Read this article in:
15 December, 2008
ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda compared the labour repression of the Mexican government to that of the regimes in Burma and Zimbabwe. This follows the recent arrests of two union officials and the seizure of the union’s bank assets.
The targeted National Miners’ and Metalworkers’ Union of Mexico (SNTMMSRM) is fighting to retain its democratic integrity as a trade union in Mexico.
The recent arrests were clearly carried out on the request of Grupo México and other employers. The ICEM points to reports that arrests of other trade unionists are imminent. The letter can be found here.
The two union leaders, Carlos Pavon Campos, SNTMMSRM’s secretary of Political Affairs, and Juan Linares Montufar, president of the union’s General Council of Oversight and Justice, are accused of stealing funds awarded the union after the privatization of Grupo México’s Cananea copper mine, according to Mexico’s top prosecutor. Mexican miners at numerous sites laid down their tools in protest against the arrests, including Fresnillo, Madero, and Sabinas worksites, demanding the immediate release of the two.
The illegal arrest of Juan Linares was carried out at his home on 3 December, with a heavy presence of federal and state forces. The equally arbitrary and illegal arrest of Carlos Campos came the following day, with Campos being taken to the Camarones detention centre.
These repressive actions of the Mexican government continue a worrying trend of the last three years, which has seen SNTMMSRM’s General Secretary Napoleon Gomez Urretia twice removed from office, and other union officials charged falsely, with several of those charges dismissed in court rooms.