A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #362 - MEXICO: The World Cup between protests and looting of public property (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Perhaps more than any other, this World Cup highlights the 
contradictions surrounding the football industry and the interests it 
mobilizes. The media tries to present it as a tournament meant to unite 
humanity around the beautiful game, but the anti-globalization assembly 
of Santa Ursula, the Mexico City neighborhood where the Azteca stadium 
is located, denounces FIFA's management of the tournament according to 
extractive models. Just as multinationals extract gold from Mexican 
territories, leaving communities with only pollution and poverty, FIFA 
extracts public resources, common goods, and colossal profits with the 
complicity of the government. Parliament, where Morena, the party of 
"President"-as she likes to be called-Claudia Sheinbaum, holds an 
absolute majority, has indeed approved special laws that exempt FIFA 
from paying taxes on the billions in profits generated by the 
tournament, thus diverting resources that could be used for health or 
education.

Environmental devastation
First, the World Cup exacerbates existing tensions between urban 
development and environmental preservation, putting a severe strain on 
already depleted water resources and ecosystems. To operate a stadium 
like the Azteca, authorities have had to cut off water to several 
neighborhoods within a radius of several kilometers. Residents complain 
that while their taps run dry, the stadium and FIFA's commercial 
complexes consume millions of liters of this vital resource. Meanwhile, 
construction work around other World Cup venues in Guadalajara and 
Monterrey has impacted protected forest areas, waterways, and 
groundwater. Overall, it is estimated that this World Cup will generate 
between 9.5 and 15 million tons of CO₂, making it the most polluting 
tournament in history.

Gentrification
The surge in speculative rental prices, aimed at boosting luxury tourism 
and platforms like Airbnb, has exacerbated gentrification. The trend is 
to "cleanse" the area of ​​low-income residents in order to better 
promote the World Cup in the country. Besides the water shortage, the 
residents of Santa Ursula, who are fighting for their rights, are 
suffering from rising rents. These days, since the area is closed not 
only to vehicles but also to pedestrians, residents must present a 
special permit to enter and leave their homes. It's like living in a 
ghetto. Furthermore, the vast majority of Mexicans cannot afford tickets 
for the matches. To give you an idea, yesterday, the opening day, the 
cheapest ticket cost around 330 euros (but at least 2,000 euros on the 
black market or resale sites), while the average wage for a worker in 
Mexico City is no more than 600 euros per month.

An international sounding board
That said, for Mexican social movements, the 2026 World Cup is a unique 
opportunity to denounce the country's many problems. Mexico has a 
government that defines itself as center-left, but which is increasingly 
shifting to the right. With thousands of foreign journalists, television 
crews, and fans present in Mexico City, the impact of a road blockade is 
being felt worldwide. In recent days, the barometer of social discontent 
has been rising steadily. Tens of thousands of people have demonstrated 
in various parts of the city and around the stadium. Yesterday, violent 
clashes occurred between the Black Bloc and riot police, including 
mounted officers, near Gate 8 of the Azteca Stadium. Further 
disturbances took place on the Calzada de Tlalpan, the main thoroughfare 
that runs through the city from the center to the south, on the 
surrounding avenues, and near the Gran Sur neighborhood. Yesterday, the 
Mexican capital presented the spectacle of a militarized city, besieged 
by thousands of police officers.

Three major protest movements
The most feared movement is that of the democratic teachers, the 
National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE), which has several 
hundred thousand members in almost every state of the Republic, 
particularly Chiapas, Oaxaca, Michoacán, Guerrero, and Mexico City. It 
is the most powerful and best-organized opposition movement in the 
country, the only one with a national presence.
To understand what it represents, it is important to remember that in 
Mexico, the figure of the schoolteacher has always been a point of 
reference for communities, especially in rural areas, but also in the 
working-class neighborhoods of large cities. Teachers have played a 
fundamental role since the time of the Revolution (1910), and even 
before. Librado Rivera, the famous comrade of the Flores Magón brothers, 
was a schoolteacher. Otilio Montaño-co-author of the "Plan of Ayala" 
with Emiliano Zapata-was also one. In the 1960s, the Institutional 
Revolutionary Party (PRI), then the ruling party, accused Othon Salazar, 
another teachers' leader, of being an agent of imperialism. Reactionary 
priests, for their part, have always accused teachers of being 
emissaries of the devil.

Even today, CNTE activists are labeled vandals, thugs, and provocateurs 
by the mainstream media and, with rare exceptions, by political parties. 
Very few of them try to understand why they are fighting.

The Coordination was founded in 1979 as the democratic wing of the 
National Union of Education Workers, one of the most corrupt and 
mafia-like unions in Mexico. Over the past 47 years, two generations of 
democratic teachers have fought against every successive government. 
They have paid a heavy price simply for protesting. One of the songs by 
the renowned composer and performer José de Molina, "La Marcha al 
magisterio independiente" (The March to Independent Teachers), is 
dedicated to one of these victims, Misael Núñez Acosta, who was murdered 
in 1981.

Journalist Luis Hernández Navarro estimated that between 1979 and 2002, 
approximately 150 teachers from the CNTE (National Coordination of 
Teachers of Mexico) were killed. Precise figures for subsequent years 
are unavailable. And let's not forget that the teachers of the 
Coordination (Section 22) were key figures in the Popular Assembly of 
the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), one of the most significant urban 
uprisings in Mexican history, whose twentieth anniversary is being 
commemorated these days.

