The match in the powder keg?

By Alfredo Peppard

What is going on? What is going to happen next? These two questions are a regular part of the conversation of the expatriates (known here as expats) who congregate at the Prima Vera in the Zocalo. The Zocalo is where it all comes down. Does it belong to the tourist industry or the people of the countryside? The people of the countryside say it is theirs by several hundred years’ tradition. It was once their open air market; it is where they come in their numbers to speak truth to the power symbolized by the former Governor’s Mansion, now a museum, on the south end of the square. The Gov moved to a less exposed residence after the 2006 uprising.

Last week Pauline and I were walking down to the Prima Vera to check in with our friend Frank when we became aware of dozens of dilapidated old third-class buses from outlying pueblos. Sure enough, as we entered the Zocalo we could see hundreds of campesinos sitting on the flower bed walls.

One of the Mexican Communist Parties was setting up a small stage with a sound system. They were calling for support of the striking miners in the north. We worked our way through the crowd to Frank’s table in the sidewalk part of the Prima Vera. Norm, the retired Canadian teacher, was there, so we all started discussing what we thought the present political moment was all about. In the last month prices of basic commodities had jumped ten or more percent. People are mad as hell; the more Spanish you speak the more you can hear and feel this growing rage.

The cops are pussyfooting around, no more provocative pickup trucks full of masked heavily-armed cops; they have been off the streets for about a month now. There were no cops in the Zocalo as this rally for working class unity went on.

Just a day before, I had witnessed a bust right across the street from where our callejon enters Tinoco and Palacio. The cops were just bringing out three young people in handcuffs, two men and a woman. They were all good-looking clean-cut types. The cops were in a hurry. As soon as they had the three prisoners in the back of the pickup they left. Suddenly there appeared from seemingly nowhere six or seven cops with M16s, all of whom jumped on their motor bikes and a pickup and were gone. The whole thing could not have taken more than 5 minutes.

Could it be that they don’t want to be the ones who strike the match in the powder keg? Who knows?

The State of Oaxaca, the powder keg, is a fiefdom of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, the PRI. Essentially the PRI was the party formed by the generals who won the civil war. It has ruled Mexico since its organization in the early 20s. Although the PRI lost the presidency to PAN, the National Action Party or Partido Acción Nacional, it is still the most powerful political party in Mexico.

And like the Democratic and Republican parties of the United States the PRI top leadership betrayed the interests of its working and middle class constituents in favor of an elitist partnership with the lords of finance. Salinas and his gang got to go to all those really cool conferences in cool places in the French Alps. And oh yeah, while they were at it they got fabulously wealthy by selling the property of the Mexican people to insiders and transnational corporations. Carlos Salinas, Brian Mulroney, and Bill Clinton got together and made the three national economies into one international economy -- an economy that has no nation, no government, and no democracy.

NAFTA has created a single integrated economy in North America that is outside the laws of any of the three countries. As a binding treaty, it brings into being a confederation of billionaires whose interests as investors supersede any laws that try to maintain the gains of past labor and environmental struggles or any social services needed by the less fortunate. The effect that this anti-democratic rule by plutocrats has had upon the life of the people of all three countries is plain to see in the job loss, distortions in agricultural policies, destruction of social-safety nets, and the loss of public control of resources. Clinton, Salinas, and Mulroney were promised a place in history for the efforts.

Yeah, Bill. Charley and Brian sold out their working people so they could run with the big dogs. So that they could go to all those nifty meetings in cool places; and yes they will have their place in history. They were the guys who brought into being one single working class in the three nations. That’s right. One integrated economy, one integrated work force. We all work for the same bosses now. More on this later.