Political Storms of 1994

...One day later, on March 23, Colosio was assassinated...

...In the same way, the armed uprising prompted the recomposition of deeply rooted forces within the Catholic Church, and led to a redefinition of the limits of the church-state relationship...

...In early March, the center-left candidacy of Cdrdenas' Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) gained sympathy day by day, as the campaign of the other important opposition party, the PAN, was deflating...

...When the dust settled, Salinas chose Ernesto Zedillo, a young technocrat without deep roots in the party...

...During the course of the Salinas Administration, Camacho was mayor of Mexico City, and was able to use the enormous discretionary powers of the office to openly negotiate conflicts with the political opposition...

...The indigenous-peasant uprising in Chiapas, however, demonstrated that Mexico was closer to Central America than to its neighbors to the north...

...Colosio's campaign was nonetheless unable to take off...

...Meanwhile, other pieces of the national political puzzle were rapidly shifting...

...The elections are being held in a context of a generalized lack of credibility, in which the democratic citizenry are not inclined to support any more hoaxes...

...The new pact implicitly broke a series of alliances Colosio had made with more established interest groups to secure his nomination...

...Any solution to the Chiapas conflict immediately froze, since rumors of Camacho's involvement in the assassination weakened his ability to negotiate...

...Thousands of peasants and members of indigenous communities demonstrated their solidarity with the EZLN...

...One of two scenarios is likely to be played out in the country's immediate political future: either the various parties will agree to a national pact of conciliation, and a fragile coalition government will lead a transition to political democracy, or a full-fledged political confrontation will occur, and Mexico's future will become even more uncertain than ever...

...In the Cathedral of San Crist6bal de las Casas, negotiations began between the government and the EZLN...

...This demonstrated that while the salinista agrarian reforms (primarily the reform of Article 27 of the Constitution, privatizing peasants' ejido holdings) might be supported by the national directors of peasant organizations, and perhaps by the legislative powers, they were a long way from being endorsed by the peasants themselves...

...Laura Carlsen is a freelance journalist based in Mexico City...

...When Colosio was destapadounveiled-as the presidential candidate, Camacho refused to follow the "rules of the game," and did not present himself with the rest of the aspirants to congratulate the winner...

...But the climate continued to worsen...

...As a consequence, Camacho became known as one of the more democratic members of the regime, and simultaneously, earned the enmity of important groups within the PRI...

...In a March 22 press conference, Camacho ended speculation about his intentions by announcing that he would not seek the presidency this year...

...Mexico is living at the end of an era, as the 65-yearold regime of an official state party draws to a close...

...Little by little, he began to adopt many of the opposition's demands as his own-among them, the presence of electoral observors, and electoral transparency...

...All this adds another element of uncertainty to the possibility of a post-electoral political explosion...

...The internal struggle to designate a new candidate of the official party was, once again, contentious, bloody and difficult...

...On the contrary, he gave up his post as mayor, announcing that he had aspired to be the presidential candidate and intended to remain in politics...

...These waves met other waves produced by other stones...

...The Chiapas conflict sparked a radical turnaround in this correlation of forces...

...Translated from the Spanish by NACLA...

...In the Ministry of the Interior, Jorge Carpizo, a former police chief close to Salinas but distant from the PRI was named defender of human rights...

...Although five other precandidates-tapados (concealed) as they are called in Mexican political jargon in an allusion to cockfighting-were formally in the running for the presidency, in fact Colosio faced only one principal rival, Manuel Camacho...

...The corpse of the candidate was transformed into part of the internal war...

...The ranchers from Chiapas and the rest of the country began to actively mobilize, seeking to put a brake on land seizures-around 125,000 acres to date-and to force a resolution of the conflict in their favor...

...The assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio sank the country into a trough of insecurity and anxiety...

...Their opinions, however, were drowned out in the clamor...

...of the "revolutionary family...

...The rapid slide of the value of the peso-8% between January and March-produced a capital flight of about $11 billion...

...The year seemed to have left behind all possibilities for economic growth...

...administration of social, housing and environmental policy...

...Colosio was successfully being carried along by his carefully manufactured salinista image as a young member of the Clintonian generation of change...

...Two important businessmen were kidnapped...

...The Papal Nuncio, on the other hand, saw his political presence diminish overnight...

...of the Salinas Administration which had attempted to clothe its agrarian reforms in the image of el Caudillo del Sur, Zapata himself...

