Letter from Mexico

by Stan Gotlieb

    It has been six months since Vicente Fox Quesada, president of the United States of Mexico, donned the red, white and green sash of office. As the first candidate to defeat the ruling PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) in 70 years, he took on the aura of a savior of the Republic, and enjoyed the highest popularity ratings in modern history, with the possible exception of Lazaro Cardenas, who nationalized the oil industry and distributed land to the peasants.
    Fox is a determined, unabashed Globalist. That is, he believes that Mexico’s future lies outside of its borders, in the world financial markets. Like his predecessor, Ernesto Zedillo, he has, at every opportunity, encouraged foreign capital to invest heavily in the Mexican economy. A couple of weeks ago, he presided over the biggest buyout in Mexican history: the sale of Bannaci, the holding company that controls Banamex, the second largest bank in the country, to Citigroup, owner of Citibank, for $12.6 billion. The next day, the peso traded at under nine to the dollar, for the first time since 1998. (It had been as high as 10 in recent months.)
    According to La Jornada, Mexico’s leading leftist newspaper, foreign interests now own 83 percent of Mexico’s financial institutions (Zedillo’s term saw the sale of Bancomer to Banco Santander, a Spanish banking house).
    To be sure, Fox isn’t trying to do anything that Zedillo wouldn’t have done if he had been able. Zedillo, however, had strong opposition within his own PRI party, whose populist demagoguery was a part of its formula for retaining power (along with force, corruption and ballot stuffing). They prevented him from selling Pemex, the state-owned petroleum corporation, for example.
    Fox, on the other hand, belongs to the PAN (National Action Party), a conservative, moralistic, strongly pro-business formation. Fox’s cabinet looks a lot like Bush II’s: full of corporate types with no ties to the general public, whose agendas have little room for public benefits such as conserving natural resources, protecting labor rights or addressing so-called “safety net” issues. For example, his secretary of labor came from a job as head of the industrial council; his secretary of the treasury is a carryover from Zedillo, whose chief claim to fame is passing along a private banking debt, more than $100 billion, to the taxpayers.
    These developments, along with a new “austerity” program, have made Fox the darling of investment bankers everywhere, particularly the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which have just rewarded him by doubling the amount of reserve credit he can draw on to keep the peso strong. When the 1994/95 peso crisis hit, Mexico had only $4 billion in hard currency in the treasury; when Clinton bailed Zedillo out, he did so with $26 billion; current reserves are $40 billion. Shearson Lehman and other heavy speculators in Latin American economies are very bullish on Mexico.
    Mexican economists are less enthusiastic. Some point out that the money that investment houses are pouring into Mexico today was invested in Brazil and Argentina yesterday. Money is very easy to redirect, and the results—as in Argentina—of such redirection can be disastrous. Here today, gone tomorrow: not a very stable situation.
    Some point to the strengthening peso as a sign of trouble, not of growth. David Shields, who writes for the News, has repeatedly asked, “Where is the plan to build a stable long-term infrastructure in Mexico?” Others point out that the much touted export sector, which actually contributes very little to the Mexican economy in the long run, is being maimed by a strong peso; the more dollar to the peso, the higher the dollar price, and the better imports from Thailand and China look to the average gringo.
    The real question, however, is, “How does the average Mexican view the Fox domestic program?” And the answer is, “somewhere between confusion and anger.” And well they should: there is little in it for them.
    Aside from his plans to privatize the schools and the system of socialized medicine, Fox has promised to cut subsidies on staples, fire thousands of government workers (like most Third World countries, Mexico’s public sector has taken up a lot of the slack caused by a rapidly growing population and few new jobs), and sell off state-owned oil and gas utilities. Fox has proposed to extend the already-controversial IVA (value added tax; sales tax to you) to previously exempt items such as groceries, medicines and school books.
    At first, folks thought he wasn’t totally serious. Like Bush II, he has a tendency to shoot from the hip, and then back off when the reactions are unfriendly. The reaction to extending the IVA was very unfriendly, but instead of backing off, he hunkered down and insisted. When asked by a reporter if the extension wasn’t just a little bit regressive, he opined that it was very progressive, since the rich, who buy more groceries than the poor, would be paying more taxes. Fox, an extremely wealthy rancher who was once the head of Coca Cola for Latin America, planted his trademark cowboy boots in the dirt and took a stand.
    Popular reaction has been overwhelming. Whole towns have declared “No IVA (extension)” days, with rallies, billboards, newspaper ads, etc. Every Labor Day parade, in every city and town in Mexico, featured banners and signs that said “No IVA
(extension).” Members of his own party have declared “No IVA (extension).” The legislature stalled on considering his financial reform package until it was too late, passed a few relatively non-controversial parts of the package and recessed without any debate on the extension. Large ads have appeared in the national dailies, signed by members of all three major parties, opposing the extension. Fox, meanwhile, has been insisting that he must have it or true financial reform is impossible.
    At this point, two things are clear. One is that Fox will not get his Extension. The other is that, believing himself to be riding on an overwhelming wave of popular approval, Fox has put far too much of his political credibility on a losing horse. No matter what he does now, he will be criticized, either as a hopeless lackey of the internationalists (if he keeps insisting) or as a weak leader (if he backs down).
    The third alternative, which is that he step back a pace or two from the public spotlight and let things cool off, is one he is personally unable to take. This is the guy who actually said, during a press conference, that he is one of Bush II’s closest personal advisers. Tell that to Dick Cheney. If ego was energy, California could run every air conditioner all day and night on Fox, and never experience a brown-out.

