In the aftermath of the earthquakes
that have devasted parts of Mexico
City since September 19, two conclu-
sions can be drawn briefly as we go to
press. First, the hardest hit are and
will continue to be the urban poor;
5,500 dead, 300,000 homeless,
200,000 to 300,000 jobs lost and
thousands still living in the streets.
One week after the first quake, 5,000
persons from 15 neighborhood groups
in the most damaged areas marched
on the Presidential Palace of Los
Pinos to protest the forced displace-
ment of their communities. Their Ten-
ants Coordinating Council denounced
“acts of pillage by government offi-
cials and members of the official
party,” and demanded that interna-
tional aid be used primarily to rebuild
their homes, instead of reconstructing
government buildings and moving the
homeless elsewhere, as has been an-
nounced. Popular organizations, Left
parties and many trade unions have
banded together in Mexico to support
these demands and act as a watchdog
over the government’s reconstruction
efforts.
Second, as can be seen from the
following interviews with three of
Mexico’s most respected Left opposi-
tion leaders, the earthquakes hit a
country already ravaged by economic
crisis, social disintegration and politi-
cal uncertainty. The estimated $5.5
billion in earthquake damages are but
41% of what Mexico must pay in in-
terest each year on its foreign debt.
The pressures are now even greater
upon the central government to satisfy
the basic needs and political demands
of its population, while at the same
time continuing to satisfy foreign in-
vestors and bankers. Many Mexicans,
Peter Baird is a former NACLA staff
member and co-author of Beyond the
Border: Mexico and the U.S. Today.
He is now a printer and free-lance
writer in Sacramento, California.
including the Left leaders interviewed
in mid-August in Mexico City, be-
lieve these demands are on a collision
course.
Abstentionism Triumphed
In early September, Mexico swore
in its newly elected governors and
Congressional Deputies, concluding
some of the most turbulent and widely
publicized elections in modern Mexi-
can history.
The U.S. press paid unprecedented
attention to these off-year elections. It
appeared the conservative National
Action Party (PAN) would break the
56-year monopoly of the ruling In-
stitutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)
by winning the governorships of two
northern states and numerous Con-
gressional seats. The PAN had
dramatized its cause with violent con-
frontations in border cities, deftly
using the U.S. media to denounce
widespread PRI corruption. They
called for less government interven-
tion in the economy, a reversal of ag-
rarian reforms, withdrawal from the
Contadora peace process and for a
U.S.-style two-party system–with it-
self as the “New Majority.”
The three independent Left parties
in the elections,* meanwhile, were
dismissed in U.S. press reports
as ineffective and irrevocably divided.
The underlying issues the Left
raised–economic dependency, acute
impoverishment and the historical
U.S. role in stifling Mexican democ-
racy-were likewise ignored.
When the voting was over, the PRI
candidates were declared winners in
all seven gubernatorial races, with the
PRI and its loyal opposition** getting
75% of the votes, and thus 324 of 400
*Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT); Unified
Socialist Party of Mexico (PSUM); Mexican
Workers Party (PMT).
**Popular Socialist Party (PPS); Authentic Party
of the Mexican Revolution (PARM); Socialist
Workers Party (PST).
In the United States, one of the many
expressions of across-the-border solidar-
ity is the Emergency Fund for Mexican
Reconstruction. The fund is channeling
donations directly to victims through the
umbrella Tenants Coordinating Council
of Mexico City. A check or money order
can be sent to Emergency Fund for Mex-
ican Reconstruction, 1131 North Clark,
El Paso, TX 79905
to legitimize its policies of continued
austerity for the poor, foreign debt re-
payment at whatever cost and open
arms to foreign capital.
Despite its costly campaign and
dirty tricks, the PRI did not attain its
goal-a fact which is bound to cause
even more consternation in
Washington. With the majority of the
adult population unconvinced that
needed change can be achieved by the
ballot, millions of workers, cam-
pesinos and the increasingly strapped
middle class will continue to search
for ways to survive and oppose a sys-
tem that is failing them.
Valentin Campa and Heberto Cas-
tillo are newly elected Deputies, while
the third leader interviewed, Ra61l Al-
varez Garin, represents the non-par-
4 REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The
PAN and equally conservative Mexi-
can Democratic Party received 19% of
the votes cast, for a total of 50 seats.
And the three independent Left par-
ties, with 6.3%, won 24 seats under
the reformed election laws granting
representation to minority parties. In
the end the opposition parties claimed
fraud, but organized no massive pro-
tests or demonstrations. Editorials in
the United States scolded President
Miguel de la Madrid, with The Wall
Street Journal calling the elections a
“Mexican debacle.”
On the surface the PRI appears to
have won again. The PAN was beaten
back, at least for a time. The Left was
unable to capitalize on the deepening
economic crisis and public discontent.
