PROFMEX-Consorcio Mundial para la Investigación sobre México

Mexico and the World
Vol. 6, No 3 (Summer 2001)
http://www.profmex.org/mexicoandtheworld/volume6/3summer01/transition_inmexico.html

TRANSITION IN MEXICO. 2001.
University of California-Los Angeles.
October 29th., 2001.

                                                                        Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas.
                                                                        Fundación para la democracia
                                                                        --alternativa y debate--.

            This forum on transition in Mexico, organized by the University of California-Los Angeles, is being held not only when Mexico is living a political transition, but at the same time when the world is moving towards a new order, that after the terrifying events of September 11th, we still cannot discern if it will result in a long period in which a unique bellicist and political hegemony will consolidate or if the terrible shock world conscience received on that date will accelerate the transit to an equitable and just world order, of collaboration and solidarity.

            After the vile terrorist attacks with aircraft turned into deadly weapons, that have been universally condemned, every judicious and sensible individual or institution has to contribute decidedly in the fight against terrorism in every of its expressions and at the same time, try to penetrate the causes where this acts of folly might have their origin.

            The anger and powerlessness the irrationality of these attacks provoked, must not lead to a response equally irrational. Those responsible of these crimes against humanity must be presented and judged by the international courts of justice. Launching a war without a previous formal declaration, breaking international agreements, undermines the United Nations Organization’s authority and capacity of action and leaves the world to the sole mercy of the strongest; and, on the other hand, the civil and innocent victims of the air raids will only incubate more violence. We must say no to terrorism and, with the same force, no to war. Death will not vanquish death. The answer of a civilized world has to be through reason and right.

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            On July 2nd last year, Mexico made a very important step in its transition towards a democratic system: the electoral defeat of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), its loss of the Presidency and its ousting of government, lead to alternation in the exercise of power and to put an end to the party of State regime. A party different from the PRI is now the party in power and the party of the President, who has a relationship with his party of a different kind to that existing till the past November 30th, when the government and its party obeyed a decision centralized and personalized in the President. This is a deep change, not to be disregarded, but up to now, the only in a positive sense in respect to the immediate past.

            The majority vote of July 2nd was not only in favor of alternation. The vote was, undoubtedly, to oust the PRI of government, to end with a system supported in arbitrariness and nourished by the complicities of corruption, subordinated to foreign interests, but the vote, and this was obvious all along the electoral process, was also in favor of opening new opportunities of improvement and progress for the people; to put an end to the uncertainty of layoffs and lack of family income; to overcome poverty - two thirds of the population, that is 70 000 000 Mexicans, are under the poverty line, and of those, 30 000 000 in extreme poverty-; to change those conditions that force to migrate; to open new perspectives of welfare through education, health, jobs, culture, training.

            Alternation in the exercise of power is the most important achievement of cleaning and democratizing our electoral processes, made possible by the effort and struggle started in 1987-88 by a wide democratic movement, of which the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) has been the main impulse and articulating axis, but we will be able to assure that this is a consolidated situation only after the present administration passes through the test of the next federal election in 2003, when our Chamber of Deputies will be totally renewed. It will be then when we shall know if we have attained electoral democracy or not.

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            Besides alternation, the country is being administered as did the past three PRI governments and if possible, in a much more orthodox manner in its economic policies, which strictly follow the Washington consensus.

            The past government’s incapacity to accelerate economic growth and the shock of U. S. economy’s present recession, have paralyzed Mexican economy. Estimated growth for this year is nil and the estimate for 2002 is, at the most, 1.7% of the GNP, which means the further deterioration of Mexicans already very low living standards, the expansion of poverty and unemployment -this year, more than 400 000 jobs have been lost-, as well as the increase of migration –estimates go from 6 to 10 million Mexican migrants, mostly undocumented, in the United States-, and the response of the present government has been the same the PRI gave in similar situations: a more restrictive monetary policy, very high real interest rates, which close the access to credit, an overvalued peso and heavy cuts to public spending, that is, measures, all of them, that favor recession. The country is kept thus tied in a vicious circle and the government shows no will to get out of it.

            These are not the only problems. We must add those unsolved that become more and more complicated of FOBAPROA-IPAB, which originate in the heavy burden imposed to Mexican economy by converting 70 billion dollars of private debt into public debt and in the impunity that continues protecting and covering crimes committed with those resources; and, on the other hand, Mexico’s loss of control of its banking system, 90% of which is now of foreign property.

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            The integration process of the countries of this continent moves on two axis, one, integration supported in autonomous national decisions, where we find efforts as those of the Latin American Integration Association (ALADI), MERCOSUR and the Latin American Parliament, which have progressed very slowly, among other reasons, because of the U. S. pressures to difficult and break the union and to establish an open and direct control on Latin American nations, which in the last decades have centered in imposing economic policies in agreement with the Washington consensus, that imply, at the same time, political alignment; and, the other, presented as the project to create the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), sponsored and headed by the U. S. government, and enthusiastically, unconditionally, and uncritically supported in Mexico by the Fox administration.