May 2001

Mercado Centrál is as Mexican as Apple Pie

(c)2001 by Stan Gotlieb

When I was visiting in Minneapolis a couple of years ago, construction had just started on what was to be the Minneapolis’ ' first Hispanic market place. When I came back this year, there it was, on Bloomington and East Lake: the Mercado Centrál (central market).

I had dropped by the offices of the Southside Pride, to say hi to old and new friends, and mentioned that I was interested in doing a story on the Mercado. Great idea, I was told: go for it. And go for it I did.

As you walk along Lake Street, as I did, from Nicollet to Bloomington, you pass many restaurants, shops, grocery stores and other businesses bearing the names of Mexican towns. It is part of the exciting, exotic, heady mix of new immigrants breathing new life into the old home town. By the time I got to Bloomington and Lake, I was envisioning the wonderful, exotic mercádos I left behind in Oaxaca. I opened the doors, stepped inside, and entered: Uptown.

At first, I was disappointed, maybe even a little upset. But then I remembered that I was in Minneapolis, not Oaxaca; that while the world revolves around me, it also revolves around others; that one goes to Oaxaca to find Oaxaca, while Lake and Bloomington is located in Minneapolis.

Once I was over worrying about what it was not -- a little bit of old Mexico in Minneapolis -- I began to see it for what it is, and to appreciate what a nice blend of old and new aspirations it represents.

Originally conceived as an "incubator" for startup small businesses with Hispanic themes, run by Latino owners and workers, the Mercado was planned as an "anchor" for other new enterprises along what was, not so many years ago, a vacancy-plagued and crime-ridden set of blocks.

The success of this approach can be easily seen by anyone riding the 21 bus. Newly renovated buildings, newly opened restaurants, boutiques, and grocery stores with names like "Morelia", "Michoacan" and "Puerto Escondido" evoke the richness and exotic ambiance of the "old country,” mingle with similar start-ups featuring the cuisine and clothing of Somalia, Ethiopia, and other African ports of call.

East Lake Street, once (in my own youth) a vital commercial hub for the Scandinavians, Germans, and Italians that were the then-resident immigrant groups, is again benefitting from the ambition and dedication of newcomers bent on becoming successful citizens.

I can testify to the quality of the fajitas and the aguas de fruta (fresh fruit juices diluted by water, with a little sugar added). I found the staff in the various tiendas (little stores) and fondas (little kitchens) to be lively and pleasant. The honey-comb design of the ground floor reminded me of “home,” as did the gringos who were standing around trying to decide if they should partake of the tamales (“can you ask her if it's real spicy, honey?”), and the many Latinos who were shopping and noshing.

North meets south at Bloomington and Lake. The south part is definitely “northernized,” but on the other hand you don't have to shut yourself up in a flimsy little tube and launch yourself through the air for six hours to get there. Although, once exposed to our local Mercado Centrál, you might just get inspired to go to Mexico, looking for the real thing. If you do go, and you see me there, be sure to say hello.

April 2001
Zapatour brings rebels to Mexico City
by Stan Gotlieb

[author's note: the EZLN is an army in rebellion, whose goal is to bring more equitable conditions to the poor indigenous peoples of Chiapas and Mexico. They do not want State power, nor do they consider themselves "revolutionaries". At press time the EZLN had presented their demands to the Mexican Congress.

