Mexican Labor News & Analysis

National Front Calls for General Strike at End of June

The National Front for Unity and Union Autonomy (FNUAS) will carry out a national general strike on June 28 that could continue into the Mexican election scheduled for July 2, according to Francisco Hernández Juárez, one of the three co-presidents of the labor federation. Martín Esparza, general secretary of the Mexican Electrical Workers (SME), has expressed his support for the strike.

FNUAS, made up of several labor federations and national, industrial and local unions, was created as a broad front to support the Mexican Mine Workers Union (SNTMMRM) in its struggle with the Mexican government. The government of President Vicente Fox removed mine worker head Napoleón Gomez Urrutia, the elected head of the union, several months ago and replaced him as general secretary with Elías Morales Hernández who is supported by the Mexican mining companies.

Since the government removed Gómez Urrutia, union members have been engaged in strikes at several mines and steel plants, forcing the virtual shut-down of some. In others, rival union leaderships struggle for control of the union. Hornos de México (AMHSA), a major steel company which has, it says, “remained neutral” in the struggle over the Mine Workers Union leadership, has called upon the Mexican Supreme Court to resolve the case. Meanwhile the government continues to drag its feet in negotiations.

(Information on FNUAS can be found at: http://www.unt.org.mx/fnuas/index.htm ).

Back to June , 2006 Table of Contents

Voters’ Choice: Calderon on Right, Lopez Obrador on Left

Mexico’s election is too close to call as voters prepare to choose between candidates who have staked out positions on the right and the left. Mexican voters will face a choice on July 2 between Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Acion Party (PAN) and Andrés Manuel López Obrador (or AMLO) of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution, each of whom offers a different vision of the future of Mexico.

Although López Obrador had fallen behind in the polls, in part because of his failure to participate in the first televised debate, his campaign has regained momentum. His performance in the second debate was widely credited as professional and restrained, with a final attack on Calderón for nepotism and corruption. AMLO’s remarks generating a subsequent furor in the Mexican press.

Little more than two weeks before the election various polls show the two candidates to be neck-and-neck, each with about 36 percent of the vote. Roberto Madrazo of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has fallen far behind with about 22 percent of the popular vote.

The campaign has evolved in the last two months amidst increase social conflict as President Vicente Fox and local authorities have called out police to repress movements of striking miners and steel workers, community activists, and most recently teachers. (See story below.) Fox and the PAN appear to be carrying out a strategy intended to increase conflict and create a sense of panic among more conservative voters intended to drive them to vote for Felipe Calderón. At some point, however, they could tip the balance, turning voters against the government’s provocation and heavy handed repression.

Two Different Visions

The political positions and promises of the candidates are quite different. López Obrador calls for putting “the poor first.” He wants to use the Federal government to create jobs and to offer social programs to the poor. While López Obrador has not called for a clean break with the neoliberal model of corporate globalization, his stance is seen as charting a more independent economic course, less dominated by the United States.

On the other hand, Calderón, a Harvard-educated economist, calls for continuing the conservative economic programs of the Fox administration with an emphasis on open markets, free trade, and foreign investment. Calderón represents almost the perfect expression of the PAN’s base in COPARMEX, the Mexican Businessmen’s Association. A series of recent revelations show Calderón to be involved in nepotism, influence peddling, and corruption, having given out many contracts to friends and family members with the assistance of his brother-in-law Diego Zavala. One might say, though of course he would not, that he calls for putting “the rich first,” with the argument that when the rich prosper, wealth trickles down to the poor.

López Obrador is not without his critics. Those on the left point out that López Obrador has befriended Carlos Slim, Mexico’s richest man, and works closely with Manuel Camacho Solis, a politician associated with former president Carlos Salinas of the PRI. Nor has he challenged the “official unions” or supported attempts to democratize the labor movement in Mexico City. But this has not done much to undermine the sense that López Obrador represents some sort of new deal for Mexico. Meanwhile Madrazo, who had attempted to claim the middle ground, found it opening up beneath his feet, losing any chance of a victory in July.