            The FTAA project has its origin in the Enterprise of the Americas Initiative of the beginning of the 90’s, that proposed the development of a free trade area covering the whole continent, created through bilateral agreements signed by the United States and each of the other American countries, according to the timing, rhythms, and obviously obeying the interests of the most powerful. Today the United States wants to move faster and has left behind its worries of a joint negotiation, with which it is trying to push the creation of the FTAA, with the certainty that there are few governments in Latin America an the Caribbean, maybe none, with capacity or will to oppose this project, taking positions in favor of an independent development and in defense of the fundamental interests of their peoples, that could bring a better education, health, jobs, higher wages, respect to human rights, access to culture.

            If the FTAA is to be implemented as has been conceived and is being promoted by the U. S. government, the economies of the Latin American and Caribbean countries would be in a subordinate condition in respect to the large U. S. multinationals and would continue mainly as producers and partially exporters of primary goods and importers of articles with a high added value.

            The creation of a free trade continental area in these conditions, would make U. S. economic and political hegemony still more decisive, with most advantages pointing North, and, on the other hand, would make, quoting SELA’s Economic Relations Director, “sub-regional agreements irrelevant and Latin American and Caribbean integration impossible… as those ideals are sustained in geographical, historic, and cultural affinities and aspire to be much more than a simple free trade zone”.*

            We are in favor of a wide and close collaboration, mainly economic, with Canada and the United States, in conditions of real fairness. NAFTA and its parallel agreements must in consequence be revised. Latin American and Caribbean integration must go beyond trade liberalization and have as its aim “a wider and better development, which means modernizing productive infrastructure, developing industry in superior stages, increasing and reorienting investment, preparing jointly the necessary labor force, collaborating for the introduction of new technologies, promoting tourism all over the region, associating in projects with significant investments, assisting to gain access to international financial markets”.**

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            Mexico’s present government, as the previous administrations, practices a policy of firm subordination to the United States, as can be clearly seen in the President’s and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs’ declarations after the painful events of September 11th, when they presented Mexico’s condolences for the loss of thousands of lives and offered collaboration to fight terrorism, in which everybody agrees, but also, with regard to the blank check extended by Congress to the President of the United States to attack anyone involved or supposedly involved in the September 11th attacks, anywhere, any time, and the immediate warfare reaction, passing over and breaking international conventions signed both by the United States and Mexico, the Mexican government offered the government of the United States unconditional support in its actions against Afghanistan. The bombings and land attacks have not deserved the least official declaration from the Mexican government. This submissive and degrading attitude contravenes and violates the Mexican Constitution, that clearly establishes that Mexico’s foreign policy will obey, among others, the principles of non intervention, peaceful solution of controversies, and the proscription of any menace or use of force in international relations.

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            The previous government tried to implement a deep denationalizing reform in the energy sector, specifically in oil, petrochemistry and electricity, which was detained after the reaction its sole announcement provoked in public opinion. The present government is committed to carry on this reform, and going further, to make Mexico’s energy policy a part of the continental energy policy of the U. S. government, which will be deciding in the last resort how and when to utilize not only Mexico’s, but also Venezuela’s and Canada’s oil resources, considered in this continental policy scheme, the natural providers of U. S. markets.

            Fox and his government will never understand that the securities for the country’s development and for the welfare of Mexicans lie in the defense of our sovereignty, that has as a priority the defense of our strategic natural resources, and starts in complying with the constitutional principles regarding oil and other hydrocarbons, basic petrochemistry, radioactive minerals, as well as electrical generation, conduction and supply.

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            The problem originated with the rising of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) on January 1st, 1994, remains unsolved. Today, to give a proper solution, it is necessary to modify or derogate the constitutional reforms on Indian rights and cultures approved by Congress, that contradict the Concord and Peace Commission’s (COCOPA) initiative, adopted and held as a legitimate claim by the Indian peoples and communities of Chiapas and from all over the country. In this regard, a few weeks ago a large group of legislators from different political parties, including the PRI, demanded Congress to reopen the debate on this issue. In a very recent trip to Europe, in respect to this same issue, Vicente Fox declared, in Germany, that these reforms would be once more discussed in Congress; two days later, in Spain, he declared exactly the opposite. We still have to wait to see which is his true and valid word.

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            So, we can say Mexico is in a political transition that already reflects changes and progress in electoral democracy, but in regard to economic policies, concentration of wealth, foreign relations, continental integration, poverty, Mexican migrants, social conditions, or specific problems like FOBAPROA-IPAB or Chiapas, the country is moving backwards and we face a government resistant to change the basic policies implemented and imposed by the previous PRI administrations. Up to now, consequently, it is valid to assert that Vicente Fox’s government is the fourth salinista administration.

* Eduardo Mayobre, Director de Relaciones Económicas del SELA, citado en “¿Integración regional y desarrollo o sólo libre comercio continental y dependencia?”. “Unidad regional”. AUNA. 2001. Verano.

** “Por la integración de México, Centroamérica y el Caribe”. “Unidad regional”. AUNA. 2001. Verano.