- "We are confronting a monster; a force that ridicules,
deceives and wants to destroy us". Miguel Angel Ibara, member of
the Mexican Electrical Workers Union, (SME) on the 80th day of a hunger
strike. (La Jornada July 18, 2010).
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- There is a direct relation between the rise of criminal
gangs, the deepening of neo-liberalism and the repression of social movements
and trade unions.
- Mexican President Calderon's firing of over 44,000 unionized
electrical workers is the latest in a series of repressive acts which have
shattered the social fabric of society. The denial of meaningful, well
remunerated employment and the criminalization of legitimate trade unions
like the Mexican Electrical Union (SME) has led to mass immigration and
to an increasing number of young people joining the drug gangs. State
repression and electoral corruption has prevented Mexican workers from
redressing their grievances through legal channels and has aided and abetted
the rise of a parallel narco-state which controls vast regions of the country
and which recruits young men and women seeking to escape poverty.
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- Over the past 25 years, Mexico has regressed socially,
economically and politically as a result of the neo-liberal offensive,
which began with the stolen election of 1988 in which Carlos Salinas robbed
Cuahtemoc Cardenas of the presidency. Subsequently, Salinas signed the
free trade agreement, NAFTA, which led to the bankruptcy of over 10 million
Mexican farmers, peasants and small urban retail shop owners, driving many
to immigrate, others to join social movements and some to revolt as was
the case with EZLN. Over 10 million Mexicans emigrated since NAFTA.
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- State repression and the forced isolation of the EZLN,
in Chiapas and other rural movements in Guerrero, Michoacan and elsewhere,
the denial of rural justice, forced may peasants to flee to the urban slums
where some eventually became members of the emerging narco-gangs.
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- By the turn of the new millennium Mexico's experiment
with neo-liberal "reforms" deepened the systemic crises
inequalities widened, the economy stagnated and poverty increased. As
a result, millions of Mexicans fled across the border into North America
or joined popular movements attempting to change the system.
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- Two powerful social and political movements emerged,
which sought to reverse Mexico's slide into political decay and social
disintegration. On the political front Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the
Presidential candidate of a broad citizens coalition, led millions to an
electoral victory in 2006 only to be denied through massive voting
fraud perpertrated by supporters of Calderon. The second force, a coalition
of trade unions and social movements, led by SME, fought to preserve the
public social security system and state ownership of the electrical system
from privatization and exploitation by the voracious predator foreign and
domestic capitalist class.
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- Mass mobilizations involving hundreds of thousands marched
in Mexico City and throughout the provinces, while millions of consumers
expressed their solidarity, as did all of the major trade unions in Europe,
Latin America and elsewhere.
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- What was at stake was not merely the jobs of the unionized
electrical workers and the social security system but one of the most effective
social movements defending a social safety net for the working class.
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- By attacking SME and the social security system, one
of the last major social institutions providing social cohesion, Caldera
and the judicial system were further denying Mexicans legal political and
social instruments through which they could aspire to defend their living
standards.
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- By destroying the social net via the privatization of
public programs and institutions, by repressing vital social movements
like the Zapatistas in Chiapas, the teachers and trade unions in Oaxaca
and the SME in Mexico City, the Mexican State is effectively denying hope
for improvement via democratic political processes.
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- Neoliberal stagnation, state repression of democratic
popular movements and the repeated theft of electoral victories by peoples
movements in 1987 and 2006 has led to widespread and profound disillusion
with politics as usual. Even more ominously it has turned thousands of
Mexican youth into enemies of the state, and toward membership in the numerous
violent narco-gangs. The Mexican states' rejection of peaceful electoral
changes and its repression and denial of the rights of social movements
like the SME has left few outlets for the mass frustrations which are percolating
under the surface of society.
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- In the last four years over 25,000 police, soldiers,
civilians and narco members have been assassinated in every region of the
country. Despite Calderon's militarization of the country, the 40,000
soldiers in the streets have failed to prevent the escalation of violence,
clearly demonstrating the failure of the repressive option to end violence
and prevent the disintegration of Mexico into a 'failed state'.
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- The recovery and reconstruction of Mexico, begins with
strengthening the social fabric of Mexican society the promotion
of the urban and social movements and in particular the mass democratic
trade unions like the SME.
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- These movements and trade unions are the essential building
blocks for the transformation of Mexican society: the end of neo-liberalism,
the repudiation of NAFTA and the reconstruction of a powerful public sector
under workers control. To fight the twin evils of the corrupt militarized
neo-liberal state and the violent parallel narco-state, which currently
exploit and terrorize the country, a new mass based political-social movement
which combines the solidarity of the trade unions like the SME and the
popular appeal of political leaders like Lopez Obrador must coalesce and
offer a radical program of national reconstruction and social justice.
The alternative is the further disintegration of the Mexican state and
the descent into a condition of unending generalized violence, where the
rich live in armed fortresses and the poor are subject to the violent depredations
of the military and the narco terrorists.
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