Last Saturday marked the anniversary of the founding day of one of the most important unions in Peru, the SUTEP. This occassion was combatively celebrated as a day of struggle of the teachers for matters of education in the interest of the people. As a lot of statements, information and pictures on this year’s June 6 activities have been made available by the comrades of Association New Democracy the following is a brief report on these great activities and their context.
For a moment setting aside the importance of organizing teachers, tutors, professors, etc., it is necessary to emphasize that the question of proper funding, accessibility, costs, etc. of education is in itself not only a demand raised by workers in education, but likewise originates from the students (or those who would like to be students, but can not) and of course their families. Hence, organizing political work in the field of education necessitates working with the teachers, students and families, and principally with those in the countryside and poor neighborhoods in the city, as they are the ones kept as lowly educated, as suits the needs of imperialism.
Comparing to the situation for example in the Federal Republic of Germany, it must be also stretched, that teachers and other workers in education, are in fact wage laborers and not sworn in officials of the state to do their bidding – as is (although declining) mostly the case in the FRG. They receive (small) wages and toil under miserable conditions. Without comprehending this, it is impossible to grasp why both in history and at present day the workers in education and the struggles for education play an important role not only in Peru, but for example in Brazil as well, where we have seen massive mobilizations encompassing hundreds of thousands of people only last month. Political activity in the field of education demands organizing the workers in education, the students and the families, necessitates the work among the deepest and broadest masses.
The “Sindicato Unitario de Trabajadores en la Educación del Perú” - or, in short, “SUTEP” - is the “Unitary Union of Workers in Education of Peru”, which was founded July 6, 1972. The Communist Party of Peru, when announcing a series of successful actions in Lima by the People’s Liberation Army, described the situation of the SUTEP in June 2017 like this: “The teachers also show their struggle to radicalize and in the current situation there is a hard struggle between the revolutionary and opportunist line in the SUTEP, that is linked to the right-opportunist line (ROL).” [translated from German]
These struggles of those bases adhering to the revolutionary line, were what bolstered the very significant National Strike of the workers in education in Peru in August of 2017, when in the regions Cuzco, Puno, Ayacucho, Ancash, Lambayeque and Piura de Norte dozens of schools where occupied; when the teachers in Huancavelica occupied the central square, erected barricades and fought back the police; when the crumbs offered by the state where forcefully rejected; and when the opportunist line, yet again, showed its true face as collaborators with the old and rotten Peruvian state. In these days, declarations such as “For a class and anti-imperialist line in the people’s movement!” issued by the “People’s Classist Movement” gave direction to the struggle.
This year, those bases of the SUTEP combating to impose a class and anti-imperialist line in the union have already made very important actions, such as their appearance and mobilization for the 1st of May (of which a picture was spread not only by Dem Volke Dienen and other web sources, but also by the comrades of the Rote Post, in print and in the volume of hundreds of issues, in the proletarian neighborhoods in the FRG). The images, documents, impressions and actions of last Saturday are irrefutable proof of the country wide struggle of the revolutionary line imposing itself and the developments in class struggle in Peru.
In the following, we document some of the impressions:
Barranca
The picture taken shows a contingent participating in the demonstration on July 6 in Barranca. In their call they express: “We send our class greetings to all teachers in Peru and reaffirm the historical necessity and struggle to defense our classist union organization […]”
Ancash
The image depicts a call of the SUTE in Ancash, in which the process of privatization, particularly in the sectors of health and education, is denounced and mobilized for the just struggles of the teachers. It closes with the slogan: “Long live the Sutep of the Classist Union Line, the only instrument for the magisterial struggle!”
Huancavelica
The images above show meetings held in the region of Huancavelica, in the districts of Seclla and Julcamarca, on July 6, that was mobilized to under the slogan “Day of the teacher – Day of the struggle”. Among other matters, it denounces the cut-back in spending for education, raising the revindicative demands, and also emphasizing the need to combat “the great bourgeoisie, the feudal landlords, revisionism and reaction, in order to conquer a new society, a new Peru”. Below an image with activists in Huancavelica calling for the “Indefinite National Strike”.
Lima Metropolitan
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“Classist and combative bases of the Sutep” in Lima Metropolitan produced and spread a call highlighting how the foundation of the SUTEP was laid by José Carlos Mariátegui, a fact further emphasized in the slogans for this day. Importantly, for August 3 of this year, from Lima as well as other bases of the Sutep, mobilization is ongoing for the “I. Extraordinary International Convention of the Regional Bases of the Sutep” that will take place in Lima.
