On March 28, in Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico, Victoria Salazar, a working-class woman from El Salvador was murdered by police. Victoria committed the capitalist crime of being a worker, a woman and a migrant in a system that only serves the ruling class. Capitalism uses sexism, nationalism and racism as the ideological pillars to keep the working class divided and to perpetuate its system of exploitation and oppression. Without fighting for a communist society, we will never bring down these deadly pillars.
Victoria was a worker with a visa that allowed her to reside permanently in the country for humanitarian reasons. Four police officers subdued Victoria, but one officer, Veronica N., kept her lying face down and did not release her, although she screamed that she could not breathe. Minutes later she lost consciousness and during her transfer to the Civil Protection unit she was declared dead. Her autopsy states that her death was the product of the "fracture in the upper part of the spinal column, produced by the rupture of the first and second vertebrae" but it is more accurate to declare that her death was the product of capitalism. That same day in the afternoon a group of 100 people demonstrated in front of the police facilities to protest her murder (La Jornada 03/29).
Women workers under attack!
The similarity between the murder of Victoria in Tulum and the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis is no coincidence. Under capitalism, the police serve the ruling class by terrorizing and subjugating the working class to the needs of the bosses. It is also no coincidence that on the same day as Victoria's murder, the severed body of a woman, Karla, was found on Holbox Island, a tourist area in the state of Quintana Roo, where women and girls are seen as disposable sexual objects for the use of tourists and often suffer violence at the hands of partners who reproduce the sexist culture of capitalism. The fact that one of the police officers who murdered Victoria was a woman only proves that capitalist power is lethal for the working class, no matter who wields it.
 In recent years, murders of women in Mexico have doubled. During 2015, 1,634 women were murdered in 22 states of the country though only 450 murders were investigated as sexist murders. In 2017, 1,583 women were murdered in 18 states and only 479 murders were investigated as sexist murders (OCNF, 2018). During 2020, exacerbated by the pandemic and lockdown measures, Mexico recorded 969 murders of women (Aristegui, 1/25) and an increase in calls to 911 to report domestic violence to more than 13 million (Infobae, 03/30). In 2021, in less than three months, 240 murders have been recorded. Of these, 67 were committed during the month of January. The vast majority of the targets of sexist violence are working class women forced into super-exploitation by capitalism.
Workers fight back!
The dozens of workers who protested on the afternoon of Victoria's murder and the thousands who will surely come out to express our rage over this murder are proof that no matter how strong the chains of capitalism appear, our class will never stop resisting and fighting for a world where workers’ lives are valued over profits and borders. It is in these actions that Progressive Labor Party builds its unwavering confidence in the workers of the world. Victoria was the mother of two girls, who were left homeless and for whom the future as undocumented orphans is already written under capitalism. We join the pain and anger over the death of Victoria and we will turn that pain and anger into dedication and organization to end this criminal system. We will not allow the bosses to treat us as disposable. If under capitalism we mean nothing, for the working class and a communist future, we mean everything.