Contesting Mexico
UnpublishedJanuary/February
1997
Volume:
30
Number:
4
Article
Steven Volk
In late April, 1965, some 20,000 U.S. marines stormed the beaches of Santo Domingo in a successful attempt to crush a nationalist rebellion. That invasion, in the context of a spreading Indochinese war and a history of U.S. intervention in Latin America, sparked the formation of the North American Congress on Latin America. It also serves as a good lens through which to chart the course of democracy as discourse and practice in Latin America over the past 30 years.
Rubén Martínez
GOSPEL: From "The Acts of the Apostles": ..
As the citizens of Mexico suffer through the twenty-fifth month of the country's worst economic depression since the 1930s--and the twentieth year of contin- ually falling real incomes-a still inchoate opposition to the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and its globalizing project is bubbling up from below. This popular opposition, which is remaking the country's political culture, is the subject of this report.
Héctor De la Cueva
For over half a century, Mexico's labor movement Shas been a model of open subordination to the government and the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Every member of the country's dominant labor federation, the Mexican Workers Confederation (CTM) has been an auto- matic dues-paying member of the PRI.
David Barkin & Irene Ortiz & Fred Rosen
Mexico is transforming itself through the interaction of two very powerful forces-the neoliberal project, which is imposing a new set of social and economic relations from above, and the resistance to that project, reorganizing society from below. I Deep down, we don't want to bankrupt the system," says Jos6 Maria Imaz to a small "press conference in New York City, "but if it comes down to it, we will have to keep our word.
This guide, reprinted here by NACLA, is produced as a public service by WorldViews LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN (a regional division of World Views). It includes information on international nongovern- mental organizations whose primary concerns are the nations and people of the Latin American and Caribbean regions.
The Body Shop Controversy an Rocha's report on the suing of The Body Shop by Chief Pykati- Re of the Brazilian Kayapo indige- nous group contained substantial inaccuracies, not least its incorrect and misleading headline, "Amazon Chief Sues The Body Shop" [July/August, 1996]. Pykati-Re did not sue The Body Shop, nor did he have any intention of doing so.
Bordering on Chaos: Guerrillas, Stockbrokers, Politicians and Mexico's Road to Prosperity by Andres Oppenheimer, Little Brown, 1996, 367 pp., $25.
JMB
Fujimori's Deeper Problems eru's President Alberto Fujimori, who has assiduously cultivated the image of an iron-fisted imposer of order, was badly shaken by last month's hostage-taking at the home of the Japanese ambassador to Peru. Since the fateful capture of Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmdn in late 1992, Fujimori has had the political capital to deal with sticky situa- tions-from serious accusations of human rights crimes to allegations of military involvement in drug traf- ficking.
Alva Senzek
The El Barzon debtors' alliance, which originated in the state of Jalisco, is now a nationwide movement. A relentless media campaign has kept its cause in the public eye.
Georgina Gatsiopolous
Mexico's "other" armed movement, the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), made its first public appearance this past June 28, at a memorial service in the state of Guerrero commemorating the mas- sacre of 17 campesinos by state police the year before. Dozens of masked men and women dressed in military uniforms and brandishing high-caliber weapons suddenly appeared at the service in the vil- lage of Aguas Blancas.
Teresa Rendón & Carlos Salas
Over the past decade and a half, the structure of Mexican employment has undergone deep changes. The production-based workforce-the source of stable jobs that pay wages above the poverty line-has ceased to grow.
David Barkin & Fred Rosen
Over the last two years, Mexicans have been caught in an economic crisis of appalling pro- portions. The peso devaluation of December, 1994, and the ensuing capital flight and stock market crash, plunged the Mexican economy into its deep- est depression since the 1930s.
John Ross
On February 16, 1995, a pipeline belonging to Pemex, Mexico's state- owned oil company, one of 29 that criss- cross the town of Platano y Cacao, in the southern state of Tab- asco, blew sky-high. Nine people were killed outright and 23 injured.