Mexico City – Mexican police killed two workers and wounded 20 others Thursday in a failed attempt to evicting striking miners from a port in the western state of Michoacan.
Nearly three weeks ago, some 2,800 members of the SNTMM union representing miners and metallurgical workers blockaded the entrance to the port facility of the Lazaro Cardenas Las Truchas steel plant, operated by Villacero.
That protest, like others at Villacero and Grupo Mexico mines in the states of Michoacan, Zacatecas and Sonora, was launched to protest the move by the federal Labor Ministry to recognize dissident Elias Morales as head of the union, rather than Napoleon Gomez Urrutia, who became the organization’s leader in 2002.
The SNTMM said in a statement that roughly 600 police assaulted the port facility, some of them in boats from which they launched tear gas at the striking workers, who responded by burning buses.
The union said that two of its members were killed and “scores” wounded, identifying one of the fatalities as Mario Alberto Castillo.
Gunfire and Molotov cocktails were in evidence during the clash, and President Vicente Fox told a reporter that he is reviewing the situation with his top aides.
The interior minister in Michoacan, Enrique Bautista, said on local radio that three people were killed at Lazaro Cardenas, but state attorney general Juan Antonio Magaña spoke of two dead and a still-unknown number of wounded.
Bautista said the police charge failed because the officers – who he said were not carrying guns – had no way to respond when the workers hurled fire bombs at them.
He was unable to reconcile that explanation with the bullet wounds on the bodies of the two dead strikers.
SNTMM leaders said after a meeting that the union had decided to stand up to “the onslaught of the federal and local governments” and that the entire organization “will defend like a human shield the union and its freedom to the final consequences.”
The SNTMM has blamed the federal government, Villacero and current union chief Elias Morales, among others, for the deaths.
The Labor Ministry said again Wednesday that the job actions are illegal and that the firms were free to terminate the contracts of striking employees.
