Mexico blames striking miners for protest deaths
Fri 21 Apr 2006 12:26 PM ET
MEXICO CITY, April 21 (Reuters) - Mexico's government blamed striking miners on Friday for a clash with police at a steel plant that killed two workers.
Hundreds of police stormed the Sicartsa complex in the western state of Michoacan on Thursday, shooting dead two workers as a running battle with stone-throwing strikers spilled out onto the streets.
The plant was closed on Friday but there was no sign of large protests, witnesses said.
Presidential spokesman Ruben Aguilar said violence at the plant, which had been shut for three weeks by a strike that was subsequently ruled to be illegal, was "regrettable."
"It could have been avoided if the union had obeyed the law. The rule of law implies respect for the law," Aguilar told a news conference.
Workers held the sit-in in defense of a union boss whom the government accuses of graft, although the Labor Ministry declared the strike at the plant illegal earlier this week.
Dozens of workers were injured when some 600 police moved into the plant early in the morning firing tear gas canisters.
They later fought running battles with uniformed riot police outside the plant, hurling rocks and molotov cocktails, and torching cars.
It was the worst clash since thousands of mining and metals workers across the country went on strike last month in defense of union boss Napoleon Gomez, whom the government no longer recognizes because of corruption accusations.
The dispute followed a mining accident in northern Mexico in February where 65 workers died in an underground gas explosion, sparking angry protests over mine safety and the failure of rescue teams to reach the bodies.
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
|
 |
|