Federal Police arrive in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the capital of Chiapas.

By: Isaín Mandujano

TUXTLA GUTIÉRREZ, Chiapas

Teachers of the National Coordinator Education Workers (CNTE) spent a long night on alert, after the arrival of hundreds of federal forces by land and air in Chiapas Wednesday afternoon and evening.

Dozens of buses with police and Federal Police trucks, entered the state Wednesday afternoon along the Cosoleacaque, Veracruz – Ocozocoautla, Chiapas Highway

Although in the beginning everything was a rumor, photographs and videos of the federal forces arriving in the state started to circulate later in the evening.

The federal forces were not able to enter via La Pochota, because since yesterday hundreds of CNTE teachers mounted a checkpoint where they filter the vehicles. All private motorists, local cargo and passenger transport have free access, but not the trucks or trailers of transnational companies.

The caravan of vehicles had to circulate hundreds of kilometers via the road that connects Ocozocoautla, Villaflores and Suchiapa to come out in Chiapa de Corzo and thus arrive at the installations of an old plant producing sterile flies where the police spent the night.

At the Ángel Albino Corzo International Airport, an airplane of the Federal Police was sighted letting out police that were similarly transported to that old installation constructed in the seventies by the governments of the United States and Mexico.

This mobilization of federal forces to Chiapas provoked uneasiness among the CNTE teachers, who declared a state of alert and spent the night mounting guards and filtering the vehicles that passed at the five entry points to the city where they installed their checkpoints.

At 109 days from the start of the teachers’ movement, CNTE teachers said that they would not return to classes and that they would maintain their fight against the education reform.

Yesterday, on the seventh day of the official school calendar of the 2016-2017 Cycle, the Chiapas Secretary of Education reported that seven out of every 10 schools in the state are open and operate normally.

At the same time, the head of the [government] agency, Roberto Domínguez Castellanos, pointed out that today 69.7 percent of the total student body in Chiapas are receiving classes, in other words, one million 238 thousand 611 girls, boys and youths.

It’s appropriate to point out here that since the start of the School Cycle, the number of schools that are functioning has been gradually increasing; the opening of 22 percent more school buildings has been achieved, which means that 13,961 schools are functioning.

Domínguez Castellanos pointed out that the increase in the opening of schools has been achieved thanks to conciliation and dialogue that has been maintained with the teachers, the student community and the parents, in which the right to education has been privileged.

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Originally Published in Spanish by Proceso.com

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

http://www.proceso.com.mx/453012/arribo-federales-a-chiapas-pone-a-la-cnte-en-alerta

Re-Published with English interpretation by the Chiapas Support Committee