But looking closer, the real “winner”
in these elections was abstensionism.
Over half the registered voters-17.5
million Mexicansd-ecided to stay
home in protest, or simply ignored the
electoral arena. De la Madrid’s Ad-
ministration needed a strong turnout
REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 4″A system that is failing them”
liamentary Left. All have spent years
in prison for acting on their convic- tions. They
talk here about what can
be learned from the elections, the rise
of the Right, the debt and economic
crisis, the problems and promise of
the Left and the future of Mexico-
U.S. relations.
VALENTIN CAMPA
Nearly 17 years after the massacre
of some 300 students in the Plaza de
Tlatelolco by government troops–Oc-
tober 2, 1968-1 spoke with 81-year-
old Valentin Campa in his apartment a few hundred yards from the infam-
ous site. Campa was born amid the
tumultuous Mexican Revolution, has
been a communist militant (PCM)
since 1927 when he participated in the
international campaign to free Sacco
and Vanzetti. He spent 13 years in
prison for leading labor strikes and
was the Left’s write-in candidate for
president in 1976. Now he is begin- ning his second term in the Chamber
of Deputies representing the Unified
Socialist Party of Mexico (PSUM).
One of the beloved patriarchs of the
Left and labor movement, he is, as
Bertolt Brecht wrote, “one who has
struggled all of his life.”
Q: How do these latest elections fit
into the long stretch of history you
have lived?
A: These elections were carried out
amid the deep and cyclical crisis we
are suffering in Mexico. The spending
binge of the grand bourgeoisie has left
us with a foreign debt of $96 billion,
interest payments alone at $12 billion
a year and austerity policies that have
reduced our standard of living 40% in
three years. This has our country in
turmoil.
We are realistic and know that this
grand bourgeoisie in power has con-
trol of the entire electoral process and
the media, and has manipulated the
results. Years ago they stole elections,
using vulgar repression. Now they use
computers to help them juggle the fig- ures. But this is not the only reason the PSUM’s votes were low.* Most
important among the other factors is
the control that the government has over most leaders of the organized
labor movement. We call them
*PSUM representation dropped from 17 to 12
Deputies.
charro** leaders. During these elec- tions the charros threatened to kick
workers out of their unions and make
them lose their jobs if they voted
against PRI candidates. Many did not
vote at all.
We also had many internal prob-
lems in the campaign, but despite all
this we came in third, which gives us
political significance and the will to
win over more voters in the next elec-
tion.
Q: The PSUM has been criticized for
being too caught up in elections. What
is your electoral strategy?
A: The Communist Party, which had been illegal for decades, was the prin-
cipal force behind the electoral reform
of the government. Then it joined
with other Left forces to form the
Unified Socialist Party of Mexico (PSUM). We have always maintained that for us the electoral struggle is
merely one more front of the mass struggle. We are completely aware of
the corruption of the electoral process,
but we see the same thing in the trade
union sector and don’t stop our work
there because of it. As long as there
aren’t sufficient social forces to sup-
port a revolutionary leap forward- through civil war or through mass
struggle-our task is to build our
forces, combining electoral work with work in the labor and popular sectors.
Q: Can you explain why the PAN is so
strong, especially in the north?
A: Because the big private capitalists
in the north are all founders and sup-
porters of the PAN. Their game is to support the PAN when they want to pressure the government on a business
measure like denationalizing the
banks, but then they turn around and
back the PRI when they get what they
want. As for the common people who
vote for the PAN in great numbers in
the north, they want to oppose the PRI
and think PAN is God’s party,* and
**The term, charro, or cowboy, stems from an early labor leader who was a cowhand. The word is now used in derision to describe corrupt union bosses.
*The PAN is strongly identified with the Roman Catholic Church.
SEP’rEMBER/OCTOBER 1985 5
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1985 5the only one that can defeat the PRI.
So they vote PAN even though they
may agree with us, and this is hard to
change.
Q: The ruling party protested loudly
against a secret meeting between U.S.
Ambassador to Mexico John Gavin and
PAN officials, as well as meetings
with the U.S. Republican Party. Was
there U.S. interference in the elec-
tions?
A: The PRI turned the Gavin meeting into a big scandal to buttress its ac-
cusation that PAN had outside back-
ing. Of course the U.S. government influenced the elections, but re-
member that during this time a U.S.
drug agent was killed. The U.S. gov-
ernment nearly closed the borders be-
cause Mexico wasn’t prosecuting the
guilty parties. Relations between the
two countries were extremely low.
Undoubtedly the United States used PAN to pressure the PRI into action,
and apparently it was effective be-
cause at least some of the drug traffic-
kers and corrupt officials were picked
up.
Q: Have you ever been in the United States?
