Templarios

Smartalex wrote:Well, if we're going to discuss the past, I might as well drag this out of the Alexander archives. I'm sure some people will find this quite informative.

A Brief History of Mexico
Part Five: The Rise and Fall of the PRI
By Steven Alexander

After 50 years of self-destructive civil war, 30 years of brutal dictatorial rule and 20 years of bloody revolution…Mexico needed a break. That break came in 1929, when the National Revolutionary Party (PNR) took control of the federal government, finally bringing the revolution to an end. Much like the Democratic Party in America, the PNR was a “big tent” that included all the various and diverse racial, social and economic groups of Mexico. They agreed to fight for their special interests within the party and not in the streets or on the battlefield. The PNR later changed its name to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and ruled Mexico for a total of 71 consecutive years. Every six years, a new presidential successor would be chosen by the party leadership and then confirmed by the rubber stamp of a public election. With overwhelming popular support and only token dissent, the PRI created what has often been characterized as “the perfect dictatorship.”

In 1934, Lazaro Cardenas became president of Mexico. At the time, Cardenas was a 39-year-old veteran of the revolution and former governor of Michoacan. He had gained the trust and respect of the Mexican people due his reputation as an honest politician. Under his guidance, Mexico instituted a series of socialist reforms that truly changed the country. The large ranchos were broken up and the land was redistributed to the “campesinos” (peasant farmers) for use as “ejidos” (communal farms). A public education system was built to benefit the children of all classes. The railroads, telephones and utilities were nationalized. The holdings of the powerful American and British oil interests were confiscated and turned over to Pemex (Petroleos Mexicanos), the government-owned monopoly that still controls oil production and distribution in Mexico. Freedom of expression, religion and the press were not only guaranteed by the constitution but encouraged by Cardenas during his six years in office.

Over time, the PRI became increasingly separated from the goals of the revolution and the example of honest government set by Cardenas. The party built a political machine that ran Mexico like the Democrats ran Chicago. “La mordida” (the bite) became a way of life. Cops, judges, municipal officials, union leaders, legislators and presidents all took a bite of the apple in the form of bribes, kickbacks and payoffs. Embezzlement, extortion and fraud within the various governmental entities were commonplace. Proceeds from drug trafficking not only fattened the wallets of the PRI pols but helped spur the economy as a whole. The entire country was on the take. Mexicans didn’t necessarily make a value judgment when it came to all of this graft and corruption. Right or wrong, that’s the way it was. It was how “el sistema” (the system) worked. It took a series of tragic events over a long period of time in order to shock the Mexican people out of their complacency.

The first shock came in 1968. In that year, the international student movement was at its peak. There were student demonstrations throughout Europe, the U.S. and Latin America. In Mexico City, massive demonstrations broke out just days prior to the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics, which were being hosted in the Mexican capital. The whole world was watching as Mexican army troops and federal police opened fire on a crowd of students gathered at a public plaza in the Tlateloco section of Mexico City to protest against police brutality and repression of dissent. Officially, the government claimed 40 students were killed. The demonstrators claimed thousands were dead. Subsequent investigations place the death toll at around 400. The Mexican people never forgave the government for killing their children.

Then there was the earthquake of 1985. A giant 8.1 tremblor struck off the Pacific Coast of Mexico but did most of its damage in Mexico City, which was largely built on unstable landfill in Lake Texcoco. An estimated 10,000 people died and sections of the city were flattened. Although no one could hold the government to blame for the earthquake, they found plenty to blame in the mismanagement of the relief effort that followed. Relief aid was doled out according to your standing within the PRI. The higher your position in the party, the more aid you received. People who did not belong to the party got no aid at all.

And then there was the shock of Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Salinas was elected president in 1988 in a disputed election. The new computer system that was installed to count the voting quickly and accurately mysteriously “crashed” on the night of the election. Years later, Miguel de la Madrid, Salinas’ predecessor as president, admitted that election officials shut down the computer and declared Salinas the winner when early returns indicated he would lose.

Government corruption reached a peak during Salinas’ six years in office. His brothers quickly became very wealthy, with foreign bank accounts stuffed with hundreds of millions of dollars from unexplained sources. One brother, Raul, had his $110-million Swiss account frozen. Most of the money was later returned to the Mexican government once they were able to satisfy Swiss authorities that the money was misappropriated from public coffers. Raul also spent 10 years in a Mexican prison after being convicted of ordering the murder of Jose Ruiz Massieu, then head of the PRI and Salinas’ former brother-in-law. Another brother, Enrique, was found dead in Mexico City. His cause of death was asphyxiation by a plastic bag taped firmly over his head. At the time of Enrique Salinas’ death, he was under investigation by French authorities for money laundering. Raul has since been released from jail, pending his appeal. Investigation continues by Mexican, U.S., French and Swiss authorities into the financial dealings of the three Salinas brothers and the numerous allegations of their involvement in drug trafficking.

