Teachers Union Vacates Three of Four Occupied State Offices

(Acapulco, JG 27 October) In a gesture towards a return to “normalcy,” the militant teachers’ union CETEG vacated three of the four government offices it had commandeered and occupied last week in its virulent struggle against the Guerrero Department of Education. Offices in Tlapa, Chilapa and Costa Chica were returned to government control yesterday. The office in Acapulco remains in the hands of the union leaders. The government had responded to the illegal occupations and blockades of public streets and highways by ordering the arrest of virtually all of the union’s top leadership.

Reporter Héctor Briseño for the Jornal de Guerrero, published today that the withdrawal of the union members from three of the four occupied government offices was an attempt to bring about the release of former union boss Félix Moreno Peralta, jailed for his involvement in previous union demonstrations in Chilpancingo and Acapulco, when the main public roadways were blocked for several days, bringing traffic to a standstill. In a curious twist of logic, the union argued that the “true criminals” still roam the streets, and that the law is being applied in an unequal manner against the union. Leaders called upon governor Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo to release Moreno Peralta because they have ended their unlawful occupation of three of the government offices. The union leader was arrested Sunday. Bond was set at $300,000 pesos. The union is trying to put together this sum in order to free their well-known organizer. Meanwhile, the attorney general’s office is proceeding to prosecute the union for its unlawful conduct, all of which creates an impasse in the negotiations. A union spokesman threatened that if negotiations with the government cannot be resumed, they will be forced to blockade the Costera Alemán in Acapulco again, a measure that they would prefer to avoid, unless forced to do so. “Our struggle is not with the Municipality of Acapulco, nor with the citizens, but rather with the State Department of Education,” said Gonzalo Juárez Ocampo, the union’s general secretary.