.S. city, in which people expressed their rage against the racist grand-jury decision in the case of the police murder of the unarmed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., was an important step toward awakening the American people to the real source of oppression in (continued on page 5, in “Low-wage workers unite for $15 Now”)

SOCIALIST ACTION DECEMBER 2014 3

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David Goldman / AP four postal workers’ unions. The postal unions are the APWU, the National Association of Let­ ter Carriers (NALC), the National Postal Mail Handlers Union (NPMHU), and the National Rural Letter Carriers Association (NRLCA). The slogan for Nov. 14 was “Stop Delaying America’s Mail!”

The Day of Action was the first time the four unions have united to oppose USPS since 2011 (for information: Stopthemaildelays.org). Al­ though the turnout on Nov. 14 was modest, from several dozen up to a few hundred in some cities, it laid the basis for more united ac­ tions of postal workers.

Said the APWU, “On Jan. 5 the Postmaster General and the Board of Governors are poised to make devastating cuts in service to the American people—cuts so severe that they will forever damage the U.S. Postal Service.” On Jan. 5 a total of 82 Mail Processing and Distribution Centers will be closed or “consolidated.”

These cuts, in sync with the privatization drive, virtually eliminate next-day delivery within cities and lower all delivery standards for medicine, on-line purchases, local newspa­ pers, etc. The elimination of Saturday delivery, although defeated in Congress for fiscal 2015, remains a key goal of the postal bosses.

The sale to corporate entities of USPS facili­