Salinas was a big booster of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). According to Salinas, in order to comply with the terms of NAFTA, the ejido lands that were used for communal farming needed to be privatized. The constitutional provisions that guaranteed communal use of these ancestral farmlands were amended and ownership was divvied up among those with hereditary claims to the lands. Once NAFTA went into effect, the campesinos found that they could not compete with large-scale agribusiness and the introduction into Mexico of cheap American corn. Much of the ejido lands were sold to agribusiness corporations and the farmers migrated to the cities or to the U.S. The populations of Mexican cities mushroomed and what was once a steady trickle of illegal immigration into America became a flood.

On Januray 1, 1994, the day that NAFTA went into effect, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) arose in armed resistance to the federal government of Mexico. With the overwhelming support of the local native population, the Zapatistas actually took control of San Cristobal de las Casas and several small villages in Chiapas. They overran a small military post, chased out the government officials and set up their own civil administration. The Zapatista ideology was a mixture of Marxism and Nativism. Their heroes were Che Guevara, Emiliano Zapata and Maria Sabina. They demanded autonomy from the federal government and the right to preserve their ancestral way of life, including communal farming.

The immediate reaction of the Salinas regime was massive armed retaliation against the 3,000-man (and woman) Zapatista army. But the wholesale slaughter of indigenous people who were struggling for their land rights was unacceptable to the vast majority of Mexicans and yet another example of how far the PRI had strayed from the goals and aspirations of the revolution. Bowing to public pressure, the government agreed to a ceasefire after 12 days of intense blood-letting. The Mexican army retook the city of San Cristobal but allowed the Zapatistas some measure of autonomy over a small area in Chiapas. The shaky truce has held for most of the past 15 years. The Zapatistas now use the media and the Internet in a nonviolent effort to press for reforms that would give more autonomy to the native people of Mexico. The hooded Zapatista spokesman, Subcomandante Marcos, is considered a heroic figure by many Mexicans.

Perhaps the biggest shock of all was the assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio in 1994. It was an election year and Colosio was chosen as the presidential candidate of the PRI. The 44-year-old Colosio was young and handsome, intelligent and well educated. He had a beautiful wife and two lovely children. Colosio claimed he would clean up the government, prosecute corrupt officials and make Mexico a decent place for people of all races, religions and classes to live and raise a family. The comparisons to John Kennedy were unavoidable. For one brief shining moment, the Mexican people actually had someone they could believe in. Then, on March 23, 1994, at a campaign rally in Tijuana, Colosio was shot in the head with a .38 caliber handgun at point blank range.

Who killed Colosio? Mario Aburto Martinez, a 23-year-old factory
worker with no motive, is serving a 45-year sentence as the official lone perpetrator of the crime. But few Mexicans accept the lone-gunman theory. The autopsy indicates there were two bullet wounds…coming from two different directions. A suspected second gunman was arrested by Tijuana police the day of the murder…and then released within 24 hours. Three members of Colosio’s private security detail were later arrested as conspirators in the crime…and released 10 months later without charges ever being filed. The Tijuana chief of police was assassinated shortly after announcing he would pursue his own investigation into the crime…one of more than 20 people connected to the assassination who have since been murdered. There are many more unanswered questions about who killed Colosio. If you ask Mexicans who did it, most will tell you it was “el sistema.”

In a close but relatively legitimate election, the PRI’s replacement candidate, Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, was elected president in 1994. An economist by trade, the 43-year-old Zedillo was certainly an intelligent and well-meaning man. But he took control over a government in turmoil and a country in crisis. Not only did he have to deal with an armed insurgency in Chiapas, the scandals involving the Salinas brothers and the fallout from the Colosio assassination but, within a month of taking office, the Mexican economy collapsed. The time had come to repay the excessive borrowing of the Salinas regime…and Mexico was broke. The peso took a nosedive, losing half its value. Zedillo arranged for a $50-billion bailout from the U.S. and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Although the economy recovered and the bailout was repaid ahead of schedule, the PRI had lost all credibility with the Mexican people. After 71 years of continuous one-party rule, the time had come for a change.

Next Month: Part Six: Democratization
________________________________________
Steven Alexander is a former journalist and award-winning sports writer. He is retired and lives in Ajijic.