The traffic has been diverted. The stage (erected last night) has 24 chairs on it. There are transit cops everywhere. The crowd control barriers are up. Not since el Presidente, Vicente Fox Quesada, visited Oaxaca in his first week in office, has so much security been devoted to a public event. Who is coming? Is it a rock star? A sports hero? Perhaps a big shot politician or a television talk-show host? No, it's somebody bigger, more adored, more electrifying: it's Sub-Comandante Marcos!
For seven years, Marcos has been keeping the Zapatista cause in the public eye. As spokesperson for the Zapatista National Liberation Army (Spanish acronym EZLN), the charismatic, ski-masked, pipe smoking blue eyed (native Mayans of the state of Chiapas where the Zapatistas operate have black eyes) Marcos represents the spirit of the Mexican revolution of 1910 to 1919, which was stolen by the bureaucrats and wealthy land owners.
Named after Emiliano Zapata, a brilliant general whose cry of “Land and Liberty” was stilled by assassination shortly after the revolution was won, the EZLN rekindles hope in the average Mexican that Zapata's promises of democracy and economic reform will someday be fulfilled. The EZLN emerged from fifteen years of preparation and organization in the mountainous jungles of Chiapas, Mexico's most southern- and poorest - state on New Years Day in 1994, and startled Mexico and the world by occupying some cities and declaring “war” on the “bad government,” touching the hearts of the Mexican people. Everyone knows the names of the principal Comandantes, and the people follow the developments in Chiapas with great attention. But, more than anyone, everyone loves “El Sup,” as Marcos is affectionately called.
Freed from the box in which they have been held by the Army for the last seven years, Marcos and 23 Comandantes of the EZLN are on the road, and today (February 26) is their day in Oaxaca. (Between now and mid March, they will, if the trip goes as planned, campaign in 12 states and the Federal District. In the process, they will meet with members of Congress in Mexico City, and attend a national indigenous conference in Michoacan state.)
Starting around 12:30 noon, speakers from local political formations take to the stage to stir up the waiting crowd. "Zapata Lives!" the speaker chants. "The Struggle continues!" the crowd responds. "The People, United..." begins the speaker. "Cannot be defeated!" yells the crowd.
At 3:20, right on schedule, a new luxury bus follows an equally new white van into the street behind the stage. The Zapatista leadership can be seen through the partially opaque windows, dressed in their native costumes and fatigues, and wearing bandanas or ski masks. Behind the bus are more buses, as far as the eye can see. Their passengers debark and fill the street leading down to the back of the stage. There are thousands of them: friends from all over Mexico and the world.
For half an hour, the crowd surrounding the bus is so enthusiastic that the delegates cannot disembark safely. Finally, local cops shove the crowd back to a point where it is possible to chain together some people barriers between the bus and the stage steps, making an aisle. Meanwhile, the crowd has swelled at the front of the stage, and it is no longer possible to move if you are in the first 40 feet.
Finally, the bus doors open, and out steps the delegation. Greetings are offered from local groups, some with "Zapatista" in their names, and some not. The delegates, one by one, come forward to speak. Marcos is the third (and, as it turns out, last) speaker. The crowd goes wild. Young women swoon, just like bobby-soxers did for Sinatra. His speech, full of references to the raft of allegorical characters he has been using for years, is measured. Calm. Informative. We are going to Mexico, he says, to make sure that we are never again ignored by our government. You, too, are struggling to be recognized. We walk with you on your journey for justice, even as you walk with us on ours.
Meanwhile, the media are swarming all over everything. Every lamp post, every tree, every generator box: every surface that is more than four inches above the sidewalk is jam-crammed full of real and wannabe photographers, flexing their muscular telephoto lenses at the stage. The major national networks are here, up-linking to satellites for instant coverage. There are so many cameras around that if you could gather them all up you could start a national chain of camera stores.
Part of a group of 300 Italian observers accompanying the caravan come marching into the back of the square, arms linked, in white jumpsuits. Not so many years ago, a group of Italian legislators was summarily booted out of the country for “engaging in behavior contrary to the immigration law,” and perhaps the grins on their faces have to do with their contemplation of the differences between then and now.
T-shirts, scarves, ski masks and pins, all with Zapatista themes, are being sold on blankets hastily spread out at the edges of the crowd. The carts selling hot-dogs, boiled corn (on the cob and off), hot cakes and shaved ice are doing a land-office business. All the sidewalk cafes are jammed. Entrepreneurism is alive and well in Zapatistaland.
By five o'clock, the buses are gone, the crowd has pretty much dispersed, and the banners are being rolled up, to be taken to the next demonstration, wherever and whenever that might be. Tomorrow, the PRI controlled press will spend a lot of time on the death threat received by the caravan, and little time repeating the message of solidarity that Marcos keeps repeating in the hopes that somehow, before it is too late, the marginalized indigenous peoples of Mexico will rise up to challenge the system that keeps them down.