...The charismatic political figure of Camacho and the enormous importance of the negotiating process overshadowed the presidential candidates and the electoral campaign...

...At the same time, the uprising radically called into question the pact between ethnic groups and the government...

...On February 20, 51 days into the uprising, the "Working Days for Peace and Reconciliation" were initiated...

...In fact, he used the situation to try to construct a democratic center both within and outside the PRI...

...The Chiapas uprising, led by the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), broke the dominant political bloc in two...

...Public opinion polls showed President Salinas to be widely popular...

...The Zapatistas suspended the process of consultation and placed themselves on "red alert...

...The Church, led by Bishop Ruiz, responded forcefully to governmental accusations that it was intellectually responsible for the indigenous uprising, and through its actions gave support and legitimacy to a negotiated solution to the conflict...

...In mid-June, the Zapatistas rejected the government's 34-point peace plan, mainly because it did not adequately deal with questions of political democracy...

...Many old members of the PRI saw the nomination as an affront which would cost the party dearly...

...People poured into the streets to demand an end to the hostilities...

...It made clear that any policy of modernization would have to take the existing rural population into account, and that any attempt to leave this sector out would have immense social and political consequences...

...Old fights among the members of the political elite reappeared and intensified...

...They indicated that they thought Colosio had been assassinated at the orders of those who wanted a military solution to the Chiapas conflict...

...The most hardline sector of the PRI immediately mobilized to place responsibility for the assassination on the shoulders of Camacho, and thereby derail any attempt on his part to reemerge as a candidate...

...The prospects for a peaceful solution diminished in the short run...

...On January 1, the day that NAFTA was slated to take effect, the storm itself began to materialize...

...NACI8A REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 0 0 18REPORT ON MEXICO Like a stone dropped into a pond, the Chiapas insurrection produced waves that rippled through Mexican society...

...Its momentum was slowed by the assassination and the ensuing climate of political decomposition and uncertainty...

...The U.S...

...In the last few years the most conservative positions within the Church had rapidly gained ascendancy-in part due to an alliance with the Salinas Administration-and the most progressive positions had found themselves practically abandoned...

...The Chiapas conflict also remains alive, though the civic and peasant mobilization initiated by the indigenous rebellion never quite succeeded in articulating itself on a national basis...

...Meanwhile, Patrocinio Gonzalez, the Minister of the Interior-ex-governor and strong man of Chiapashad to give up his position, as did the present Governor of Chiapas, Elmer Seltzer...

...Only Cuauht6moc Cdrdenas was able, despite his initial stumbling, to emerge relatively unscathed from the conflict...

...Like a stone dropped into a pond, the Chiapas insurrection produced waves that rippled through Mexican society...

...These waves met waves produced by other stones, and old fights among the members of the political elite reappeared and intensified...

...Above all, the armed insurgency showed, with absolute clarity, the enormous importance of the rural question for national stability, despite the fact that only a quarter of the workforce is rural...

...Establishment writers, appearing in mainstream Mexican magazines like Vuelta and Nexos, saw in this coverage a dangerous apology for violence...

...Salinas named Manuel Camacho commissioner of peace, and the conflicting parties agreed that Samuel Ruiz would serve as mediator...

...Camacho's independent attitude was the first lightning bolt in the impending Mexican political storm...

...This political conflict is now developing within the framework of the August 21 presidential elections...

...People became convinced that an unknown war was raging within the country...

...In the course of just a few weeks, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) came to play a very important role as "windows" through which the Chiapas insurgency could be related to the rest of the country...

...From one day to the next, groups of rural producers who had basically identified themselves as peasants began to assume the identity of indigenous people...

...The Clinton Administration even felt compelled to send in reinforcements...

...To begin with, many believed the murder was a crime of the state, a settling of accounts within the system, evidence of a war among the distinct clans NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 0 0 0 3 5 N a 20REPORT ON MEXICO As the political crisis intensified, the Mexican economy showed the weakness that belied its apparent strength...

...the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) guaranteed the continuity of the regime's free-market economic policy...

...there was a drastic rise in interest rates, and inflation grew beyond all expectations...

...This added yet another element of uncertainty to the picture...

...His candidacy was universally interpreted as an attempt to continue the policies of Salinas...

...The confusion was such that President Salinas felt obligated to unveil Colosio for a second time as the candidate of the PRI, thus violating the commitment of the Chief Executive not to engage-overtly-in partisan politics...

