Socialist Action /February 1999
Mexican Socialists Show Gains at Convention
MEXICO CITY-The Mexican Socialist Unity League (LUS-Liga de Unidad Socialista),
which was founded last year, held its first regular convention on the weekend
of Jan. 9-10.
The group was formed by activists who wanted to maintain the perspective
of building a revolutionary socialist party. In the recent period, most
of the Mexican socialist left abandoned this perspective for the sake of
the immediate advantages they hoped to gain from participating either directly
or indirectly in the opposition populist capitalist party, the Party of
the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which broke from the ruling PRI party in
1988.
The founding members of the LUS are those revolutionists who resisted
the electoralist and other opportunist pressures that shattered the Mexican
socialist left.
Although the LUS is still a small organization, it has already had made
an important impact by its incisive political ideas and its activity in
support of them. This was reflected by the fact that spokespersons of important
struggles came to the LUS convention to express solidarity and in some cases
gratitude for the help the organization has given them.
The guest speaker who has worked most closely with the LUS in the last
two years was Melquiades Rosas Blanco, a leader of the Mazateco Indian people
in the state of Oaxaca and one of the most prominent political figures in
the National Indigenous Congress, the organization of all the Indian peoples
in Mexico. The LUS has given full support to the struggle of the indigenous
peoples for the right to control their own communities.
Rosas Blanco gave a report of the victory of the community slate in his
county of Mazatlan Villa de Flores in the December elections in Oaxaca,
which has opened up exciting prospects for the development of institutions
of direct democracy in the Indian communities. The example of community
government and collective work in Mazatlan has attracted the interest in
particular of the radicalizing youth in the urban areas as well.
The congress was also addressed by a representative of El Barzon, an
organization that represents millions of Mexicans who have been plunged
into debt by the country's growing economic crisis.
A son of Gen. Gallardo, an army general victimized for raising the call
for defense of the human and civil rights of soldiers and officers against
the roughshod rule of a corrupt and brutal high command, spoke about his
father's case, along with one of his father's lawyers.
Gen. Gallardo was first imprisoned for writing an article in a specialized
publication proposing the appointment of a human-rights ombudsman for the
army. Gallardo's victimization aroused protests from human rights organizations
and even official bodies. Recently, he has been sentenced to long prison
terms on transparently trumped-up criminal charges.
Nonetheless, discontent within the military is obviously reaching a crisis
point. Shortly before the LUS congress, for the first time in contemporary
Mexican history at least, a group of soldiers and officers openly demonstrated
in the streets of Mexico City against the high command.
The LUS has been the only political organization that has wholeheartedly
supported the soldiers and officers demanding democratic rights. The PRD,
despite its opposition profile, is linked to a section of the high command,
and therefore has not been able to relate to the rebellion in the armed
forces.
One of the major reports at the congress was given by Emilio Anaya on
the growing opposition by trade-unionists to the austerity package presented
by the President Zedillo. His proposals include the removal of subsidies
on basic necessities, such as tortillas, and a 30 percent cut in the educational
budget.
Just before the congress, the courts handed down 40-year prison sentences
against five leaders of a teachers' protest in the Senate chambers. A few
days after the congress, up to a hundred thousand teachers marched in the
center of Mexico City in protest.
Another major report, given by Ismael Contreras, put the growth of Mexican
working-class resistance into the international context of a beginning fightback
by workers in a number of countries, most prominently France but also the
United States.
Under this point, Gerry Foley, international editor of Socialist Action
in the United States, gave an account of the growing mass upsurge in Indonesia,
stressing the need for worldwide solidarity with the Indonesian fighters.
The report on the Mexican national situation, given by Manuel Aguilar
Mora, a veteran Trotskyist leader, focused on the buildup toward the Mexican
general elections in the year 2000 and on the need to understand clearly
that the PRD was a capitalist party and therefore an enemy of the working-class
movement.
This is a key point of agreement with the Socialist Workers Party (POS),
an organization with which the LUS is united in the Socialist Coalition.
The program and functioning of this coalition was a major topic of discussion
at the congress, and POS representatives participated in it.
The LUS is evidently growing and attracting young people. This meeting
was about twice the size of the LUS's last national gathering, and a group
of LUS youth announced the formation of a youth fraction.
Socialist Action /February 1999 |