Oddities of Mexican Politics

...In an August 17 Op-Ed piece for a Guadalajara daily, he noted gleefully that PAN was the only major party vilified by the extreme Rightists...

...In an effort to put NAFTA in a favorable light, some government spokespersons have made rosy statements about the treaty...

...Another print media pundit titled his September 3 piece, "Zedillo in Wonderland...

...De la Isla is an ardent admirer of Corneliu Codreanu, the preWorld War II head of Romania's fascist Iron Guard movement, and translator of his works...

...PRIMARY PREVIEW Oddities of Mexican Politics By Addison De Witt Guadalajara In mid-August there were few happier Mexican politicians then a man with the somewhat less-than-Hispanic name of Herbert Taylor...

...Victor Celaya, Director of Economic Studies for the National Agricultural Council, has boasted that in 1993, before it came into effect, "Mexico was in 24th place as an exporter, with its products going to 82 countries," and today "we find ourselves in 14th place, with Mexican products sold in 132 countries...

...Donning ski masks and bandannas, they followed the pseudonymous traditionof Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) comandantes by taking names like "Liberty," "Democracy," "Dignity," "Hope...

...Indians are classified as those who identify with a specific ethnic group (Huichol, Maya, Chamula) and frequently do not speak Spanish...

...Even before the informe, 36 LTNAM students made their way to Chiapas to join the Zapatistas...

...Some of the delegates at the meeting—where they gave Nazi salutes and acclaimed Hitler "man of the century"—also had kind words for Porfirio Munoz Ledo, a currently disaffected leader of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD...

...The President's detachment and efforts to be the great conciliator led Mexico City columnist Sergio Sarmiento to describe him as "a lame duck...

...What gave him such pleasure was being able to profess a link between two rival Left-inclined parties and Mexico's small but noisome neo-Nazi movement...

...Addison de Witt is the pseudonym of a freelance journalist and previous New Leader contributor who lives in Mexico...

...Inquisitor, reflects this immaturity...

...As for Munoz, the neo-Nazis cited an alleged "intellectual affinity' between him and the author Manuel de la Isla Paulin...

...Also an actress, Douglas once infuriatedparishioners at ablack church by gushing, "I just love the Negro people...

...The very name of one neo-Nazi outfit, Mizion National, and of the hysterical sheet it publishes...

...The neo-Nazis charged that Vicente Fox, the PAN presidential candidate, employs Israeli security guards and that his advisory group, Integral Human Development, has "a visceral hatred against all that fascism represents...

...Jordi Micheli, adviser to the auto parts industry's national association, observed that Mexico has not demonstrated "the capacity to create an industrial culture" similar to that of other countries, and called on the government to "intervene directly in the field of worker-employer relations...

...Why would neo-Nazis praise people like Madrazo and Munoz, who have always lauded liberal democratic values...

...But that did not prevent Taylor from doing some highlypublic gloating over the neo-Nazis bestowing the kiss of death on political foes to the Left...

...could very well be uttered by Madrazo and Munoz as they contemplate their unwanted popularity among neo-Nazis...

...He insists the Army has acted with restraint and established friendly relations with Indian villagers...

...But it made no mention, for example, of the prolonged National Autonomous University (UNAM) strike or the Zapatista insurgency in Chiapas...

...But as historian Herbert Parmet has shown, the two were personal friends and one would attack the other on demand to improve his "enemy's" status among constituents...

...In his "Conjectures' column, appearing in a Left-wing weekly, Cepeda described Albores as a "Hitlerian Li 1 liputian" and also compared him to Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic...

...During the '40s two polar opposites in the United States Congress were New York's Communist-aligned Vito Marcantonio and Mississippi's racist John Rankin...

...Medina's outspokenness sparked howls of outrage from PRI deputies, who accused him of violating Congressional rules...

...Other factors he mentioned as contributing to the decline of the rural sector are "a complete absence of credit" and "punishing interest-rate spreads...

...A liberal Mexico City weekly has caustically observed that Medina's "moist dream" was to "convert herself into an indigenous woman...