Smartalex wrote:

Jeff Raybourne wrote:

viajero wrote:

Jeff Raybourne wrote:

And if you knew anything about the law in this country you would have known that murder falls under fuero comun and not  a federal statute.

The way I read  Alex's post it would appear that he does know that that murder is not a federal offense.
Did you watch the video of mireles on the last page trying to explain why he was divorcing his wife of 27years,what a joke,what a weasel..

No and I don't watch telenovelas either.

And you read Alex wrong. The whole last part of that particular post was plagiarized. IOW, not his words.

This is so funny. I know where you read that before. You let me know when you figure it out.

Smartalex wrote:How's that personal meeting between EPN and Mireles coming along?

Jeff Raybourne wrote:

Smartalex wrote:How's that personal meeting between EPN and Mireles coming along?

It's not. It was in an opinion article in the Mural but it was obviously erroneous.

Smartalex wrote:

Jeff Raybourne wrote:

Smartalex wrote:How's that personal meeting between EPN and Mireles coming along?

It's not. It was in an opinion article in the Mural but it was obviously erroneous.

What's obvious is that you are full of shit. Next time you choose to pick an argument with me, let me suggest you get your facts and information straight beforehand.

Pedro wrote:
i forgot  that at one point you were writing the same shit about papa smurf but all of a sudden he's white as the driven snow and your fairhaired hero. .

Pedro wrote:i can't be bothered going back through all your tripe just to find that. you find it or others that have nothing to do can go back through all your garbage..
maybe neil can do it since he appears to dick around on web boards 24/7.

Smartalex wrote:

So you're just as full of shit as this Raybourne character...you got nuthin' Pedro.

viajero wrote:

Smartalex wrote:

So you're just as full of shit as this Raybourne character...you got nuthin' Pedro.

Actually no one is as full of shit as pedro is.Jeff most certainly is not full of shit,he just got misled by the Mural,it happens,at least he fessed up,something pedro's vanity would never allow him to do..

Smartalex wrote:or perhaps it was just a problem with his poor translation.

viajero wrote:

Smartalex wrote:or perhaps it was just a problem with his poor translation.

That's probably the least likely scenario...I wouldn't go there if I were you..  

viajero wrote:

Smartalex wrote:or perhaps it was just a problem with his poor translation.

That's probably the least likely scenario...I wouldn't go there if I were you..  

Ms.Thang wrote:So I have some friends ( he is Mexican, she's a foreigner) visiting Chapala this week who live close to Santa Clara Del Cobre and they say that things are pretty tranquillo around there right now. They tell me that the autodefensas have road blocks set up and traffic only passes through one lane and They peer into the cars as they go by.
They feel like the area they live in is safe enough but business owners being extorted by the Templarios is still a problem and they seem to know a lot of people who have had to pay up or have been threatened including a couple of friends of theirs who are foreigners but not business owners . That couple left their house on the market and moved to Lake Chapala.
They seemed a tiny bit defensive about the situation much like we see among people here when talking about the relative safeTy of where they live. They live in an absolutely beautiful place that is kind of out in the sticks and they love to have visitors and they seem to be a little annoyed with their friends who decline to visit them right now.
Their own personal line in the sand seems to be extorsion for protection money which hasn't happened to them yet so they feel O.K.  They said that the autodefensas also ask for money because most don't have paying jobs but there are not consequences if they are not paid.

Pedro wrote:
ms thang knows diddley about any of this

Smartalex wrote:

viajero wrote:

Smartalex wrote:

So you're just as full of shit as this Raybourne character...you got nuthin' Pedro.

Actually no one is as full of shit as pedro is.Jeff most certainly is not full of shit,he just got misled by the Mural,it happens,at least he fessed up,something pedro's vanity would never allow him to do..

I'm not so sure he actually fessed up. Was he "misled" by Mural or did he "misread" the article...or perhaps it was just a problem with his poor translation. I would like to have the opportunity to see the source and hold this Raybourne character to the same level of scrutiny to which he holds me.

Smartalex wrote:

Pedro wrote:
ms thang knows diddley about any of this

Man up, Pedro. I think you owe Ms. Thang an apology for all those gratuitous insults, such as this one.

Pedro wrote:

Smartalex wrote:

Pedro wrote:
ms thang knows diddley about any of this

Man up, Pedro. I think you owe Ms. Thang an apology for all those gratuitous insults, such as this one.

i owe her nothing for those previous posts.

Smartalex wrote:

Man up, Pedro.