NAFTA and the Oaxaca rebellion

by STAN GOTLIEB

The dustbin of history is filled with those who, like Calderon, sat looking backward as their valiant steed raced toward the edge of the cliff.

One day not long ago, freshman President Felipe Calderon got a present from George W. Bush's administration: Finally, after years of delays, the U.S. Commerce Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Transportation Safety Board, and a host of other beltway bureaucracies all appeared to be close to allowing Mexican trucks to haul loads into the U.S. heartland. Felipe's predecessor, Vicente Fox, had been unable to move the U.S. bureaucracy during his six-year term. By ordering this " opening," Bush (or his team, same thing) gave a boost to Felipe's "can do" image.
The Teamsters union and the U.S. trucking industry immediately set up such a howl that it could be heard all the way down 'here in Oaxaca. Cheaper (non-unionized) Mexican labor, it was said, would force U.S. truckers to de-unionize or go out of business, and allegedly unsafe Mexican equipment would put all of us at higher risk on the road. Whether this will prove to be true or not depends on whom you talk to, but whether it is true or not, it is bound to be a political headache.
The very next day, a sub-secretary in the Mexican Foreign Relations ministry issued a nasty attack against Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, part of a desperate U.S.-led campaign to destabilize Chavez's regime and slow down the ever-increasing influence he has among the governments of the region. While many Mexicans are chafing about Hugo's sometimes vulgar put-downs, first of Fox and then of Calderon, there are a substantial number who agree with his assessment of them as Bush's "poodle dogs," and public reaction was generally unfavorable.

So what is the meaning of these two developments? How do they tie in to the "bigger picture" of U.S. and Mexican political realities? Why, it's the North American Free Trade Agreement. Not what's in it, but what it represents: the ongoing attempt to remove all restrictions on the flow of capital in and out of our southern neighbors' borders. Felipe believes unreservedly that transnational capital should flow unimpeded—and that bunches of it should flow toward Mexico. While he is working diligently to help make this happen, many of his neighbors are not so sure it's a good idea.

There is a serious political struggle going on all across South and Central America, on the issue of global capitalist "investment." George Bush is on one side (along with his pal Felipe Calderon) and Hugo Chavez is on the other (along with his pals Fidel Castro, Evo Morales and Rafael Correa). Much of South America is leaning toward Chavez. That's why the U.S. government went so far as to threaten serious economic sanctions if Daniel Ortega won the last election in Nicaragua (which he did; many believe his victory was as much a reaction to U.S. attempts at intervention as it was a positive vote for the Sandinista-turned-Social Democrat).

Two things seem likely, based on the Nicaragua experience: The U.S. will come to understand that strong-arm tactics will not give the desired results, and, in the not-too-distant future, as things get predictably worse for the average Juan, the cries from below will create more demand for an alternative to the rapacious investment flows that currently are impoverishing Central American citizens.

Of course there will be great resistance to putting constraints on capital flow. International corporations based in the U.S. and elsewhere will act to preserve their interests. By and large, these interests are being currently protected by force of arms. Child labor, peonage, and dismantling of the social infrastructure (privatizing health care and education), environmentally disastrous mining and lumbering schemes, resort development, and crushing of unionizing efforts all help to keep the profits high. Allowing profits to be exported rather than re-invested in needed infrastructure projects returns enormous rates of profit to the shareholders, thus assuring big bonuses in executive land. In the short run, there will be some victories for the anti-Globalist groundswell and a lot of defeats. In the long run, globalism as it is currently being practiced doesn't stand a chance against a people becoming more aware of the source of their poverty and resolving—no matter the personal cost—to make it go away.

That's what has been happening in Oaxaca. As we sit here in Paradise (for us expats, nc most folks) and observe growth of the "movement" we note that the connection between transnational capital and the increasing impoverishment of the majority of Mexicans (not of the government of Mexico: Since the rich are getting richer at an ever faster rate, the "economy" appears to be doing fine) is being talked about more and more. The popular uprising that exploded on the scene in June 2006 is a good example of this. In the continuing parades and demonstrations there are sometimes as many "Fuera NAFTA" (NAFTA go away) banners as there are "Fuera URO" (Governor Ruiz, get out), and nearly as many pamphlets demanding an end to transnational rip-off of Mexican resources as there are demanding an end to police repression.

Calderon and his party the PAN, hopes to make alliances with enough members of the old PRI party to continue to privatize the Mexican economy. He may succeed for a time. However, the increasingly more sophisticated understanding— of those "from below"—of the root causes of their distress is creating new political alliances, and rebellion against the "Washington Consensus" is in the air everywhere. The dustbin of history is filled with those who, like Calderon, sat looking backward as their valiant steed raced toward the edge of the cliff.