A: I have been prohibited from enter-
ing the United States since World War
II by the U.S. authorities, even though
I have relatives there. But when I was
a presidential candidate in 1976, a
group of universities in the Southwest
invited me to speak and I was able to
go. I found a great progressive move- ment there, both inside and outside
the university that I knew nothing about. When I came back home I told
people to not underestimate the pro- gressive forces within the United States, especially among the Hispanic
population. [Good] relations between the Mexican and the North American peoples are a necessity. We haven’t learned how to build this relationship
yet, but we should all work at doing
so.
RAUL ALVAREZ GARIN
Ratil Alvarez Garin, like many ac-
tivists in today’s trade union, univer-
sity and popular political movements,
CamDa: a life-lona struaale
is from the “generation of ’68.” Dur-
ing the massive Mexican student
movement, he represented the
Polytechnical University on the Na-
tional Strike Committee which led the
protests, and was imprisoned along
with many others for two years until
their exile to Chile. Returning to
Mexico in 1971 after a presidential
amnesty, he helped found Punto
Critico–a collectively produced news
journal of the Left that has been par-
ticipating in and writing about the
mass movement since that time. Punto Critico Revolutionary Organization
(ORPC) is the clearest voice within the non-parliamentary Left and has a
different evaluation of elections and
the mass movement.
Q: Can you explain why ORPC and
others have not opted to participate in
the government’s electoral reform,
run candidates etc.?
A: One of the most debated topics within and among Mexico’s revolu- tionary organizations has been the il-
legitimacy of the government and the
intent of its “political reforms.” At
the same time that the past regime of
President Jose Lopez Portillo opened
a door to minority political parties, it
*See “Mexico’s Juchitan-A Popular Challenge
to the PRI,” Report on the Americas, November/ December 1982.
REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
unleashed a wave of repression
against the independent social move-
ments. Campesinos who led land oc-
cupations were assassinated. Police
broke up strikes; dissident trade un-
ionists were jailed. Hundreds of ac-
tivists “disappeared.” It is a divide
and conquer strategy and has been ef-
fective. So the Left’s debate was whether
the benefits of having representation
in the House of Deputies (the Senate
is still off limits) outweighed the
drawbacks of giving legitimacy to the
regime. By participating in its so-
called democratic elections we would
be reinforcing its ideological control
and its public image as a pluralistic
democratic government. In addition to
the history of electoral fraud and
generalized mistrust of elected politi-
cians, there is the problem that the
Chamber of Deputies is not a real
source of power or even debate for op-
position parties. All legislative propo-
sals come from the executive branch and are rubber-stamped by the PRI majority, while those of the Left par-
ties have been tabled.
In weighing all these factors, we
felt it was more important at this time
to denounce the demagogic character
of the PRI and support elections only
when they are linked to the mass
movement and advance its indepen-
dent organization, such as the COCEI
campaign in Juchitan, Oaxaca.*
Q: Punto Critico has emphasized that
the PRI is losing a degree of its social
control and that the status quo can not
continue. Can you explain?
A: For a number of years the govern- ment has been on the defensive from
the demands of independently or-
ganized workers and campesinos. Just
as the government was the promoter
of labor and peasant organizing in the
1930s, today it is the “disorganizer,”
the destroyer of all organizations that challenge it. But in doing so the ruling party is weakening the labor and cam-
pesino confederations it has relied
upon to maintain itself in power for
six decades.
o 6 e
6The U.S. government is very con-
scious of the terrible weakness of the
Mexican government, despite its ap-
parent strength. It is a strength based
on rigidity, so it’s a system that can
fall apart quickly-like Iran, to which
it has been compared. Once you begin
to lose control-as happened in 1968–
there is little room for political man-
euvering, and violence becomes the
only option.
Q: Punto Critico has also written that
“the crisis of the Left permits us to re-
define and reorganize ourselves.” Are
you optimistic or pessimistic about
this possibility?
A: Very optimistic. The modern Mex- ican Left has had only 17 years of ex-
perience, since most organizations ex-
cept the Mexican Communist Party
date from the 1968 student move-
ment. Since that time we share a herit-
age of common experiences, regard-
less of the differences we have had:
the student movement itself; the
armed guerrilla movement in the early
1970s; the upsurge of independent labor unions and peasant land occupa-
tions throughout the 1970s; and now the experiences of electoral politics
amid the worst economic crisis since
the Great Depression.
The Left has been in the middle of these popular movements that have in-
volved hundreds of thousands of our people. We come together out of
necessity, but the people are also de-
manding greater clarity and unity
from the organized Left.
