Mexico City – The SNTMM miners union agreed on the weekend to confirm Napoleon Gomez Urrutia as leader of the movement rather than Elias Morales, who is recognized as their legitimate chief by the Mexican government.
At the end of the 34th meeting of the SNTMM miners union on Saturday, the presiding union official, Constantino Romero, announced the decision of the body to continue placing its confidence in Gomez Urrutia, a matter that has resulted in a rancorous split between the government and the miners.
President Vicente Fox’s administration is investigating Gomez Urrutia for corruption, specifically for allegedly diverting $55 million from a trust for workers. The union leader was removed from office by the government and is said to be in hiding in Canada.
Gomez Urrutia, in turn, has accused the government of being behind a conspiracy against him that was hatched with the support of several mining and steelmaking firms.
Accompanied by the leaders of several other Mexican unions, Romero said that the “express will” of the miners had been to ratify Gomez Urrutia and his National Executive Committee.
“That was the main agreement,” said Romero, who defended the right of SNTMM members to elect, sanction and get rid of their own leaders without interference from the Labor Secretariat.
Since the end of February, unionized miners – joined by members of other unions – have been mounting wildcat strikes at a number of mines and industrial plants to protest the government’s decision to recognize Morales and move against Gomez Urrutia.
Other SNTMM leaders criticized the government effort to depose Gomez Urrutia and equated it to a “coup d’etat” launched by the adminstration of President Vicente Fox
One of the invited guests at the union meeting, the head of the Labor Congress and secretary general of the CROC workers and peasants revolutionary confederation, Isaias Gonzalez Cuevas, attacked Fox and announced that the protests would continue, accusing the government of having done everything possible to “violate union autonomy.”
He also questioned Fox’s democratic credentials and announced additional demonstrations to protest the president’s actions and oppose his National Action Party’s presidential candidate, Felipe Calderon, in the July 2 election.
Gonzalez Cuevas called Calderon “the candidate of the rich and for the rich” and referred to his campaign as one based on “fear.”
The most serious incident since the miners began protesting occurred on April 20 in the western port city of Lazaro Cardenas, where two miners died and 30 were wounded when security forces tried to dislodge them from their occupation of the Sicartsa steelworks. EFE