Stan Gotlieb's "Oaxaca / Mexico Newsletter" is available at http://www.realoaxaca.com/news.html. His email address is stan@realoaxaca.com

March 2001
Apologies and Appreciation From Mexico
by Stan Gotlieb

In my last “Letter,” I mistakenly identified Ramsey Clark, tireless civil rights worker and people's advocate, with a firm of (some believe) boorish, rapacious, cynical and conscienceless lobbyists for dictators, torturers and drug traffickers: Akin, Gump, Strauss and Hauer.
Having had this egregious error called to my attention, I herewith apologize to Mr. Clark, my long suffering publisher, Ed Felien, and all the good citizens who knew better and called or wrote to tell me so.
As well, I want to take this opportunity to thank those who, for the first time in six years of writing this column, took the time to give me a little feedback. Since it is unlikely that my maunderings were free of mistakes up to then, I can only hope that the next such outpouring of useful information will occur sooner than six years from now.

Contact Stan Godlieb at: stan@realoaxaca.com

February 2001

Al Giordano Speaks Truth To Power

by Stan Gotlieb

Mexico, like Columbia, is a narco-state. The billions of dollars generated in the process of feeding our appetite for illicit substances have permeated the highest levels of the Mexican government. Everybody "knows" this is true, but few of us have a clear overall perspective on who's who, what's what, and what can be done about it. Al Giordano is one of the exceptions.
Al is the webmaster, editor, writer, producer, promoter and research co-ordinator of what should be the hottest web site on the Internet, www.narconews.com , and that makes him one of the most dangerous men in the world if you happen to be a politician or policeman on the take (as most are). He and his extensive network of friends and colleagues have given themselves an enormous task: to expose the network of corruption, no matter where it goes.
Giordano, a former investigative reporter for the Boston Phoenix, one of the longest lived and most respected of the 1960s "alternative" newspapers, believes that only legalization of drugs can defeat the growing drug problem; that until you take the profit motive out of it, the existence of all that money will drive the investigation, interdiction, law enforcement, and punishment systems, and that the result will inevitably be a growing spiral of addiction, pointless imprisonment, loss of human rights, and citizen apathy in the face of official corruption and hypocricy leading to ever more repressive state mechanisms. His arguments are not new, but he puts them together forcibly, tying them to what he and his sources have discovered about the actual workings of the drug hierarchy.
Covering the drug story means traveling the globe, with an emphasis on Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Amazonian Brazil and Venezuela, Panama and Mexico. It means talking to people who are saying and doing things the drug lords, and the governments they own, do not like. It means spending time with the FARC in Columbia, the Zapatistas in Mexico, ex-DEA and -CIA spooks; newspapermen whose presses have been destroyed, reporters killed, premises firebombed, families threatened. This is not a job for the faint-hearted.
Recently, Al attended a meeting in New York City, where he and his friend Mario Menendez, editor and publisher of the daily Yucatecan newspaper "Por Esto" and a vigorous exposer of drug corruption, named the chairman of the board of Banamex, Mexico's largest bank, as a top narco boss. Por Esto, for it's trouble, had already been twice shut down by the Mexican authorities, and twice reopened by the courts. The last time, the supreme court of the State found that the claims were supported by the facts of the matter (a very large surprise, given the generally corrupt nature of the court system). The facts are these: reporters for Por Esto risked their lives by sneaking onto a Caribbean island owned by the banker off the coast of Quintana Roo state, long known as the "porous coast" for its importance in trans-shipment of goods. There, they photographed planes landing on the banker's private air strip, and packages of the type and size used in smuggling cocaine being unloaded by armed personnel wearing the uniform of the banker's personal guard force. These packages were taken by truck to the banker's boat dock, and loaded onto fast launches for the trip to the mainland.
What makes this even more interesting is that, among the banker's guests in the last year have been president Vicente Fox, half his cabinet, ex-president Ernesto Zedillo, U.S. embassador to Mexico Jeffrey Davidow, and old slick Willy Clinton himself. The question arises: if your average Juan knows what goes on there, how could all these important people, with all their sources of intelligence, not know? And assuming they did know, does this mean they are merely hypocrites, or -- more ominously -- on the take themselves? Giordano, tracing the money, finds even more parallels between the flow of drugs and the career stations of Clinton's Mexico Ambassador, Jeffrey Davidow, as well as some other diplomats with backing on both sides of the congressional aisle.
Shortly after the NYC speech, carried by the Voice but not the Times, Giordano was notified that he is being sued by one of the nation's most prestigious law firms, Aiken Gump, in which Ramsey Clark is a partner. This firm is notorious for representing various dictatorships and other unsavory individuals and nations. In this case, the client is Señor Roberto Hernandez, as an individual, and as representative (board chairman) of Banamex.
While Giordano welcomes the chance to depose the banker, and some of the banker's cronies in the States and in Mexico, thus perhaps exposing a little more of the truth to public light, the cost of his defense will be enormous. He has engaged a high-powered civil rights attorney as his lead advisor, and is scrambling for money to pay the fees, which could easily exceed $300,000 dollars.
If you've got any extra money, Al could use it, but more importantly he needs well informed people out there advocating for him. I urge you to read Narco News if you have a computer and an internet connection and have any interest in the reality of the narco nexus in this and other countries. Al may exaggerate now and then, but I've never caught him in a lie. His insights and revelations must not be suppressed.