...In an interview with a sympathetic Mexico City magazine, "Liberty" charged the Mexican Army in Chiapas with sowing fear among the inhabitants and incubating such social problems as alcoholism and prostitution...

...The address contained references to improving education, health, nutrition, and crime prevention (tantamount in each case to opposing the man-eating shark...

...It is the EZLN, he contends, that has been confrontational and "a factor of destabilization...

...That assessment clashes sharply with the view of Emilio Rabasa Gamboa, the government's Coordinator for Dialogue and Negotiation in Chiapas...

...Humberto Juárez, a researcher for the Colegio de Mexico, pointed out that while auto workers are among the best paid in Mexico, their wages remain about onetenth of those received by counterparts in the United States...

...The witless campus zealots and street toughs who make up Mexico's fascist fringe, though, completely lack the political sophistication that old campaigners like Marcantonio and Rankin possessed...

...Nor has NAFTA been able to redress the wage imbalance between Mexican workers and those in Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore...

...In Mexico, "Indian" is more a cultural than a racial term...

...Enraged by her ouster, Medina issued statements that Albores is insane and that Mariano Diaz, Mayor of the state capital, San Cristobal de las Casas, is a criminal...

...Another unsuccessful attempt to win over the populace was President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon's now tragically famous State of the Union message, or informe, on September 1. This was clearly an attempt by Zedillo to smooth the way for Francisco Labastida Ochoa, his favorite among the four PRI candidates who will compete in the November 7 primary...

...At the very least they are a distraction, as government and business elites try to keep them at arm's length while attempting to win support among working-class, rural and lower middle-class Mexicans forthe controversial trade treaty known in the United States as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NATTA) and here as the Tratado de Libre Commercio...

...But the real disaster has been in the countryside...

...Still it would be a mistake to assume the extremists have no impact at all...

...Medina, who vows to return to Chiapas in defiance of Albores' ban, is an upto-date version of former California Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas...

...Taylor is an executive board member and former Jalisco State leader of the moderately conservative National Action Party (PAN...

...Zedillo's strategy was one of energetic sweeping under the rug...

...Persons of pure indigenous ancestry who do not speak an Indian language or live in a tribal setting consider themselves Mexicans...

...Columnist Allyn Hunt, a longtime Mexico resident, commented ironically in a Guadalajara weekly about how gringo tourists point to Mexicans with cell phones as living indicators of NAFTA's success...

...As concrete evidence of his good faith, Rabasa called attention to a decision reached by his office and leaders of the government's Commission for Concord and Pacification to suspend construction of a road to the village of Amador Hernandez...

...and] no one is censured for what he or she says, writes or publishes...

...Realistically, any nexus between the neo-Nazis and Madrazo or Munoz is about as flimsy as Codreanu's claim to being a symbol of Romanian ethnic nationalism...

...Zapatistas charged that the road was planned to facilitate military movements in the direction of La Realidad, headquarters of popular rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos...

...There is precedent for that...

...Rabasa replied that almost 20 miles of dense jungle separate Amador Hernandez from La Realidad...

...The Asians, who were paid less than the Mexicans during the 1950s, now earn considerably more...

...This Panglossian statement drew flak that recalled London during the Blitz...

...The same publication jeered that Medina was identifying herself with Santa Maria de Guadalupe, the "Dark Virgin" venerated by Indians...

...Too fresh were the memories of "disappeared" students, gunned-down journalists and high-level political assassination victims—including a presidential candidate, a popular TV entertainer and a Roman Catholic cardinal...

...The son of an immigrant named Zilinski, he was of Polish, German and Hungarian ancestry...

...On August 30, a Mexico City magazine described the Governor's "defining moment" as his plea to Zedillo that he be allowed to solve the conflict with the Zapatistas "in my own way...

...Though once a protégé of Manuel Camacho Solis, who brought Marcos to the negotiating table, more recently Camacho has described Albores as a "tractor" who carries out official directives with unswerving relentlessness...

