Mexico's Juchitan-A Popular Challenge To PRI
Matloff, Judith
While other parts of Oaxaca, Mexico's predominantly Indian, agricultural state, attract anthropologists and others interested in ruins, Juchitan draws only political scientists, goes a...
...The government of the municiJudith Matloff is a U.S...
...The coalition government has taught hundreds of adults to read and write (adult illiteracy was around 80%), kicked out corrupt policemen, fixed roads and quadrupled the number of health clinics...
...No one wants to invest in Juchitan since the Reds took over," says Darien Santiago Rasgado, local PRI committee president...
...Now, stall owners donate materials to collectively scour and fumigate the rat-infested area every four months...
...Via neighborhood consciousnessraising groups which discuss complaints weekly, city officials maintain close contact with townspeople, enlist volunteers for the literacy campaign and health brigades and grapple with nagging problems...
...Juchitan-the state's second largest city-is the only major Mexican city controlled by leftists...
...Social Rejuvenation To enter Juchitan's town hall one must now wade through long lines of peasants, who are received by Mayor Leopoldo de Gyves 14 hours a day...
...journalist working in Mexico...
...Cement bags, boards, pickaxes and construction workers clutter the entrance...
...Three Mexican towns have Communist municipal governments: Alcozauca in Guerrero State and Tlacolulita and Magdalena Acotlan in Oaxaca State, all elected before the leftist merger...
...Crucial is how this "economic strangulation" will affect Juchitan's next municipal elections scheduled for November 1983...
...mayor...
...The building used to have so many holes, we couldn't work during the rainy season," says the Juchitan mayor Leopoldo de Gyves...
...and Durango City, Durango State...
...The coalition also wants to renovate the antiquated market which serves tenfold its official capacity...
...NIiD sea2 pality of about 80,000, located on the wet isthmus leading to Guatemala, has met harassment from right-wing forces and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which has held national power for 53 years...
...PSUM and COCEI have affirmed the potential of alliances between parties and independent groups...
...The election figures do seem suspicious, considering that PSUM presidential candidate Martinez Verdugo drew an enthusiastic crowd of thousands last January, while PRI candidate Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado's visit provoked mostly apathy and a little hostility...
...Ten years of murders and kidnappings of COCEI leadersallegedly by the pro-PRI paramilitary group, "Brigada Blanca," based in nearby Salina Cruz-included two assassinations last year...
...The town hall's reconstruction symbolizes Juchitan's political and social rejuvenation...
...The other seven-including the mayor-are from COCEI, the popular Coalition of Isthmus Workers, Peasants and Students...
...in the March-April 1982 issue...
...The state government nullified the election results and a March 1981 plebiscite swept the coalition into power by several hundred votes...
...And the twb bodies have learned some important political lessons from each other-PSUM, about how to develop a regional mass base, and COCEI, about the need for integrating into a more powerful, national movement...
...But now it's finally being fixed...
...Three major cities have PSUM regidores or city council members: Puebla City, Puebla State...
...In less than two years, the new city government has tackled some problems commonly COCEI posters decry previous PRI mayors...
...Pro-PRI Juchiteros interviewed showed that at least some residents have fallen victim to misinformation about the coalition government, claiming it committed murder and ran drugs...
...The groups, for example, decided to clean up Juchitan's open, central market where poor hygiene, along with the city's open sewers which render 50% of Juchitan's water undrinkable, were causing endemic gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases...
...Economic Strangulation One PSUM-COCEI supporter in Juchitan won a seat among the 100 opposition members of Mexico's Congress in July's general elections...
...NeIlDaclMl2 Town Hall--"so many holes, we couldn't work during the rainy season...
...Volunteer labor and book.donations helped launch Juchitan's new cooperatively run library...
...COCEI and the Communist Party linked up in the November 1980 elections...
...Harassment From The Right But municipal leaders say economic pressures from the PRI-run government make these aspirations nearly unattainable...
...Mayor de Gyves claims the state government froze $5.7 million worth of credit...
...The state also intervened to conduct the first audit of the town's holdings 'since the 1910 Mexican revolution...
...They offer us a mass base, and we provide them governing and financial expertise...
...Last August, two more PSUMCOCEI sympathizers were killed and six wounded by gunmen who attacked the crowd at the inauguration of a new health center in Chicapa de Castro, Oaxaca...
...Jalapa, Veracruz State...
...COCEI leaders interviewed agreed...
...Opening more markets would improve health conditions and create more jobs in a region where unemployment is higher than the national average...
...They said it was because we were giving money to Mexican and Central American guerrillas," explains one COCEI leader...
...mCUlnepOupdate update update update Not only public funds are scarce...
...Juchitan Fights Back...
...COCEI emphasizes short-term goals like building sewers and expropriating large landholdings which they turn over to peasants farming the land...
...But, despite this, the two groups complement each other...
...While other parts of Oaxaca, Mexico's predominantly Indian, agricultural state, attract anthropologists and others interested in ruins, Juchitan draws only political scientists, goes a town joke...
...Juchitan's COCEI is an independ41update update update update ent group which once preferred seizing municipal buses to voting as a political strategy...
...They support the coalition, but question its effectiveness, and sometimes express impatience that more can't be accomplished more quickly...
...The coalition hasn't done much concrete," says Luis, a coconut vendor, summing up a common view...
...None could give concrete examples...
...Her last contribution to the Report was "Mexican Elections-To PRI or Not to PRI...
...But the PRI netted over 50% of the city's presidential votes-because it trucked in people from other towns who voted more than once, according lo councilman de Gyves...
...Though many call Juchitan "that communist town," only two of the municipal government's nine members are from the Mexican United Socialist Party or PSUM, the leftist amalgam formed in August 1981 of which the former Communist Party is a member...
...Mass Base & PSUM Expertise COCEI and PSUM embrace radically different perspectives...
...They also control the countryside, while we control only Juchitan City proper...
...Because these villages, each with about 1,000 residents, are so small, they have not attracted the notoriety of Juchitan...
...Forced to rely almost entirely on local resources, the neighborhood Section Committees collect money door to door...
...The movement has also been debilitated by violence against COCEI militants...
...Yet, even if the coalition loses, Mexico will have witnessed a local government which seriously tried to address problems glossed over by the PRI...
...According to one Juchitan-born academic, a PSUM supporter, "The PRI's economic strangulation affected our popular support in the elections...
...Now nearly a decade old, COCEI has participated in local elections since 1974...
...We respect COCEI as the real vanguard of the people," says Clemente Jesus Lopez, a regional PSUM organizer...
...unresolved by the PRI all over Mexico...
...But they're very well liked here...
...But maintaining that control has not been easy...
...They're out to get us," says PSUM city councilman, Deciderio de Gyves, an uncle of the mayor...
...Most townspeople see the two groups as one-"The Coalition...
...Countless other COCEI activists, including the mayor, have faced death threats and attempts on their lives...
...Saying the PRI's victory was fraudulent, coalition members seized town hall...
...The nationwide PSUM calls for "democracy and socialism," and demands massive structural change...
...Frankly, we're worried," says one Mexico City PSUM official...
Vol. 16 • November 1982 • No. 6