Stan Gotlieb writes "The Oaxaca / Mexico Newsletter" and "Letters From Oaxaca, Mexico", available on the internet at: http://www.realoaxaca.com His email address is stan@realoaxaca.com

January 2001

Don’t Expect too Much in Chiapas
by Stan Gotlieb

Mexican president Vicente Fox campaigned on a (one hopes, tongue in cheek) promise that he would resolve the problems in Chiapas “in fifteen minutes”. Now, much more than fifteen days later, the reality is beginning to sink in.
Limited autonomy for indigenous settlements has been the first and most important step demanded by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). Five years ago, the San Andreas accords, designed to begin the process of autonomy, were signed by the representatives of the Mexican government and the Zapatistas. Then-president Zedillo, in a move that took everyone by surprise, locked the accords in a bottom drawer, and the EZLN refused to negotiate further with the “bad government” of Zedillo.
Fox, as promised, sent the accords to congress as the first official act of his presidency. There, opposed largely by dissident members of his own party and the bulk of the PRI (the party he defeated to become maximum leader), it may languish indefinitely. The EZLN will not come back to the table if it is not passed.
Another roadblock to peace in Chiapas is the presence of (depending on who’s talking) between 20 and 60 thousand well armed military, plus countless state Judiciales (judicial police) and PFP (the national police). Fox ordered the pullback of all army units from forward positions near villages that are sympathetic to the Zapatistas, but reports coming from the area indicate that there are as many roadblocks as ever, and that where pullouts have occurred the troops concerned have only moved back to more entrenched positions a few miles away.
Perhaps the biggest problem, and one that has blossomed since the pocket veto of the San Larrainzar accords, is the campaign of terror being waged against EZLN sympathizers by various paramilitary formations backed by the rich landlords and drug traffickers (the EZLN pursues rigorous anti-drug and anti-alcohol policies). So called “white guards,” most prominently an organization ironically named “peace and justice,” have killed hundreds of campesinos and dispossessed thousands more of their lands and means of support. The army and other “law enforcement” agencies have done little or nothing to curb these terrorist groups; quite the contrary: in several cases, it is believed that the arms being used were supplied by local PRI political groups with the co-operation of local police and the army.
Ultimately, the problem of the terrorists must be dealt with, a job that noone in the PAN (Fox’s party) or the PRI (Zedillo’s party) wants to do. The reason is simple: money, and votes. Indigenous people are poor; the big landowners are rich, as are the urban merchant class that lives and works in the state capital of Tuxtla Gutierrez and other large towns. A docile (not to say terrified) population does not demand “unreasonable” wages or go on strike, argue about delivery of services (such as running water) to the village, or try to prevent the destruction of the Lacandon rainforest by loggers and ranchers. An uprooted population does not organize against drug growing and trafficking.