...A Leftist magazine blazoned the legend Zedillo vanishes on its cover over a picture of the dejected looking chief executive...

...At an August 7 meeting in Guadalajara, a far-Right group endorsed Roberto Madrazo Pintado, one of the presidential hopefuls of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI...

...Since an acculturated Mexican of indigenous stock wouldn't be caught dead wearing Indian garb, the spectacle of a privileged white woman leading demonstrations in the costume of a Tzotzil housewife has aroused considerable ridicule—even among those who share Medina's views...

...State of the Union addresses have traditionally been greeted with decorous silence...

...His bitterest opponent is actress-turned-political activist Ofelia Medina...

...Clearly, Taylor was getting sweet revenge for past charges by PRI and PRD propagandists that PAN was a fascist-leaning party excessively friendly to big business and the Catholic Church...

...Sitting next to the President, Medina mocked his assertion that Mexico is "on the right path" by attacking the government's record in dealing with corruption, street violence and highlevel organized crime...

...Although adroit juggling of the figures might make it appear that NAFTA has been aboon to Mexico, this is not even the case in the automobile industry, considered the "star" of the NAFTA lineup...

...That support has not been forthcoming...

...Actually NAFTA— along with a mismanaged economy and incompetent bankers—has decimated agriculture in Mexico and the number of Mexicans living on less than two dollars a day has increased by 4 million since the pact took effect...

...adding that he had authorized suspension of the project even though most Amador Hernandez inhabitants wanted the road built...

...This is mild compared to the assessment of pro-Zapatista writer Alvaro Cepeda Neri...

...Rabasa is a voice of sweet reason who is obviously eager to win over the hearts and minds of the Chiapas underclass...

...Hunt concluded that "all this has helped put seven Mexicans on Forbes magazine's list of the world's wealthiest people—and prompted nationwide disgust...

...Normally, the opposition presents a brief, general rejoinder...

...Some might think the neo-Nazis' defamation of PAN was a Machiavellian ploy to advance the Right-wing party's fortunes by attacking it...

...since 1997...

...has a cell phone screwed to his ear...

...Precedent-shattering as well was the response to the informe by Carlos Medina Plascencia, the PAN leader in the Chamber of Deputies...

...Yet that sentiment seemed to be more anti-Medina than pro-Zedillo...

...Having failed to successfully woo activist students in Mexico City and activist Indian peasant leaders in Chiapas, Zedillo finds himself in a role he obviously doesn't relish: that of Cupid between these two foes of Mexico's establishment...

...This time precedent was broken by the reaction to Zedillo's ill-conceived assertion that "in Mexico today no one is persecuted or harassed for his ideas or beliefs, or for organizing politically to fight for them...

...The statement brought forth hoots, derisive laughter, and questions like "What country is he talking about...

...Albores is a strong supporter of the presidential hopeful Zedillo is backing, Francisco Labastida Ochoa...

...Conversely, antagonists of the incredibly shrinking Zedillo—or of a pseudoindigenous figure of fun like Medina—might ask "With enemies like that, who needs friends...

...She was a mambo dancer with the Pérez Prado orchestra prior to becoming a star in films and television between 1967 and 1986...

...Albores' problem in advancing his cause is simply that he is too hard-nosed...

...Medina shot back that while she respected the mother of the Indians, "I greatly enjoy my nonvirginity.' As the Presidential race heats up, the now hackneyed plaint, "With friends like that, who need enemies...

...The delegates approved of Madrazo because his father, Carlos, supposedly had ideals of social justice similar to those of the late Argentine dictator Juan Domingo Perón...

...Wrote Hunt: "Nobody in the countryside...

...Medina was born to an upper middle-class white family in Yucatan (though she claims a Mayan great-grandfather...

...Albores expelled Medina from the state last August 20 on grounds of "agitation" in Amador Hernéndez, and he has barred her from ever returning...

...Unlike Rabasa, Roberto Albores Guillén, Chiapas' hardline PRI Governor, is the apostle of a "ya, basta" (enough, already) solution to the Zapatista problem...