...The governing classes found themselves divided over how to confront the conflict-with repression, or with a negotiated solution...

...On March 6, at a rally commemorating the sixty-fifth anniversary of the PRI, he proposed the necessity of separating the party from the state...

...Zedillo then declared the talks a "failure" and Camacho, citing a lack of official support, resigned as negotiator...

...The government's responses to the indigenous demands were then brought back to the communities-in-arms for consultation...

...As the political crisis intensified, the Mexican economy showed the weakness that belied its apparent strength...

...The Bishop of San Crist6bal, Samuel Ruiz-a cornered figure, on the verge of being transferred to the Vatican for his work at the side of the poor of his diocese-quickly became the central figure in the peace negotiations...

...On that date, the country was supposed to awaken as a member of the First World...

...After all, Colosio had grown politically within the shadow of Salinas, coordinating his electoral campaign in 1988, directing the PRI, and running the ministry responsible for the Luis Hernandez is an advisor to the National Coordinating Committee of Coffee Cooperatives (CNOC) in Mexico City, a researcher at the Center for the Study of Change in the Mexican Countryside (CECCAM), and a frequent contributor to the daily paper La Jornada...

...The conduct of this ministry was particularly important because one of its arms, Pronasol-the program designed to combat extreme poverty-was intended to create a new social base for the Salinas project...

...In a private meeting on March 16, Colosio and Camacho signed an alliance...

...Colosio and his political platform were relegated to the interior pages of the national newspapers...

...On November 28, 1993, when Luis Donaldo Colosio was unveiled as the presidential candidate of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the future of President Carlos Salinas' "modernization" project-Salinismo-appeared to be on firm footing...

...Camacho's favorable publicity combined with his refusal to endorse the candidacy of Colosio made him appear to be the real force for change...

...and despite some ups and downs, the PRI had maintained its alliance with the conservative opposition National Action Party (PAN...

...government underwrote its commercial partner by authorizing a line of credit of $6 billion to prop up the Mexican economy and ensure political stability...

...While the government announced that the explosion was an accident caused by a gas leak, private experts asserted that the bank had been bombed...

...The nomination of Zedillo opened yet more wounds in this internal war, and simultaneously sowed more doubts about the possibility of a victory in clean elections...

...The modernizers filtered information to the press, attempting to implicate members of the old political class in the assassination...

...This civic effervescence was enhanced by media coverage-mainly by the sheer number of articles and editorials explaining or justifying the uprising in independent newspapers and magazines...

...And a few days after the nomination of Zedillo, an explosion shattered a bank in the city of Monterrey...

...It became very quickly apparent that it was not the work of a lunatic, but the result of a conspiracy...

...The Clinton Administration even felt compelled to authorize a line of credit of $6 billion to prop the economy up and ensure political stability...

...For their part, members of the Jurassic political establishment spread the version of a settling of accounts within Salinismo which resulted from the candidate's break with the President...

...the center-left opposition led by Cuauht6moc C.rdenas appeared to be stalled and isolated...

...Whatever the electoral results may be, it is of paramount importance that they be credible...

...In response, Colosio began to take more radical stands in his campaign...

...for peace, international pressure, and the struggle of those within the Administration who wanted a negotiated solution led to a governmental policy of negotiation...

...NGOs like the Chiapas-based Convergence For Peace (CONPAZ) and the Fray Bartolom6 de las Casas Center for Human Rights were crucial in organizing popular sympathy for the uprising, and formulating a series of relevant political responses to the initial demands of the EZLN to democratize the country...

...As a result, eight of the nine registered political parties (with the exception of only the small center-Left Popular Socialist Party) signed an Agreement for Peace, Democracy and Clean Elections with the objective of giving credibility to the August 21 vote...

...Despite modifications to the electoral law, the governing party continues to have a substantial organizing and administrative role in the electoral process...

...The peasant insurrection precipitated a significant rebirth of civil, popular and peasant movements...

...The armed uprising waved the banner of Zapata and zapatismo in the face VOL XXVIII, No 1JULY/AuGusT 1994 19 VOL XXVIII, No 1 JULY/AUGusT 1994 19REPORT ON MEXICO A peasant march on April 10, 1994, commemorating the 75th anniversary of the death of Emiliano Zapata...

...Salinas then appointed him minister of external relations...