READING REPORT 2- "NEUQUEN MARCHS FOR TERESA"

• NEUQUEN MARCH FOR TERESA (Buenos Aires Herald, April 13th edition) Some 3,000 people marched in Neuquén yesterday morning to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Teresa Rodríguez (a housemaid who was slain in 1997 when the provincial police were trying to break up a picket line) while a provincial government offer of dialogue with striking teachers met with a chill response.The marchers honouring Teresa Rodríguez were naturally mindful of the far more recent death of science teacher Carlos Fuentealba on the previous Thursday — also a victim of Neuquén police brutality. The march stretched out over five blocks and ended at provincial government house, which has been under siege from camping teachers for the past week.Teresa Rodríguez, 24, was slain by a police bullet piercing her throat 10 years ago yesterday. Nobody was ever convicted for the crime and the policemen accused of the slaying were acquitted and rehired by the force. Felipe Sapag, the founder of the ruling Neuquén Popular Movement (MPN) party, was governor at the time.Meanwhile the bid by eight opposition deputies to impeach current Neuquén Governor Jorge Sobisch (held responsible for the police brutality) languished in the face of stonewalling by the MPN caucus and will have to wait until next week. Sobisch has said that he is willing to face impeachment and assume the responsibility for his hard line approach to security.The provincial assembly is also due to approve a streamlining of the provincial Cabinet implemented by Sobisch on Tuesday, the day after the main protests and strikes over Fuentealba’s death.Jorge Lara, the new minister in charge of educational affairs (among others), yesterday offered to meet striking teachers around the negotiating-table in a bid to end a strike now well into its sixth week. But union leader Natalia Cantero yesterday said that Neuquén’s schoolchildren faced a long wait for the start of classes because teachers were divided over whether they even wanted to negotiate with an administration headed by Sobisch (whose resignation they are insistently demanding), no matter how tempting the offer.The province of La Rioja had better luck with its teacher dispute since the provincial government and CTERA teachers union reached agreement on a 45 percent pay hike.In other news, various Neuquén public health authorities resigned yesterday over Fuentealba’s death, Neuquén Bishop Marcelo Melani appealed to Sobisch to unblock the situation and provincial public works employees volunteered to help Fuentealba’s widow Sandra Rodríguez to finish building her house.(Herald staff with DyN, Télam) · PERSONAL REACTION: Sadly, once more police violence in our country is on the newspapers’ headlines. Once more, civilians are the victims of the police power, or better said, police bad use of its power. In this article, published on April 13th on the BUENOS AIRES HERALD, people from Neuquen remembered the 10th anniversary of the death of a woman, who was slain by the police during a picket. This commemoration was also mindful of the more recent death of the teacher Fuentealba in the same province two weeks ago. The teacher was another victim of the brutality of the police. And we do not have to forget the deaths during the crisis in December of 2001, and many others occurred in Argentina. In my opinion, policemen have to serve civilians, not to repress them. It seems that they forgot we live in democracy. And the worse of all is that in the majority of this crimes, policemen are not judged in a proper way, they seem to have some “privileges” and that there is no law for them. This is something that has to finish in our country, because in some way, Argentina is still under dictators’ power, mainly at the police sector. · VOCABULARY: 1. SLAIN: past participle of SLAY. To kill someone in a violent way. 2. SIEGE: a situation in which a group of people surround a building in order to protest about something. 3. PICKET: a group of people who are protesting about something.