*****URGENT CONGRESSIONAL ACTION ALERT****
This is a critical week for the possibilities of peace in Mexico and it
requires people in the United States and Canada to take some immediate actions
with their political representatives.
The headlines proclaim the size of the economic package being put together by
the US to save Mexico. What people in North America are not aware of is that
the "conditions" under which this package is being negotiated are under the
utmost secrecy, but information sources in Mexico are clear about the
following; Wall Street is asking for a military solution for Chiapas.
We are asking you once again to take some emergency actions with your
Congressional representatives. We suggest a meeting with as large a group of
people as you can gather, or a personal phone call. We also suggest that you
ask other groups to participate in this action. This package will be
completed in the next 10 days AND IT IS CRITICAL THAT PEOPLE VOICE THEIR
OPINIONS AT THIS TIME. For those of you who are able, we suggest some action
with Wall Street, a stockholders statement, action etc. In your public
statement, point out that it is the corruption and incompetence of the PRI
that caused Wall Street losses, because the PRI lied and deliberately covered
up their timeline on the peso devaluation without letting investors know.
Below we have a sample draft of the specific issues to present, as well
as a background article about the economic and political crisis in Mexico,
which hopefully will be useful to you in explaining the situation there.
Please call us if you have any questions, or need specific information that we
might be able to help you with. Thank you so much.
TO PRESIDENT CLINTON [YOUR STATE SENATORS, AND REPRESENTATIVES] Dear Sirs
We are very concerned with what amounts to the Administration's wholesale
endorsement of the rule of the PRI in Mexico with its provision of the
economic package. The President's statements only direct themselves to
Mexico's economic problems. They make no mention of the political crisis which
many experts in Mexico are now saying need to be addressed before any economic
strategy will be effective.
The economic and political crises have been brought on by the PRI
government's ineptitude, corruption and authoritarian rule. It is now evident
that Salinas and the PRI [Institutional Revolutionary Party] manipulated the
Mexican economy in order to win the August 1994 elections and as a result also
caused a major economic crash.
There is no doubt that the PRI government is going to use the [US/Canada]
support to maintain its control and to eliminate those who are seeking
democratic change in Mexico, using force if necessary. With the added burden
of defense of the US aid package, the PRI will now proceed to eliminate any
civil dissent and rights they deem counter-productive to the economic progress
dictated by US policy.
The large amounts of money and support which you and your administration
are giving to the PRI are unprecedented and imply the unquestioning support of
the United States. We think that this is a dangerous mistake.
Before any aid is given to the Mexican government, there should be a
thorough investigation of human rights abuses by the Mexican government and
Mexican military, of the PRI's capacity to rule, and of the political
assassinations of Luis Donaldo Colosio and Francisco Ruiz Masseiu. Without
such a complete review of the PRI, we are holding the Clinton administration
responsible for all of the actions of the PRI, the Mexican government and its
military, especially in Chiapas.
There is a clear voice for democratic change in Mexico, and the US is on
the opposite side. END LETTER
1/10/95 By Cecilia Rodriguez National Commission for Democracy (915) 532-8382,
For 20 days, at the foot of a large, beautiful statue in the center of Mexico
City, 23 hunger strikers protested for peace in Mexico. The fast of the
70-year-old diabetic Catholic Bishop of San Cristobal, Samuel Ruiz, lasted for
15 days. The hunger strikers were demanding that steps be taken to secure
peace in the country. The Mexico City strikers later requested a meeting with
the President. They were met by riot police.
In Chiapas, the Zapatistas have been armed and demanding social change. They
want land, housing, health, food, education,
jobs, peace, democracy, liberty, justice, independence. The first six demands
do not appear irrational. The poverty in the country is indisputable. It is
the other five that confuse and frustrate the American public. Do a group of
badly-armed indigenous people have a right to demand political change on a
national level?
The situation in Mexico is the result of two principal phenomenon, the
economic re-structuring of the country and a closed political system incapable
of democratic change. The country began changing its economic system in the
late 70's. In Mexico these policies translated into the following; industry
favored over agriculture, regions over urban areas, foreign markets over
national markets. From 1982-88 this massive restructuring caused 4,165,819
layoffs, the closing of almost 1000 firms, a jump in the unemployment rate
from 14.5% to 17%. From 1988-94 the country lost 13,250 jobs per month and
created few new jobs for the 6 million young people who entered the labor
force. According to Business Week, Mexico's GNP growth has been falling since
1990 from 4.5% to 0.4% in 93, its budget deficit growing from 8 billion in
1990 to 24 billion in 93. In addition Mexico created 27 new billionaires at
the same time as 40 million of its people entered poverty. As a result of the
recent peso devaluation the hourly wage will now be 33 cents per hour. I can
be more specific about the high social cost of these harsh economic changes.