In addition to the three major parties, there are also two minor party candidates. Particia Mercado Castro, the candidate of the Social Democratic and Farmer Alternative party, is running on a largely feminist platform. Roberto Campo Cifrián is the candidate of the New Alliance party created by the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE) and controlled by Elba Esther Gordillo, a notorious political operator. Neither of these parties is expected to receive more than a tiny percentage of the vote.

Labor, the Left and the Election

Meanwhile, Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) heads up “the Other Campaign,” an anti-capitalist alliance of non-electoral parties who oppose all organizations and candidates and call for a democratic re-foundation of the Mexican government on a socialist basis. While “the Other” has had some resonance among more radical sectors of Mexican society, it appears to represent only a small sector of Mexican society, and even many supporters of Marcos’ anti-capitalist campaign will vote for the capitalist reformer and populist López Obrador.

Many worker activists and labor union members can be expected to vote for López Obrador because they oppose the economic policies and the repression of the PAN and support López Obrador’s call for the creation of more jobs and more government assistance for children, the poor, and the elderly. While some working class and union voters may sympathize with Marcos, the EZLN, and the Other Campaign, for many he is too radical and for others his campaign has become irrelevant. While they may see the political system as corrupt, nevertheless many want to vote for change and “the Other” has no party and no candidate and represents no option for them. Most unions and workers want a change and hope a vote for López Obrador will bring it.

The left has been divided on the election with the small revolutionary left and some radical social groups supporting the Other Campaign and the broad left supporting López Obrador with reservations. The broad left supporters of AMLO vote for him without illusions, having seen the videotapes of pay-offs to top PRD leaders, the absence of a progressive labor policy and López Obrador’s relations with Carlos Slim and Camacho Solis. The left vote for López Obrador will be given to end conservative and repressive regime of Fox’s PAN party and to continue the process of democratizing Mexican society. Those on the left vote for López Obrador, but they will not count on him to change things; they only hope that his election will open the space where they can change things themselves.

There is a tiny movement for abstention and protest. Some very small leftist organizations (The Socialist Workers League, the United Socialist League, and the Socialist Teachers of Local 10 of the Mexican Teachers Union) have called upon unions and workers to refuse to vote for any of the candidates and to instead mark their ballot “Freedom for the political prisoners of Atenco and all other political prisoners.” The position of abstention and protest, however, has little attraction for most Mexicans.

Back to June , 2006 Table of Contents

Patricia Mercado: Feminist Social Democrat also Running for President

While national attention has focused on the three principal parties and their leading candidates in the Mexican presidential election, it should be noted that another candidate is running on a left-of-center program and as a feminist. Patricia Mercado is the candidate of the Social Democratic and Farmer Alternative Party (PASC) and the focus of her campaign has been fighting for human rights and for the advancement of women in Mexico. She has supported calls for genuine autonomy for Mexico’s labor unions, for real freedom of association.

Mercado began her activism working with small groups inspired by the Theology of Liberation in her home state of Sonora. In the mid-1970s she moved to Mexico City to study economics at the National Autonomous University and later joined the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT). While a PRT member, she took a job at the Diesel Nacional (DINA) auto plant and became part of the bargaining team in 1983, the only woman on the committee, together with 89 men.

Later she formed part of the leadership of the Autonomous Group of University Women (GAMU), the organization which became her political base. She also helped to organized United Working Women (MUTUAC) and Women in Union Action (MAS). In the late 1990s she formed Diversity: A National Political Group to fight on issues of gender rights. In 1991 she was a congressional candidate of the Labor Party (PT).