December 2000

The good, the bad, the ugly
by Stan Gotlieb

Politics in the “new” Mexico is about to take on some of the aspects of a high-noon shootout in a John Ford western. Starting this month, two shoot-from-the-hip political gunslingers are moving into the two most powerful offices in the country.
One in four Mexicans lives in or around Mexico City. While a good share of these approximately 20 million folks are actually residents of other states, the vast majority of them cross into the Federal District to work, play, or just to get to the other side. There is no other “center” in the country. Unlike the U.S., in which New York and Los Angeles and other centers serve as nexuses for this and that, Mexico City is more than a Washington D.C., more than just a seat for government and all the pandering and corruption that goes with it. It is also the center of commerce, finance, education, the entertainment industry — everything but heavy industry, which is scattered throughout the northern states. This means that what happens in the Federal District does, in an absolute way, affect life in the rest of the country.
On December 5, Andres Manuell Lopez Obrador will take over the reins from his fellow PRDista, Rosario Robles, herself a replacement for Cuauhtamoc Cardenas, who was crushed in his third bid for the presidency. Lopez will inherit a mess. Mexico City is virtually ungovernable, and may by the end of his term be virtually unlivable. Crime, mostly committed by the uniformed police, is out of control; the city is sinking into the lake bed over which it was built as the water aquifer underneath it is depleted; the black market is so popular that in late November a massive police raid of the most notorious center for contraband was beaten back by a massive uprising of vendors and buyers; the parks at the periphery are being occupied by squatters from the countryside with no where else to go; and a new national government headed by a right-wing politician is sure to look askance at pouring more money into trying to straighten out the chaos.
Lopez is no political tyro, however, and his left-of-center credentials are impeccable. Once head of the powerful oil workers’ union in Tabasco, the most important state for producing and refining of oil, Lopez won the governorship of the state only to have the win taken away by election fraud. He has gone on to occupy the presidency of his party, the PRD, before an impressive victory in the Federal District elections. He walks and talks like a liberal, pro labor, pro poor, anti-corruption firebrand. Among his cabinet appointees is a man famous for his lifelong fight against corruption, and a “graduate” of the student massacre at the University in 1968 who has made a career of championing human rights causes. He will have to be reckoned with for the next six years.
Vicente Fox Quesada takes office on December 1. Having done what many thought the impossible — defeating a PRI candidate for president — and having done it without any help from the leadership of Lopez’s PRD, Fox is riding high on the wings of victory. However, he will have to deal with a notoriously obstreperous legislature where his party does not have a plurality, much less a majority, and, at some level, he will have to deal with Lopez to keep the Federal District a livable place.
At the same time, he will have to appease the right-wing big-business conservative-Catholic PAN party, of which he is now the most prominent member. Although he won in spite of the fact that he did not openly seek the support of his party, preferring instead to raise his own campaign money (a fact that infuriated the old guard), nobody can govern Mexico (if anybody can) without some sort of party machinery to help smooth the way, and Fox and the PAN are stuck with each other. Already, he has proposed some Draconian tax laws, which don’t stand a chance of passing the Legislature: he proposes extending the “value added” (sales) tax to the previously exempt categories of food and medicines. He promised that the currently nationalized energy and electrical sectors would not be privatized, but only the naive believed he meant it, and he has already proposed taking steps toward privatization, an idea which is also very unpopular with the average citizen. He is filling his new cabinet with monetarist, globalist neo-liberal idealogues.
Fox is a NAFTA booster; a good buddy of G.W. Bush, and a good enough buddy of Al Gore; an ex-executive with Coca Cola’s Mexican branch; a rancher said by the press to use child labor; a believer in unions being neither seen nor heard. Fox opposes virtually everything that Lopez stands for.
Depending on your point of view, one of these gunslingers is the Good, and the other is the Bad. The Ugly is the international business and banking community, as exemplified by Mexico’s northern neighbor, the good old U. S. of A., Mexico’s biggest trading partner by orders of magnitude, and holders of the strings which connect Mexico to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund — a hundred ton gorilla whose wishes are not to be lightly ignored.
With the Ugly on Fox’s side, what chance does Lopez Obrador have in this little duel? Actually, quite a good one. He has the leadership of the most important political force in Mexico: the people of the Federal District. And he will use that lever for all he is worth.
Unless there is a radical shift in Mexican society, which seems unlikely in the short run, this particular shootout may be — please forgive the pun and the racist implications — a Mexican standoff.

