25 May, 2010Mario García Ortiz, a trade union leader, was detained and then the victim of a brutal assault. A delegation of union leaders that sought an explanation for the detention were beaten and threatened by police. Workers stopped production at ArcelorMittal and marched in repudiation of this attack on Section 271 of the mining union.
MEXICO: In the early hours of Sunday May 23, federal police in the town of Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, attacked leaders of Section 271 of the Mexican National Miners' Union (National Union of Mine & Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic-SNTMMSRM). One of these leaders, Mario García Ortiz, was seriously injured.
The attack occurred after Mario García had been detained and after miners' leaders belonging to Section 271 of the union went to the Municipal Public Security offices to ask why he had been detained. On arriving, they found that Mario García was being released and they therefore began to move away. However, they were confronted by dozens of police who threatened the miners, forced them to lie on the ground and then beat them brutally.
As Mario García Ortiz lay unconscious in the middle of the street, the police confiscated the belongings of the rest of the miners, covered their faces and put them on a police lorry where they were kept for almost three hours without being allowed to move. They were beaten and insulted before being released after pressure by workers who stopped production at ArcelorMittal, the workplace of the more than 3000 members of Section 271. Their belongings were not returned to them.
The union organised a march in the afternoon of May 24 to call for justice and for the relocation of the federal police away from residential areas in the town. The union explained that it was not against authority and that it understood the need to ensure the population's security, but added: "We are against the location of their bases in the central area of the city, where the population is at high risk from them, and we are against their abusive and high-handed attitude."
In the wake of such a brutal attack on the dignity of miners, the IMF offers solidarity to the union, repudiates the actions of the Mexican federal police and demands justice and respect for miners' leaders. The IMF hopes that there will be no repetition of such attacks, which in the past resulted in injuries to leaders and the death of innocent workers, as occurred on April 20, 2006 when federal and state police killed two union members during a strike in Lázaro Cárdenas.