On August 16 Mexican president Vincente Fox sent 800 federal riot police with armoured cars to guard the parliament building in Mexico City. The move was against the possibility of attack by the tens of thousands of protestors occupying the centre of the city in a semi-permanent encampment. Phil Hearse reports. PROTESTORS are demonstrating against the grall fraud in July's presidential
which robbed centre-left candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (popularly known as 'AMLO') of victory, and handed the presidency instead to right-winger Felipé Calderon, candidate of Fox's National Action Party (PAN).
This summer has witnessed a series of harsh struggles and street battles. Outgoing government of Vincente Fox sought to stem the rising tide of social protest - using the traditional methods of the Mexican elite, vicious repression and electoral fraud on a grand scale.
While the protests are currently centered on the electoral fraud, over the past few months there have been several other key battles. These mclude a mass movement wo the state of Oaxaca to bring down the corrupt right-wing government, a movement led Oaxaca schoolteacners strike for 44 days. Miners and steelworkers have also staged prolonged strikes. And the militant community of San Salvador Atenco in Mexico State has been in huge conflict with federal and state riot police.
There is more to come. Already Lopez Obrador's centre-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) has set a series of dates for mass mobilisations going into the autumn. mobilisations which could easily escape its control.
Two factors underlie much of the tension. The tirst was build-up to the presidential election which the Mexican oligarchy, in close collaboration with the United States. was desperate not to lose to even the moderate left. Then there was the Other Campaign' - the project of unus and building Mexico's social movements from below, launched a year ago by Lapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) headed by Subcommandante Marcos.
But behind these factors lie more Issues. Since the (fraudulent) elecarrested. tion as president of narcopolitician Carlos Salinas de Gotari in 1988, Mexico has been suffering the continued pressure of neoliberalism, which, as a result of the NAFIA has wrecked traditional communal peasant agriculture and devastated agricultural communities.
The net result is an avalanche of migrants to the cities, particularly Mexico City, boosting the ranks of the informal economy and with it urban mass poverty in the huge barrios. Social inequality has deepened massively.
How has this spring and summer of battle unfolded?
In San Salvador Atenco, 30 kms west of Mexico City, the people led a huge and successful battle against the building of a new Mexico City airport which would have confiscated their land and destroyed their livelihoods. This militant community invited Subcommandante Marcos to speak in the town on May 1. Two days later police attempted to arrest flower sellers trom atenco wao ser up their stalls on some and Hundreds of riot police attacked the town again, brutalising inhabitants, wrecking houses and torturing and raping those they Mass occupation of the Zócalo in Mexico City in protest against electoral fraud owned by American multinational Walmart in the nearby community of lexcoco. The tower sellers called for help and hundreds arrived to beat back the police attack. A day of bloody battles lonowea In wnich two people were killed by paramilitary riot police. The next day hundreds of riot police attacked the town again, brutalising inhabitants, wrecking houses and LOLLUTIO and raping those they arrested.
In a statement on 4 May, the Revolutionary Workers Party wIld support the Fourth
declared the events at Atenco to be "a deliberate provocation against the Other Campaign" saying that "without a shadow of doubt" the police attacks has been designed to coincide with Marcos' visit, and to impede the progress of his Call Call
On top of this, more than a quarter of a million miners and steelworkers walked off the job between March 1-3 in wildcat strikes at 70 companies in at least eight states from central to northern Mexico. They virtually paralyzed the mining industry.
The strike resulted from an attempt by the government to Secretary Napleón Gómez Urrutia, and replace him with Elías Morales Hernández, a union dissident reportedly mining company.
The government turned to violent repression of the striking miners and steelworkers supporting them. On April 20
eight hundred state and federal police launched an assault
on 500 striking workers who had been occupying a steel
mill in Lázaro Cárdenas. Two
were killed, five seriously injured and 40 wounded.
Since Felipé Calderon
declared himself winner of the presidential elections Grupo Mexico has been on the offensive against the miners. At Nacozari, one of the world's largest copper mines, just a few miles south of the US border, 1400 miners have been on strike since March 24.
On July 12 the board said
they had abandoned their jobs, and gave the mine's owner, Grupo Mexico, permission to close down operations, ettectively firing the strikers. At the time of writing the strike is unresolved.
Over the summer there has been a prolonged struggle against the ultra-corrupt Oaxaca state government of right-wing Governor Ulises
Ruiz Ortiz. It started with a strike by militant teachers for better wages and more financial support for poor students, but soon mushroomed into a general campaign to force Ulises Ruiz to quit.
The teachers and their allies occupied the main square (Zócalo) in the city of Oaxaca, including taking over some government buildings. On June 14 state and federal remove the Mexican Miners paramilitary police launcheda Union's top officer, General violent attack on the protes tor's encampment in which several people (the exact number is unknown) were killed. The very next day the backed by the Grupo Mexico teachers and their supporters re-took the Zócalo, instituting a two-month period of virtual
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'dual power' in the city and much of the state. Indeed on July 5 the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca declared itself to be the legitimate government of the state.
Since then there have been repeated mass marches, assassinations of popular leaders, the takeover of several radio and television stations to put the mass media at the service of the people and police attacks on those radio staDOS.
In a recent development Oaxaca business people were even threatening to stage a state-wide SUnKe against... the inability of the state government to stop all the strikes!
Ulises Ruiz - backed by Vicente Fox's national government - has now unleashed partial recount of 9% of the country's 131,000 polling stations was ordered by the Federal Electoral Tribunal. AMLO and his supporters, however, have been demanding a 100% recount." The IccoulL. which began on August 9, has not resolved the dispute, but instead produced evidence of widespread fraud.
Since July 30 the centre of Mexico city, including the Zócalo, has been occupied by tens of thousands of protestors. According to Gellert: "Many far left and social organisations that didn't participate in AMLO's campaign are involved in the anti-fraud protests.
Along the eight kilometre stretch of encampments, a wide array of neighbourhood associanons, umons, studenl groups and political organisaProtestors from US National Organisation of Women show solidarity with the women of Cuidad Juarez