URGENT RESOLUTION ON MEXICAN SITUATION
BRATISLAVA – On 30th November 2014, OBESSU Extraordinary General Assembly adopted an urgent resolution in solidarity with Mexican students, teachers and citizens.
On September 26th a group of students from Escuela Normal Rural de Ayatzinapa, Mexico travelled to the nearby town of Iguala to protest against the education reforms proposed in their country. They demanded a quality education and access to their student rights. Whilst the students were demonstrating in the streets, the wife of the Mayor of the city, Mrs Abarca, was holding a speech in a place nearby the demonstration, and Mr Abarca, angered by previous demonstration, ordered the police to disrupt the demonstration.
What happened next was a joint attack by the police and an organised crime group called ‘Guerreros Unidos’; the demonstration was dispersed. During the attack six students were killed, twenty-five were injured and forty-three abducted.
After that the Mexican population launched a series of mobilisations that pushed the public and national government to take action. In the meantime twenty-two police, seventeen members of the Guerreros Unidos gang and Mr Abarca and his wife have been arrested. The latest news we have on this situation is that the forty-three students are presumed killed and incinerated. This is only one of many episodes where active citizenship in Mexico has been punished with violence and abduction. This particular event is unanimously considered as one of the “most terrible happenings in recent times”, quoting the Mexican Representation at the UN. Investigations are still ongoing and what happened needs to be condemned. On the 20th November all over the world more than a hundred actions took place to show solidarity and support to the Mexican people in their fight for transparency and respect of human rights.
Considering the importance the Organising Bureau of European School Students Unions (OBESSU) gives to education and to the respect of human rights and human dignity, the school student unions of Europe gathered together in Bratislava for the Council of Members and Extraordinary General Assembly of OBESSU wish to show their full solidarity and support to the students, teachers and citizens of Mexico in their struggle for active citizenship and human rights. We wish to assert once again that education is a public good and human right and that freedom of expression and assembly are unalienable student and human rights which must be respected. We stay by the side of the families of the forty-three students, who are much more than just a number; they are and should be a source of inspiration and courage for students all over the world.
As such, we wish to list the names of the forty-three desaparecidos and of the six killed students because we wish they are never forgotten in the struggle of students for freedom and fundamental rights.
Abel García Hernández Abelardo Vázquez Peniten Adán Abrajan de la Cruz Alexander Mora Venancio Antonio Santana Maestro Benjamín Ascencio Bautista Bernardo Flores Alcaraz Carlos Iván Ramírez Villarreal Carlos Lorenzo Hernández Muñoz César Manuel González Hernández Christian Alfonso Rodríguez Telumbre Christian Tomas Colon Garnica Cutberto Ortiz Ramos Dorian González Parral Emiliano Alen Gaspar de la Cruz. Everardo Rodríguez Bello Felipe Arnulfo Rosas Giovanni Galindes Guerrero Israel Caballero Sánchez Israel Jacinto Lugardo Jesús Jovany Rodríguez Tlatempa Jonás Trujillo González Jorge Álvarez Nava Jorge Aníbal Cruz Mendoza Jorge Antonio Tizapa Legideño Jorge Luis González Parral José Ángel Campos Cantor José Ángel Navarrete González José Eduardo Bartolo Tlatempa José Luis Luna Torres Jhosivani Guerrero de la Cruz Julio César López Patolzin Leonel Castro Abarca Luis Ángel Abarca Carrillo Luis Ángel Francisco Arzola Magdaleno Rubén Lauro Villegas Marcial Pablo Baranda Marco Antonio Gómez Molina Martín Getsemany Sánchez García Mauricio Ortega Valerio Miguel Ángel Hernández Martínez Miguel Ángel Mendoza Zacarías Saúl Bruno García
Daniel Solís Gallardo, Julio César Ramírez Nava David Josué García Evangelista Víctor Manuel Lugo Ortiz Blanca Montiel Sánchez
Julio Cesar Mondragón “el Chilango”