Meanwhile, she worked with former leftists from various political parties—all moving to the right—to create Social Democracy, competing in the party’s presidential primaries to be its presidential candidate in 2000, but losing out to Gallardo Rincón. She went on to organize Mexico Posible, another political party, becoming president of that organization in 2002, but that party lost its registration in 2003. Now she is the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic and Farmer Alternative, and since the televised presidential debates has become widely respected for her forceful presentation of her social democratic viewpoint.

Her social democratic position on the labor unions calls for genuine autonomy for the unions but within a context of greater flexibility so that employers in Mexico can be more competitive. Within that context she emphasizes women’s rights to a greater role both in the workplace and in the unions.

Mercado and the PASC seem unlikely to receive many votes in an election where voters feel it is important to choose between two candidates who seem to offer a clear choice. It even seems doubtful that the PASC will receive enough votes to maintain its ballot status. Nevertheless, Mercado has raised some important issues in this campaign, and in particular, has raised feminist issues in a way not seen since the candidacy of Rosario Ibarra de Piedra in 1982.

Patricia Mercado Website
Her position on labor unions can be found at:
New Union Values
The Social Democratic and Farmer Alternative website can be found at:
website

Back to June , 2006 Table of Contents

The Other Campaign on the March — but Separately

Subcomandante Marcos and the Other Campaign were on the march in Mexico on June 10, a national day of commemoration for the demonstrators murdered on that date 35 years ago by fascist death squards, los Halcones or the Falcons. But, as on May 1, International Workers Day, Marcos and the Other Campaign declined to march with the labor unions and worker activists and instead held their own independent march.

The Other Campaign is an anti-capitalist alliance that rejects all the candidates and parties and calls instead for fundamental social and political change in Mexico. Marcos has taken the campaign around the country to build support engaging in dialogue with Mexican working people in many cities. But the Other has kept its distance from the mass worker movements of miners and teachers, preferring instead march with the poor and the youth. The Mexican left is divided.

In part a reflection of historic division on the left and in part a reflection of new division on the left as the election approaches, there were in fact three separate demonstrations to commemorate the victims of the Halconazo. Two demonstrations took place in the morning, one led by labor union and former student leaders of the Committee of 68 and the other led by dissident teachers’ union members and residents of the town of Atenco where a recent police riot led to one dead an many wounded.

Marcos and the Other Campaign marched separately in the afternoon. Marcos put the Other Campaign forward as the defender of oppressed, exploited and alienated youth: the graffiti artists, gangs, punks, anarchists, students, rockers, young workers, and all of those “on the bottom.” Talking about Alexis Benhumea, the youth killed by police at Atenco, Marcos said that the police attack the youth because they have rebelled against the system.

“The government argues that the youth are drug addicts, thieves and criminals,” but, he said, the real murders, thieves and criminals are to be found “among the businessmen, the congressmen, the senators, the cabinet members, mayors, police chiefs, generals, and wives of presidents.”

Back to June , 2006 Table of Contents

Police Attack Teachers in Oaxaca, but Fail to Break Strike

Government violence against workers and social movements in Mexico continued in June as more than 1,000 riot police -- according to some reports as many as 3,000 -- attacked a sit-in by tens of thousands of striking teachers in Oaxaca, Oaxaca, leaving 100 injured. Initial reports of two teachers and two children having been killed have not been confirmed. In May, Mexican police attacked striking steelworkers at the SICARTSA plant in Michoacan, killing two and later attacked a community protest in the town of San Salvador Atenco killing one.

In response to the violent repression, two days later, on June 16, teachers held a huge six-hour march of more than 100,000 in the state capital of Oaxaca to demand the resignation of governor Ulises Ruiz. This was the third demonstration of 100,000 people in the last two weeks.

Oaxaca teachers had been on strike for higher wages and approximately 40,000 teachers had carried out a plantón or sit-in for 28 days in the center of the state capital of Oaxaca. In addition, teachers held the plazas of at least 20 other towns and had blocked many of the state’s highways. Negotiations between the state and the teachers where scheduled to begin when Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, governor of Oaxaca and head of the state’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), ordered state riot police to attack the teachers.