Visit Stan’s new Web site, at http://www.realoaxaca.com or email Stan at stan@realoaxaca.com

November 2000

Beware the lowly ficus

by Stan Gotlieb

Everybody in South Minneapolis knows what a ficus is, right? It’s that fast-growing little tree that graces the bow windows and bathrooms of houses, and performs as indoor landscaping for offices, apartment house lobbies, and fern bars.
When you get down here in the sub-tropics, ficuses, like a lot of people, are liable to undergo surprising and unexpected growth. Our ficus is now six years old, and about 50 feet tall. It sits in the middle of our patio, and covers it from side to side, about 50 feet across. It provides shade in the spring (when we need it) and in the summer rainy season (when we don’t). It is a wonderful centerpiece, and provides one end of my hammock a place to hang. So why did I use “beware” in the title of this article?
Do you have a long-haired dog or cat? Do you sometimes despair when it sheds? Be glad you don’t have a giant ficus! What your maple tree puts on the ground in a season might, if it is big enough, rival what our ficus drops every month. Oh, my, it sheds. And sheds. And sheds. And then there are the seeds, hard little pea-like things. In the rainy season, they drop like — well — ficus seeds. All in all, sweeping r us.
Did I mention that this titanic arboreal presence is only six years old? And that it grows almost as fast as it sheds? Every year, we have to have the branches trimmed back to protect our roof. Since it is owned by our landlady, we have to negotiate with her.
Like the few lucky widows around here, our landlady is very well off financially, and owns several valuable properties, from which she extracts as much rent as she can and does as little maintenance as she can get away with. So as you can imagine, I was mildly surprised and a little worried when she said, “The tree needs to be trimmed; I have a tree trimmer I can call.” You see, for the last two years, we have paid a fellow we know to trim the tree. This is because when, in the process of renting the place, we mentioned that the tree looked like it could use a trimming, whereupon she hired a fellow who cut down every limb to about six feet from the trunk, totally denuding the tree.
“You won’t have it cut like you did when we moved in, will you?” I asked. “Oh, no,” she said. “It’s too expensive to have all that wood hauled away.” Thus reassured, I told her to go for it.
Next day, the trimmer showed up. He couldn’t have been over 16, a wiry little guy dressed in city shoes, slacks, and a long-sleeve sport shirt — and carrying a machete nearly as long as he is tall. My heart sank. Another butchery, coming up. I couldn’t bear to watch. Dreading what I would find when I returned, I slunk away to the Zocalo to soothe my shattered nerves with a watermelon juice.
Steeling my nerves, I rounded the corner into our patio, and there is was — all one-quarter of it. Following some arcane instruction from the landlady or his own heart, he had trimmed off all the branches on the north, south, and west of the tree, and left the east quarter alone. I didn’t know whether to hope he would return to balance out the job (thus once again denuding the tree) or leave it be (as a sign that at least some of the tree still lived). He did not return.
When Diana came home, I asked her if she thought the tree might fall over. She said she thought it would be OK as long as the wind didn’t come from the west. I pointed out that the wind most often comes from the west. She responded that at least it wouldn’t fall on the house; just the bottled gas cylinders.
“Well, what can ya gonna do?” I asked as I grabbed my latest trash mystery story and headed for the hammock, which happens to be on the east side of the tree. Somehow, I don’t fall asleep in the hammock as much as I used to. It probably has to do with making sure I know when the wind shifts to the west.

