Mexico City, Jun 21 (EFE).– Clashes with security forces have not intimidated Mexican teachers opposed to what they see as unfair education reform and promise to continue their protests, even as the government investigates the clash between teachers and police in the southern part of the country that left at least eight dead.

Leaders of the militant CNTE teachers union said the demonstrations will not stop after Sunday’s clash between teachers and police in the Asuncion Nochixtlan municipality of Oaxaca state that left eight dead, according to official figures.

The movement will respond “in a forceful, orderly and peaceful manner,” Juan Garcia, coordinator of CNTE Local 22’s Political Commission in Oaxaca, said.

Members of this local are determined to continue the marches and the numerous blockades with which they have bottled up traffic on the chief highways of Oaxaca.

“If we’re forced to take to the streets it’s so the government will realize we’re here,” said Everardo Hernandez of the Executive Committee of Local 7 of Chiapas state, and expressed the “anger of all teachers” at the “repression” by the authorities.

The educators, who said they plan more protest actions, went out a noon from their camp in the Plaza de la Ciudadela to form human walls on the streets of the capital.

In their march they carried a symbolic wooden coffin with the phrase “Oaxaca, you grieve me.” Other demonstrators carried posters with phrases like “I’m a teacher, not a criminal” and “Mexico bleeds.”

The union, a powerful labor organization that has around 200,000 members, opposes the 2013 education overhaul implemented by President Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration. EFE