Ruiz later told the press that police had found AK 47 assault rifles and a backpack full of grenades in the teachers union’s hotel. He also accused Enrique Rueda Pacheco, the head of Local 22 of the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE), of being part of the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP), a guerrilla group that has engaged in armed attacks on businesses and government officials. Rueda denied the accusations and said the arms had been planted by the police.

The Police Attack and Aerial Bombing

At 4:30 in the morning on June 14 police from several different state riot police corps marched into the central plaza of Oaxaca and attacked teachers, many of them with their children, sleeping in make-shift tents and shelters of the plantón in the historic city center of Oaxaca. While the police moved in swinging their clubs, other police threw tear gas canisters down on the crowd from a hotel window. A police helicopter also flew over the plaza dropping tear gas canisters on the teachers. Some police reportedly fired 38 caliber and 9 millimeter pistols at the demonstrators, though the governor claimed the police were unarmed.

Police then moved to attack the headquarters of SNTE Local 22. There they destroyed the broadcasting equipment of the union’s radio station, Radio Plantón, and arrested several teacher leaders and activists.

Teachers Re-take the Plaza

Within a couple of hours the teachers had regroups, armed themselves with clubs and pipes and commandeered a number of buses and they moved to retake the plaza from the police. The teachers, chanting, “You’re going to fall, Ulises, you’re going to fall.” succeeded in defeating the police, retook the plaza, and took several police and government intelligence officers prisoner. By 10:00 a.m. the teachers, supported by university students and social activists, were once again in control of the center of the city.

The following day, June 15, the Oaxaca state government and Local 22 negotiated with the mediation of the federal government Secretary of the Interior (Gobernación). Ulises Ruiz now called for a “lessening of tensions” and the two sides negotiated an exchange of prisoners, the state government released 10 teachers and suspended (but did not drop) criminal charges against 25 teachers. In exchange, Local 22 released several police and intelligence officers. The state government agreed to pay for damages caused by the police, including the destruction of Radio Plantón and to find more funds for teachers in Oaxaca. The Oaxaca authorities also called upon the Federal government to “re-classify” the teachers, so that they would receive higher base salaries.

But at the same time, on June 15, unknown persons broke into the offices of the Interdisciplinary Center for Advice and Information on Human Rights (Centro Interdisciplinario de Asesoría, Difusión de los Derechos Humanos), destroying records of complaints of human rights violations by Local 22 of the Teaches union which were being sent to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights based in Washington, D.C. The unknown attacks destroyed or erased computer records and in particular the records dealing with Local 22 and with its leader Enrique Rueda Pacheco. (A fuller report can be found at: Olor a Mi Tierra ).

Such teachers’ protests in Oaxaca have been virtually annual events. Why then did Governor Ulises Ruiz attack the teachers at this moment? To answer that question, we have to know something about the state of Oaxaca.

SOLIDARITY

The following letter was forwarded to us. It comes from David Riker, who was in Oaxaca at the time of the teacher demonstrations.

Dear Friends,

I'm writing about the situation in Oaxaca. As I write, the capital city is under siege. At approximately 5AM this morning the state police attacked the teachers occupation of the city center. Though reports are sketchy, it seems that three teachers have been killed, as well as a young girl. The teachers have taken three or four police hostage. A raging battle is underway to control the zócalo, the center of life in Oaxaca, and the heart of the teacher's encampment. In the dawn raid the teachers were forced out, but the local paper, Notícias de Oaxaca, has reported that at 9:30AM local time the teachers, armed with rocks and sticks, re-took the main square. Police are firing tear gas from helicopters right now. Thousands (tens of thousands) of people are involved in running battles in the streets. And there is the fear that upwards of 3500 federal riot police -- deployed to Oaxaca in the last two weeks by Vicente Fox -- are about to enter the city.