Let's look at a part of the country where the new PRI governor is being asked
to resign. The state of Tabasco has a million and a half people. As a result
of the negligence of agriculture over the past decade, half of the
economically active population, 500,000 is unemployed now. Most of them are
agricultural workers. They used to harvest or grow cacao,
cocoanut, banana, sugar, citrus, pepper, and fish. These acute economic
changes were accompanied by significant political turmoil. The Mexican
Constitution has undergone 500 amendments since this economic re-structuring
began.
The changes have been characterized by a greater centralization of power, a
wearing away at civil liberties, and an amplification of Presidential power.
The most recent demonstration of the growing political crisis in the country
is the peso devaluation. In 1992,
professor of economics Dr. Rudiger Dornbush of MIT said the Mexican peso was
overvalued and that Salinas should act quickly. The need for the devaluation
was widely-known in Washington. Now the American media cynically comments
that all new "Mexican" administrations devalue the peso as though this
bungling was a cultural flaw. The fact is that the PRI deliberately hid the
deficiencies of its economic reforms. It delayed a devaluation which was not
only necessary but inevitable,
in order to manipulate the elections.
"The problem of Mexico is not economic, it is political. And the only viable
exit to the dark alley in which the nation has been submerged..will not come
from sacrifice, or a tightening of the belts, or a return to living on credit,
but from democracy," states Elias Montanez Alvarado of El Diario de Juarez.
Under the rule of the PRI, Mexico is a nightmare of corruption, nepotism,
opportunism, and manipulation. Many prominent journalists in Mexico have
documented this, at the risk of their lives.
That is why the EZLN has been demanding "a peaceful transition to democracy.
" While recent headlines say the contrary, our reports from the ground is that
war is being prepared in Chiapas.
The Wall Street Journal in a recent headline "Mexican stocks,
Despite Bloodbath, Could Pay in Next Year" anticipates the ultimate resolution
to the crisis. In the EZLN, the PRI has found a force that cannot be bought,
intimidated, or tricked into anything less than genuine democracy. The most
responsible thing to be done by Americans is to support Mexico's struggle for
a genuine democracy, and to demand a political resolution to the conflict.
El Proceso, Dec. 12 issue pg. 18-19 By Gerardo Galarza
Despite the economic crisis which the country suffered during the 1980s,
the Mexican Army not only did not have any financial restrictions on its
modernization, but in fact, from the mid-80s through 1993, almost doubled its
number of soldiers.
During the six-year term of Salinas, on top of getting new responsibilities
related to national security, the Army received considerable increases in its
budget.
Despite the irritation of the Mexican military forces because of the
criticism it received for its repressive tactics and involvement in police and
electoral matters, as well as combat of drugtrafficking, military expenditures
rose from $1.47 billion pesos [nearly $500 million at old exchange rates] in
1988 to $1.67 billion pesos [$550 million] in 1989 and $2 billion pesos
[nearly $700 million] in 1990 and 1991, according to a master's thesis in
political science, entitled "The Mexican Armed Forces and the Process of
Modernization (1988-1994)", written by Erubiel Tirado in the London School of
Economics.
The figures cited above "confirm the argument that there has been a
substantial change in the military as part of the political modernization
promoted by Salinas", added the thesis.
..This has led Mexico to a greater dependence upon the United States, as
the US has become Mexico's principal supplier.
"Between 1988 and 1992 military sales by the US to Mexico totalled $214
million, which was sixteen times greater than Mexico's purchases from France,
its second largest supplier at $13 million. This is a distinct change from
the trend in purchases during the previous two decades," according to the
thesis.
..In recent years, the number of soldiers in the Mexican Army has
increased notably..In the 70s the number grew from 71,000 to 80,000, and from
94,500 to 175,000 between the mid-80s and 1993.
Among its conclusions the thesis stated," the [Mexican] military has a
high degree of financial independence. Military leaders can spend their
budget as they see fit. They are not accountable to any civil authority."
In addition, in recent years the Mexican Army "has been used more than
before to meet presidential objectives which were part of the Salinas'
modernization." La Jornada 12-24-94 pg 2 Letters to the Editor *I denounce the
presence of Argentinean military advisors by Dr. Julio Molina Esquivel,
recipient of 1989 National Oncology Award
.In recent days press reports sent from Buenos Aires, Los Angeles and Mexico
have told us of the presence in the country of a group of military and police
men from Argentina--technicians in torture and assassination-- whose mission
consists of aiding the Mexican Army in torture and criminal techniques. In
this aspect it is important to remember that, in the so-called "dirty war"
which the Argentinean military junta carried out in the 70s, more than 30,000
citizens of the Argentinean republic disappeared. Likewise these techniques
of torture and crime were exported-according to press reports--to some Central
American countries, whose people were immersed in civil or military
insurgency, and in which thousands of people were executed,
tortured and disappeared.
From: La Mujer Obrera
chiapas-l@listas.unam.mx
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