Mexico: 16,000 Troops Sent to Oaxaca to Quell Anti-Election Protests
- 9 years ago
Mexico: 16,000 Troops Sent into Oaxaca to Quell Anti-Election Protests
In Sunday elections marked by 50% abstentionism, the governing PRI party of Enrique Peña Nieto won a slim majority in the lower house of Mexico’s Congress. In the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca, militant resistance against elections was heavily repressed. Activists demanding the safe return of the 43 Ayotzinapa students blocked access to the polls in Tixtla, Guerrero, where the teacher training school is located. In Tlapa, where protesters detained three police vehicles and the police inside them to use as bargaining chips, the police fired teargas and live ammunition at the crowd, killing one person and injuring four. But the largest number of state forces was deployed in the state of Oaxaca, where daily protests have been held during the past week by dissident schoolteachers, and 283 ballot boxes were burned on Sunday to render the corrupt electoral process null and void. Sixteen thousand soldiers and federal police were sent into the state to enforce the elections and repress the protests. A total of 88 arrests were made, and demonstrations are now being held to demand freedom for all protesters and the exit of military forces from the state. Clayton Conn reports from Mexico for teleSUR.
In Sunday elections marked by 50% abstentionism, the governing PRI party of Enrique Peña Nieto won a slim majority in the lower house of Mexico’s Congress. In the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca, militant resistance against elections was heavily repressed. Activists demanding the safe return of the 43 Ayotzinapa students blocked access to the polls in Tixtla, Guerrero, where the teacher training school is located. In Tlapa, where protesters detained three police vehicles and the police inside them to use as bargaining chips, the police fired teargas and live ammunition at the crowd, killing one person and injuring four. But the largest number of state forces was deployed in the state of Oaxaca, where daily protests have been held during the past week by dissident schoolteachers, and 283 ballot boxes were burned on Sunday to render the corrupt electoral process null and void. Sixteen thousand soldiers and federal police were sent into the state to enforce the elections and repress the protests. A total of 88 arrests were made, and demonstrations are now being held to demand freedom for all protesters and the exit of military forces from the state. Clayton Conn reports from Mexico for teleSUR.