I've just gotten off the phone with friends in the center. They described the scene on the streets this morning at about 7:30AM. Hundreds of people crying from the mix of tear gas, smoke bombs and some other pepper spray. The men forming groups to launch the assault to retake the zócalo. Mothers telling their boys to take care of themselves as they fell into line. From the rooftops of the single story houses you can watch the helicopters flying overhead shelling tear gas canisters into the crowds. There is a heavy fear, but also, I was told, you could hear the sound of people marching and singing.

The teachers occupation of the city, known in Spanish as a 'plantón' began 23 days ago. More than 80,000 teachers from every municipality in the state had converged on the capital to press a list of demands for more resources for education. They have had two mass marches, the most recent bringing more than 120,000 people out, the largest demonstration in the city's history. The plantón has become an annual event since more than a decade, and I will never forget last year's plantón which happened while I was still living there. For about ten days the teachers occupied the entire center of town, sleeping on the streets under tarpaulins stretched overhead. They were extremely well organized and the city center was never more alive. The teachers and their families would cook large meals on open fires, play guitar and sing, rest on folded cardboard in the shade. They set up their radio station "Radio Plantón" and played music on loud speakers. There were first aid tents, propaganda tents, mass meetings on every corner.

This year, many have remarked that the plantón, and the teachers' mobilization generally, has been different. The question is: If the teachers brought 80,000 to the city, who are the other 40,000? I'm not close enough to give a good answer, but what I understand is that the teachers have offered an opening which hundreds of small community groups and social justice centers from around the state have chosen to follow. The past two years under the new PRI governor Ulises Ruis has intensified the level of state repression. Scores of activists in small villages have been killed, hundreds arrested and still in jail as political prisoners. The spike in repression was so great that Amnesty International sent a delegation to Oaxaca in May of 2005 to investigate. It appears that when the teachers marched on the capital three weeks ago they were joined by tens of thousands of others from the villages in what is becoming a broad movement to depose the governor. Ruis has refused to meet with the teachers, and has managed to pull in his party's promisary notes to about half of the state's municipal mayors who signed a decree condemning the teachers action. But there is a palpable sense that the social movements are converging and that something new is underway.

During the past three weeks, the movement has shown a great level of strength and creativity -- occupying the city's airport, smashing the newly-installed parking meters throughout the city center, occupying the toll booths on the main road from Oaxaca to Mexico City -- not to stop the cars, only to stop the collecting of tolls, and the very fact that they have occupied the zócalo has great significance as the new governor, after spending upwards of $100 million to 'beautify' the zócalo, decreed that it was now off-limits for any demonstrations.

Three nights ago, Ruiz met with business leaders at a late night gathering and promised to use the 'mano dura' or hard hand. There were reports that the first 1500 federal riot police were camped in the nearby town of Tlacolula. This morning the governor appears to have proven himself a man of his word. Some reports have said that the tear gas in the city center is so thick you can't see the hand in front of you.

I have not seen any reports in the US media, BBC etc. There is some information on indymedia's Mexico site, some more on the online version of Notícias de Oaxaca -- both in Spanish. (http://www.noticias-oax.com.mx /) I know that the police have shut down the teachers' radio station 'Radio Plantón' but as of 12:00 noon Oaxaca time the students' radio station 'Radio Universitario' was still broadcasting and "you can hear the broadcast from every window and door in town." The students themselves have occupied the university, but the latest reports suggest that the police are heading there now.

I'm writing this in the hope that you can help spread the word, and alert others in the network of media to turn their attention to the struggle ongoing.