What does the Coordination want? Historically, it has fought for three 
main objectives: 1. Democratizing the union; 2. Democratizing public 
education; 3. Democratizing the country. Within its ranks, various 
political tendencies coexist, from anarchism to Leninism, Trotskyism, 
and even neo-Stalinism. They have many disagreements on ideological 
issues, but are united in the struggle. Until recently, some, perhaps 
the majority, were close to Morena. Proceso González, a teacher who lost 
an eye in recent days due to a rubber bullet fired by the police, 
campaigned for López Obrador in 2018 and for Claudia Sheinbaum in 2024.

Currently, the CNTE's main demand is the repeal of the 2007 law that 
privatizes public sector pensions by transforming the public system into 
individual accounts called AFORES, managed for their own profit by 
international financial consortiums. The CNTE has been advocating this 
demand for nearly twenty years and has not given up. It has been said 
that this is a self-serving demand. This is false. The CNTE is fighting 
for all public sector workers. During the election campaign, Claudia 
Sheinbaum (and, before her, López Obrador) promised to repeal it, but 
she later changed her mind and did not do so, which is why teachers feel 
betrayed.

Another demand is to deal directly with the President, but she refuses 
and delegates to her ministers - some of whom, like the Minister of 
Public Education (SEP), Mario Delgado, are particularly disliked. And 
yet, Sheinbaum, who constantly refers to "the people," continues to meet 
with major capitalists like Carlos Slim (one of the richest men in the 
world) and other representatives of business organizations.

It was in this context that, on June 1st, teachers began a series of 
mobilizations in strategic locations in Mexico City and in some twenty 
other states where they are present. The government sealed off the Plaza 
de la Constitución - commonly known as the Zócalo - to prevent the CNTE 
from setting up a protest camp there.

However, they pitched their tents in the surrounding streets and, in 
recent days, attempted to reach the Azteca stadium en masse. They 
failed, but disrupted the already congested traffic. Now, the government 
accuses the CNTE of playing into the hands of the far right. And it's 
going even further: it promises to consult directly with teachers, 
school by school, bypassing the union.

Another important movement that has emerged in recent days is that of 
the madres buscadoras ("searching mothers"), groups dedicated to finding 
their missing children and loved ones. This tragedy stems from the very 
serious crisis of violence, drug trafficking, and enforced 
disappearances plaguing Mexico. Armed with shovels and picks, the 
buscadoras scour deserts, countryside, and abandoned land in search of 
clandestine graves. They often do so based on anonymous tips. They take 
great risks because they operate in territories controlled by drug 
cartels. According to Amnesty International, almost all of these 
activists face threats, attacks, or extortion. Dozens have been 
murdered. In recent days, Mexico City police have blocked groups of 
these mothers searching for their children near the Azteca Stadium, 
leading to moments of high tension and heartbreaking scenes.

Unlike the CNTE, which employs the so-called 
"mobilization-negotiation-mobilization" tactic, some of whose actions 
can be violent (but never against individuals), the missing persons 
mothers seek only to raise public awareness of the problem of the 
disappeared. The figures are appalling: more than 134,000 registered 
cases (but how many unreported cases?) and nearly 99% impunity. Since 
2018, the situation has worsened due to a renewed symbiosis between 
organized crime, the political class, and law enforcement agencies. The 
government repeatedly states that it is not responsible for these 
crimes, and this is partly true. However, it has created the conditions 
conducive to the escalation of the phenomenon, primarily through 
impunity, inaction, and inadequate management. Sheinbaum, Mexico's first 
female president, stubbornly refuses to meet with the missing persons 
mothers.

Finally, there are the students from the rural teacher training college 
in Ayotzinapa and the parents of the 43 young people who disappeared in 
2014, who, in recent years, have mobilized tens of thousands of people. 
They accuse the government of failing to keep its promises and contest 
the millions spent on the FIFA World Cup, while the country faces an 
unresolved human rights crisis. On the 8th, hundreds of young people and 
some parents of the 43 arrived in Mexico City on 16 buses. The 
authorities responded by launching a large-scale coordinated operation 
between federal and municipal police to prevent them from reaching the 
city center. After hours of negotiations, however, the protesters 
managed to break through the blockade on foot and participated in 
demonstrations in the following days.

The result? At this World Cup inauguration, two matches were played: 
one, in the stadium, between the Mexican national team and South Africa, 
which Mexico won 2-0. The other match, between the government and the 
protest movements, ended in a draw. The CNTE (National Council of 
Workers) cannot claim victory because the pension reform law has not 
been repealed, and yesterday, the teachers' march failed to reach the 
stadium. However, about fifty buscadoras (female buscadoras) bypassed 
the police cordon and arrived near the stadium, where they managed to 
make their voices heard. Another group infiltrated the FIFA Fan Fest, 
set up in the Zócalo, making their presence known. The government also 
has little to boast about. The attempt to present Mexico as a modern, 
developing country where the rule of law prevails has failed 
spectacularly. The unrest of the past few days has been reported by 
major news agencies and newspapers worldwide: from the New York Times to 
Corriere della Sera, from Le Monde to El País. Well, no, gentlemen. The 
game isn't over.

Claudio Albertani, Tlalpan, June 12, 2026

https://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4745
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en