#file_1# MEXICO CITY (1/6/04) -- La Jornada is a center-left Mexico City daily which makes good reading for U.S. progressives. In it one regularly encounters articles by writers excluded by the mainstream media in the U.S. Robert Fisk's commentaries from Afghanistan and Iraq appear at the same time as in the Independent. Noam Chomsky and Immanuel Wallerstein are constant points of reference for analyzing world affairs, and James Petras frequently appears with commentaries on Latin American and U. S. politics. The front page of the January 5 issue carries an interview with Gore Vidal that is sharply critical of the Bush administration.

With regard to Mexican politics, La Jornada is close to the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD for its initials in Spanish) and is sympathetic to the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN for its initials in Spanish). La Jornada is the regular print outlet for the numerous and often lengthy communiques of Subcomandante Marcos, and various writers analyze Zapatista activities favorably.

Several articles from La Jornada provide a snapshot of Mexican politics in the first days of the new year. The end of 2003 and the beginning of 2004 have had several symbolic moments in the Mexican political panorama. The twentieth-anniversary of the formation of the EZLN fell in November, the mid-point of the six-year term of President Vicente Fox in December, and January 1, 2004 marked the tenth anniversary of the Zapatista uprising. Nonetheless, in the first days of 2004 these events had to share space with yet another U.S. intervention in Mexican affairs.

Airport security

"U.S. Takes Control of Security Checks in Mexico City Airport. Embassy Personnel Establishes an Office in the Terminal," "FBI To Occupy Airport as Long as it Wishes" were the headlines of the January 3 and 4 editions of La Jornada. According to the corresponding articles, U.S. embassy personnel had established an office in the Mexico City airport to observe passengers traveling to the United States and to "exchange information" with Mexican authorities about them. As a consequence of these measures, an Aeroméxico flight to Los Angeles was cancelled on December 31 and January 1. Reports of unusually long waits and extreme tension in the airport were widely reported by other media along with La Jornada, usually with a tone of resentment frequently expressed by Mexicans in cases of U.S. intervention in their affairs, especially, as in this case, with the active cooperation of the Mexican government. While president Fox explained that the measures were consistent with the usual "close collaboration and cooperation" with U.S. authorities in matters of security, Archbishop Norberto Rivera and business leaders criticized the measures as a violation of national sovereignty. On January 5 the cartoonist Magu has a character standing outside the airport expressing the sentiment of many Mexicans: "In spite of everything, Bush is respectful of our sovereignty . . . He still hasn't required us to have a passport and visa to enter the airport."

The Midterm of Vicente Fox

The victory of the conservative Vicente Fox in the 2000 presidential election broke a 70-year old monopoly of power by the Institutional Party of the Revolution (PRI for its initials in Spanish). At the time, many Mexican progressives celebrated the defeat of the PRI while at the same time expressing strong reservations about Fox and his government. Fox ran on a platform of "Change," announcing that he would govern in a transparent and efficient manner (versus the famous corruption of the PRI), that the economy would grow by 5% annually, with a trickle-down benefit for the poor, that he would come to an accord on immigration with the United States to alleviate the painful conditions of the millions of Mexicans "on the other side,"and that he would resolve the conflict in Chiapas in "15 minutes."

None of that has occurred.

Many members of Fox's "Super Cabinet" are no longer part of the government, and the president has not maintained good relations with the leadership of his conservative National Action Party (PAN for its initials in Spanish).

The economy has been relatively stagnant, and the number of poor has continued to increase, in keeping with the prevailing tendency since the imposition of structural adjustment programs in 1982.. According to conservative estimates, at least 40 million Mexicans, 40% of the population, live in poverty.

After September 11, 2001 the U.S. government backed away from discussions on the migration issue, although some new initiative may be announced when Bush and Fox meet in Monterrey in mid-January.

Although Fox initially proposed a progressive reform regarding indigenous rights, the law eventually passed fell far short of that proposal. It was rejected by the vast majority of indigenous groups, and the EZLN withdrew from all negotiations with the government. The promised urgent reform regarding indigenous was dead.

Finally, Fox´s PAN suffered a significant defeat in the 2003 midterm elections, and, as Mexicans look to the 2006 presidential elections in which, according to the constitution, the president may not be re-elected, a return of the PRI is a distinct possibility.

The Zapatistas, Mexican Politics, and Alterglobalization

The January 1, 1994 uprising by the EZLN in which they briefly occupied several municipalities in the state of Chiapas shocked Mexico and the world. On that very date NAFTA went into effect, trumpeted by Mexican president Carlos Salinas Gortari as the road to the First World, the Zapatistas declared this agreement to be a death sentence for indigenous and other poor peoples in Mexico. January 1, 1994 also marked the beginning of a tumultuous presidential election year, and the EZLN denounced the corrupt politics of the one-party State and called for the resignation of president Salinas. Experts in the use of the internet, the Zapatistas quickly attracted a large international support base, and their movement has become a significant point of reference for what they now term the alterglobalization movement.

The Zapatista revolt changed Mexican politics in ways that were probably unexpected. Severe critics of electoral politics, the Zapatistas were nonetheless a major catalyst of a series of reforms which allowed for relatively free and transparent elections in 1997. In those elections the PRI lost its majority in the lower house of Congress, and Cuautemoc Cárdenas, the historic leader of the PRD, won a landslide victory in the first election for the mayoralty of Mexico City . The same reforms allowed once again for relatively free and transparent elections in 2000 (at least much more transparent than in Florida!), the elections won by Vicente Fox. Ironically, the leftist Zapatistas played a fundamental role in the election of the conservative Fox.

The insurrectionary Zapatista project of 1994 lasted only two weeks. Since then the movement has defined itself primarily as a promoter of indigenous rights and as an example of an alternative politics based on "governing by obeying" ("mandar obedeciendo"). In 2003 the organization reorganized its base communities into "caracoles," the Mayan symbol of snails, as autonomous cooperative municipalities. In spite of being surrounded by governmental troops and hostile paramilitary groups, the Zapatistas continue to resist and offer an alternative to elite politics based on participatory democracy. The austere anniversary celebration on January 1, 2004 was held in the presence of numerous national and international journalists and supporters. "Ten years ago we rose against a government which said we did not exist, and when we spoke, it tried to silence us with its cannons. But we are here. We did not become silent nor did we go away. . . It is necessary to know how to wait," said the principal Zapatista spokesperson.

Mexico begins yet another year of uncertainty and instability. The Mexican economy continues mired in the 500-year old cycle of the development of underdevelopment. Its economic and political elites continue to serve their own narrow interests through "cooperative" arrangements with the elites of its always "difficult" neighbor to the north, arrangements such as the current close "collaboration" with U.S. authorities at the airport, and such as NAFTA. Although the Zapatistas continue to offer a symbolic alternative, one which has inspired other successful social movements in the country, that symbolic alternative has yet to attract the sort of mass support that might lead to substantial changes in the seemingly endless instability of the status quo.

[See also Mexican journalist Gloria Munoz Ramirez's interview with Subcomandante Marcos.--IMC Editors]