In solidarity,

David

NY Teachers Demonstrate Solidarity

The CUNY Professional Staff Congress (its teaching staff union), as well as students from several CUNY campuses, members of AELLA (Latin American Students Association at the Grad Center), representatives of left and community groups and others turned out Friday in a protest at the Mexican Consulate in New York against the massacre of striking teachers in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Request for Letters of Protest, Solidarity

The associated union of women (MUSA) has called for letters of support for Local 22 to be sent to the union and for letters of condemnation, protesting the brutal repression, to President Vicente Fox, the Secretary of State Carlos Abascal Carranza, the Governor of Oaxaca Ulises Ruiz, and the Secretary of the State of Oaxaca Jorge Franco Vargas. Sample letters, together with contact information appear at the web site of the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras.

Back to June , 2006 Table of Contents

Oaxaca Background: Poverty, Conflict, Repression

Since the conqueror Hernán Cortez who became the Marquis of Oaxaca in the early 1500s, rich and powerful Spaniards and later Mexicans have taken the wealth from this large and important state in Mexico’s Southwest, leaving Indians, farmers and workers to live in what is often abject poverty. Oaxaca remains one of Mexico’s poorest states. (For a map of Oaxaca see: http://www.coloradocollege.edu/dept/RL/Oaxaca-map.gif ).

With an economy based mainly on agriculture and low-paid agricultural work, Oaxaca is a state of extreme, pervasive and persistent poverty. Some 38 percent of Oaxaca’s 3.5 million people are indigenous, there are 16 indigenous groups speaking 14 different indigenous languages. According to SEDESOL, the Secretary of Social Development, some 73% of the population lives in extreme poverty with an annual income of less than US$200.00; 82.2 percent earn less than US$300.00; and 91.4 percent earn less than US$500.00. Some 80 percent of communities in Oaxaca lack basic services such as electricity, sewage, and running water and suffer from high levels of illiteracy. With such poverty, Oaxaca experiences high levels of migration to urban areas, to the border and to the United States. (For information on the Oaxaca economy see: http://www.oaxaca.gob.mx/sedic/english/e_asp_econ.htm For information on the basic conditions in Oaxaca see: http://www.laneta.apc.org/rodh/spip/IMG/pdf/inf000001Anexo-I.pdf )

With so many poor people there is much discontent and also a long history of social and political activism by local organizations of indigenous peoples, peasants, urban poor people, workers, and women. During the 1970s the radical Coalition of Workers, Peasants and Students of the Isthmus (of Tehuantepec) played a leading role in the state. Today the anarchist People’s Indian Council of Oaxaca (Consejo Indigena Popular de Oaxaca “Ricardo Flores Magon – CIPO-RFM) is active in many social struggles. But there are many more Indian, peasant and poor peoples’ movements fighting on the local level over issues of economic, social and political justice throughout the state. Oaxaca’s social problems have also given rise to armed guerrilla organizations such as the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP) which has engaged in armed attacks on government offices.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its local caciques have dominated the state government and suppressed these social movements, often using police and paramilitaries to keep order. José Murat, the previous governor was accused of many human rights violations in Oaxaca. For example, in their struggle against the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP), in the 1990s police in Oaxaca engaged in illegal detentions, torture, and extra-judicial executions (murder) of Mexican citizens. Such human rights violations continued into the year 2000 with reports of arbitrary detentions, unwarranted police use of firearms, and intimidation of citizens. Since becoming governor on December 1, 2005, Ulises Ruiz has continued this repressive policy toward the people of Oaxaca and especially the poor. As throughout much of Mexico, police in Oaxaca continue to engage in the arbitrary detention and torture of citizens.

According to the Oaxaca Human Rights Network, in 2005 Oaxaca experienced human rights violations that included: “More than 600 arrests, 40 wounded, 33 [falsely] indicted, 13 threatened, 2 attempted assassination, 10 assassination, one person driven into exile, all involving social organizations and municipal officials. In addition many people were intimidated by the abuse of authority by police in the course of the occupation of buildings, demonstrations at public sites and marches that attempted to get to the Oaxaca Zócalo (the principal plaza)…” (Sixth Report, page 19 at: http://www.laneta.apc.org/rodh/spip/IMG/pdf/inf000001Anexo-I.pdf )