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October 2000

by Stan Gotlieb

In spite of what the spin doctors and Washington beltway lobbyists hired by the Mexican government tell us, Mexico is not a democracy. It is an oligarchy (a small clique of ruling families), and no oligarchy can operate effectively without overwhelming official forces of “law and order,” chief among which is, always, the military. The reasons Mexico has been so successful at avoiding the banana republic image of its Central American neighbors are that the civilian repression and co-optation of dissent has been efficient, and one-party rule has kept the dividing of the spoils smooth and seamless from administration to administration. Simply put, there has been no reason for the Army to interfere.
Since the July 2 election, the whole system has been thrown into chaos. A nouveau-riche upstart, Vicente Fox, whose image of a plain (and sometimes barnyard) talking modernist is offensive to the more patrician powers that be, is to be the next President of the Republic. He and his National Action Party (PAN) can be compared to Richard Nixon, whose California roots and working class origins were in many ways a slap in the face to the Cabots, Lodges, and others in the old, established East-coast Republican hierarchy. The “natural order” has been successfully challenged, and the Mexican old guard is plenty nervous.
Traditionally, upper-class Mexicans have only four basic choices for a career: the Church, the 71-year ruling PRI party that just had its string broken, industry, or the military. This has been the base for the informal oligarchy’s control of the country. Any given President has had access to lots of family money (industry); cousins in the Legislature, which acted as a rubber stamp; an uncle, who is a Bishop, or two to keep the Church in line; and some in-laws among the generals. No longer.
Fox has high marks from the Church. For the first time since the Revolution of 1910, which stripped the Church of property and overt political participation, a President (elect) of the Republic, who at one point campaigned with a flag of the Virgin of Guadalupe (patron saint of Mexico) in direct violation of the law against combining Church and State, openly and publicly attends mass.
The industrialists embrace Fox as one of their own, and the general feeling is that if you liked Ernesto Zedillo’s soak-the-poor and give-to-the-rich neo-Globalism, you are going to adore Vicente Fox, who has said that only the business community can lead Mexico to first world status.
The politicians are in total disarray. After the PRI lost the Presidential election, it also lost other key contests, most notably a landslide defeat for the governorship of war-torn Chiapas, long regarded as a “sure thing” state for the PRI. For the first time in modern history, the PRI controls neither the executive suite nor the legislative bodies — but neither does the PAN. Nobody is in control.
All this is very disturbing to the Army, in which Fox has no allies of sufficient rank to matter. Part of the deal he had to make when he was running was to promise the Army that they could pick the next (civilian?) Secretary of Defense by sending him a list of three candidates picked from the General Command. In exchange, they agreed to stand mute on the election. Still, they are nervous.
The Army is further disturbed by noises Fox has been making about completely revamping the war on drugs. After years of struggle, sometimes escalating to open warfare between Army and police factions protecting rival drug barons, a sort of armed peace is said to have been established. High ranking civilian and military narco-corruptos are said to have reached agreement on who gets what, with the lion’s share of the payoffs and profits now going to the military.
Is it a coincidence that while Clinton was in Colombia, touting U.S. involvement in drug eradication, which is as much about who profits from drugs — the guerrillas or the Army — as anything else, one of the highest ranking Mexican generals gave a speech to the military college in which he asked the question, “If we, the military, do not act to stop the drug trade, who will?”
Is it a coincidence that two retired (I want to emphasize retired) generals were recently jailed for past (note: not current) involvement in the narcotics trade by the Army, which has the power to try and imprison its own personnel without any public oversight. One of them, a notoriously bloody repressor of dissent in Guerrero state in the ’70s, made millions while on the job.
Dope is the chief money maker in Mexico. Growing it and smuggling it are the biggest industries, and who controls the trade controls a large part of the state. The Army may be moving to protect its economic interests, and this would present a potentially very destabilizing situation.
In Chiapas, Fox has vowed to resolve the civil war “in the first 15 minutes of my administration.” Some 40,000 troops are billeted in Chiapas, ostensibly to keep the peace, but perhaps in fact to support the narcotics trade, which some say is largely controlled by the Army and which is opposed by the insurgent Zapatista guerrillas. One of the Zapatista preconditions to signing a peace agreement with the Mexican government is the withdrawal of the vast majority of occupying forces from Chiapas. Some reporters and human rights spokespersons have drawn connections between the Army and the narcotics industry in Chiapas. If true, this would suggest the Army will oppose any peace treaty in order to protect a large source of illicit profits.
The Army is also under attack from within. Ranking officers have, in the last year, been jailed for protesting the star-chamber imprisonments of their colleagues without fair trials or recourse to civilian courts of appeal. The entire secret system is being challenged, and this too is making the generals nervous.
Last but certainly not least, the election losses of the PRI, unthinkable before 1988, when Cuauhtemoc Cardenas’ breakaway faction beat the PRI for the Presidency but had the election stolen through massive vote fraud, are making the generals wonder if they are next — and moving them to take a more aggressive stance to let the reformers know that they will not go gently.
[Those who wish to reach a clearer understanding of how drugs dictate policies in the U.S. and Latin America are urged to visit the web site http://www.narconews.com]

Stan Gotlieb’s “Letters From Mexico” can be read on the World Wide Web, at: http://www.dreamagic.com. Email Stan at: stan@mexconnect.com