HEBERTO CASTILLO
Heberto Castillo is one of thefoun-
ders and now the head of the Mexican
Workers Party (PMT), a small but ex-
tremely vocal opposition to the PRI
regime. The PMT, which withdrew
from PSUM shortly after formation,
earned representation in the House of
Delegates for the first time, entering
with six mandates. The 57-year-
old silver-haired gentleman
I spoke with looked more like a
successful industrial engineer and
professor-which he was-than an
ex-political prisoner, acerbic govern-
ment critic and now opposition Depu-
ty. His words are a compelling combi-
Castillo: “acerbic government critic”
nation of scientist and politician,
futurist and teacher.
Q: How do you evaluate the electoral performance of the PMT and the other
parties?
A: This is the first time we have par-
ticipated in elections, but in general
we found that the PMT has a base of
support-especially in urban areas–
and our victory will give us greater
space to work throughout the country.
But until there is an electoral reform
that puts control of the elections in the
hands of the contending parties, there
will be no way to defeat the PRI.
Dirty tricks aside, it is evident that
there is a large conservative
bloc of middle-class and some poor
voters who support the PAN. For us
this means that if the Mexican Left
wants to win popular support it must
change its methods. I think the PMT
is moving in the right direction be-
cause its language is totally different
from the other Left parties. We base
our thinking on our own heroes like
[Emiliano] Zapata and [Benito]
Julrez. We proclaim absolute inde-
pendence from the socialist parties of
the world, analyzing and criticizing
their internal problems, such as lack
of democracy.
We are very concerned about this
middle class and those who are fooled
into thinking that the PAN alternative
is good for them. We consider this “the Ronald Reagan alternative,” that would have Mexico become an
appendage of the United States. There
are many people who agree with this;
it’s part of a process of “denationali-
zation.” This is negative not just be-
cause of sentimental patriotism, but
because if there were greater cultural, economic and political domination by
the United States, the same thing would happen to us as happened to the
indigenous peoples after Cortez’ con-
quest. These valuable cultures were smashed. We need to make people un-
derstand that the Mexicans who have
lived and worked in the United States
for 150 years are still second-class citizens.
Q: What are your plans as a new Dep-
uty?
A: I’m going in as a Deputy knowing nothing can be accomplished within
this Congress, but will use it as a more
prominent podium from which to de-
nounce over radio and TV what goes
on there-to tell people outside that these are a bunch of clowns and
check-cashers. To destroy as much as
possible the image of respectability
that this house of perversion may have. And if they run me out of Con-
gress, so much the better.
Q: As the leading critic of the govern-
ment’s oil policies, how do you ana-
lyze the current situation of Me-
xico’s oil exports and the foreign
debt?
A: Eight years ago we predicted that our debt would grow if we relied too much on oil exports for revenues, be-
cause this would produce inflation and
subsequent devaluations, would im-
mobilize the campesinos by denying them needed farm credits, and in turn
cause food shortages. Now we say
that Mexico is caught in a trap, be-
cause the enormous investment has
been made and we can’t say “dyna-
mite the oil wells.” This would be re-
ally throwing money away. So what
are we proposing? Our oil should be used as our means to exchange goods
and services with the rest of the Third
World. This is the only way we will
be able to break free of the terms of
unequal trade imposed on us by the
developed world.
Oil is unquestionably tied to the
debt, so for the last two years we have
been calling for the suspension of the
foreign debt. (Of course, since Fidel
Castro said it this year it counts more
now.) But should Mexico go to the
United States alone and say, “Mister
Reagan, we won’t pay”? No, there
are many nations in the Third World
like us and we owe $750 billion to-
gether. So Mexico should discuss this
problem with these nations and see
what would happen if we went to the
developed nations together and said,
“We’re broke. Send us your financial
wizards and tell us how we can pay
you.”
For Mexico, Venezuela, Indonesia
and Nigeria they might say, “No
problem. Let us siphon off your oil re-
serves and we’ll cover your debts.”
But these are only a few countries.
The rest would have to give up a
chunk of their land. So let’s stick to-
gether and negotiate together, and
whatever we come up with is bound to
be better than what we’ve got now.
Q: What do you see in Mexico’s fu-
ture?
A: I think the developed world con-
tinues to ignore the fact that there
won’t be sufficient oil for the rest of
the century. Fifteen to twenty years
from now there will only be enough
oil for the rich nations, and all the
poor ones will be without energy
sources. Mexico would be paralyzed
and a lot of our population would have
to go to the United States to find food
and jobs-a peaceful invasion. So that
is why we recently proposed in
Havana that the Third World also dis-
cuss the problem of energy with the
developed world.
In the final analysis, why do we
leftists carry on our struggles through-
out the world? Someone may say,
“My goal is a better distribution of
wealth, more equality.” Yes, that is
true, but why? I think it is an uncon-
scious and little understood motiva-
tion we have to struggle for the survi-
val of the human species. [ …. ]
Let’s not forget that the dinosaurs
were larger than we are and they dis-
appeared.
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