Such arrogance and power, has not gone unchallenged. Not only the most important Oaxacan movement but also the most important labor movement in Mexico over the last 30 years has been the National Coordinating Committee of the Mexican Teachers Union (la CNTE of el SNTE). The Oaxacan teachers, many of them indigenous bilingual teachers (Spanish and indigenous languages), have been at the center of this rank-and-file labor movement. La CNTE has been in a state of virtual permanent insurgency within the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE), historically dominated by the Federal government’s Secretary of Public Education (SEP) and by political union bosses such as Carlos Jonguitud Barrios and Elba Esther Gordillo. Local 22, which plays a leading role in la CNTE regularly mobilizes tens of thousands of its members to strike, demonstrate and carry out plantónes or sit-ins in Oaxaca City and Mexico City. Throughout its history la CNTE has been led by leftists who oppose the PRI and the PAN, and the conflicts between the PRI governments and the teachers have been many.

During the 1970s, Carlos Jonguitud Barrios, then head of Revolutionary Vanguard faction that controlled the Mexican Teachers Union (el SNTE) cooperated with the Secretary of Public Education (SEP) and the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to suppress teacher activists. Teachers were fired, sometimes beaten, arrested and tortured, and in some cases murdered. Since the mid-1980s, however, the teachers have regularly engaged in strikes, protest demonstrations, mass marches, and plantónes in both Oaxaca City and in Mexico City. While some teacher activists in rural areas have been arrested and tortured, the repression did not reach the level of the 1970s. The question then arises, why this violent attack now?

We suggested in an article in the last issue of Mexican Labor News and Analysis that Fox and the PAN had opportunistically provoked steelworkers at Lazaro Cardenas and flower vendors in Atenco in order to send in the Federal police, generate violence, and create a sense of chaos in order to drive voters into the arms of the PAN, the party of law and order. (See “Mexico in the Midst of Mayhem, Murder and Manipulation” at:
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna_articles.php?id=102#550 ) However, in this instance President Fox and his Secretary of the Interior Carlos Abascal refused to send in the Federal police to aid Ruiz. In this case it was not the PAN that launched the police attack, but rather the PRI.

Neverthless, it is possible that Fox may have lured Ruiz into a trap. Fox may have contributed to tensions between the state and the union by at first declining to offer Federal funds to meet the teachers’ wage demands and perhaps even encouraged Ruiz to suppress the teachers’ movement, and then, at the last moment, denying the use of Federal police power. Elba Esther Gordillo, the “moral guide” of the Mexican teachers union and inveterate political operator could also some have had a hand in exacerbating tensions. So the Ruiz and the PRI are blamed for the police attack, the left is blamed for the strike and disruption of normal life, and the PAN makes good its claim to be the party of law and order. If all this sounds too conspiratorial and too complicated, or too Machiavellian and too Byzantine, we can only argue, based on Mexican history, that such a scenario is all too Mexican.

Since the violent conflict in Oaxaca, many sectors and leaders of the PRI have called for the expulsion of Elba Esther Gordillo from their party on the ground that she fomented the teacher conflict in Oaxaca in order to hurt governor Ruiz and the PRI.

(On human rights in Oaxaca see for example the Human Rights Watch reports at: http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/mexico/Mexi991-06.htm#P839_228681 and
http://hrw.org/spanish/informes/1999/mexico7.html#oaxaca For more recent developments see : http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/mexico/informes.html and most important the report of the Red Oaxaqueña de Derechos Humanos at: http://www.laneta.apc.org/rodh/spip/article.php3?id_article=39 For a recent example of Oaxacan justice see John Gibler, “Notes from the Other Oaxaca,” in ZNET at: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=59&ItemID=9818 )

Back to June , 2006 Table of Contents

People’s Revolutionary Army Celebrates 10th Anniversary

The People’s Revolutionary Army (EPR), one of Mexico’s several armed guerrilla organizations, first made its presence known ten years ago, on June 28, 1996. The EPR is believed to be led by Alejandro Hernández Dolores, a former Mexican Army officer.

Hernández Dolores enlisted in the Army in 1966, but left the military, became a guerrilla, and disappeared from sight in 1984. An admirer of the revolutionary, Emiliano Zapata, and of guerrilla leader Lucio Cabañas, Hernández Dolores became disgusted with the caciques who dominated his home in the Huasteca region of Mexico and distressed by the oppression and exploitation of its peasantry.

During the 1970s he began to carry out land invasions and engage in military confrontations with the authorities, including the assassination of caciques. By the 1980s he had created small guerrilla organizations in four different municipalities.

In 1994 he created a new organization, the EPR (Ejercito Popular Revolucionario), that made its first official appearance in 1996. The EPR based its political strategy on the PROCUP-PDLP (Partido Revolucionario Obrero Clandestino Union del Pueblo – Partido de los Pobres), an older Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group.

The ERP announced that it intended to unify the many guerrilla groups operating in Mexico. Nevertheless, the EPR suffered its own splits and the small armed guerrilla movement in Mexico remains divided.

(A recent article on the Mexican guerilla movements by Jorge Lofredo can be found at: http://memoria.com.mx/?q=node/303&PHPSESSID=261d4b7600c7f29129abad064b82280d An older article from 1997 by Dr. Graham H. Turbiville published in a U.S. Army publication can be found at: http://www.smallwars.quantico.usmc.mil/search/LessonsLearned/LatinAm/mexico.htm
A registry of various Mexican guerrilla groups and their literature can be found at: http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/testing/html/mss0523a.html).

Back to June , 2006 Table of Contents

United States Tells Mexico it Refuses to Renegotiate NAFTA

The United States refused to renegotiate the agricultural chapter of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as requested by the Mexican government on behalf of Mexican corn and bean growers. The Mexicans producers hoped to avoid the complete opening of the Mexican market as will take place in 2008.

The Mexican government only requested the renegotiation because of the National Agreement for the Countryside, and understanding it had made with Mexican farmers’ organizations. Mexican officials confessed that they had no genuine interest in reopening and renegotiating the agreement, since they are committed to open markets.

Ironically this U.S. refusal to renegotiate the NAFTA agreement took place at the same time that the U.S. Senate and House were discussing ways of stemming the mass migration of millions from Mexico. Many attribute this mass migration at least in part to the devastation suffered by many Mexican corn and bean producers as U.S. government-subsidized agricultural products have been dumped on their market.

Back to June , 2006 Table of Contents

Resources

FAT Documents and Links

The Authentic Labor Front (FAT), the independent labor federation, has issued a position paper (in Spanish) on “Globalization and Social Justice” that can be found on the FAT Website.

The FAT has also created a page of useful links to other Mexican and Latin American sources dealing with labor and social movements which can be found at links.

Cockroft on Internet: “Mexico: An Historic Moment; the Elections of 2006”

James Cockcroft, the award-winning and prolific historian and left-wing social commentator, has written an informative and interesting pamphlet on the Mexican election (in Spanish) entitled “Mexico: An Historic Moment; the Elections of 2006” that can be found on the Cockroft Website. In brief, Cockcroft argues that if he were a Mexican he would vote for López Obrador in order to open up political space while supporting Mexico’s social movements.

Singers Support AMLO

· The federal election has generated a group of corridos in support of AMLO by some of the top singers in Mexico. Thanks to Don Bustion for this hot tip! To listen, click on:

El Candidato Elejido (Herlindo Cruz Gomez).
(You need Windows Media player to listen. And it can take a little while for the tune to download.)

For more songs, go to: Galeria Ciudadana

Back to June , 2006 Table of Contents

Back to Table of Contents of Mexican Labor News & Analysis articles.

Archived MLNA issues.