The weekly newsletter of the México Solidarity Project

August 11, 2021/ This week's issue/ Meizhu Lui, for the editorial team

A Challenge to ‘Open Borders’ — for Corruption

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, right at the start of his administration, famously issued three simple commandants to elected Morena officials: “Do not steal, do not lie, and do not betray.” Previous presidents from the PRI had operated by a different set of precepts. They stole, lied, and betrayed with impunity. 

In our interview this week, Kurt Hackbarth explains how those corrupt practices enabled the PRI to stay in power for most of a century. PRI presidents stole public dollars to enrich their friends, who promptly filled PRI campaign war chests with good chunks of those same dollars. Lying about vote tallies also helped ensure PRI rule, as did betraying those who challenged PRI corruption — as well as innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time — through torture and murder. An ugly story.

US politicians have down through the years routinely feigned horror at the level of violence in México. But these same pols simply shrug at the source of the weapons that enable that homicidal violence: US gun companies. Corporate profits apparently matter more than lives lost. Defending the “right to bear arms” trumps any defense of democracy.

AMLO has now filed suit against US gun companies for failing to conduct background checks on gun sellers in México. The chances of that suit actually winning in US courts? Close to zero. But like the August 1 Mexican referendum on whether criminally corrupt ex-presidents should face prosecution, the gun-seller suit serves a purpose. Bringing the suit lifts up the complicity of US gun companies for all to see.

The Mexican people have had enough of corruption. They have voted overwhelmingly for AMLO and his do-not-steal-lie-betray governing principles. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they understand, cannot thrive without them.

Power plays by self-enriching politicians — at the people’s expense — have been as common as mud down through history. Do you see anything unique about México's history of political corruption?

Political corruption has always existed, but we’ve had corruption on steroids since the peso crashed in 1982. The IMF bailed out México at that time, but the price was agreeing to “structural adjustments” that cut public services off at the knees. Over the following two decades, we saw the wholesale privatization of state agencies: trains and transport, oil, banks, iron and steel. Hundreds of state-owned industries were sold to the buddies of Mexican presidents, creating a new strata of multimillionaires.

These newly minted millionaires executed “state capture”: The presidents made their friends rich and the rich made the presidents — through massive and illegal campaign contributions. What made this so horrendous was that state capture was coupled with state terror, to keep the impoverished and angry population under control. The Actael massacre of indigenous people in Chiapas, the countless dead from Calderon’s war on drugs, the disappearance of the 43 teaching students of Ayotzinapa — the list goes on and on. All of these horrific episodes had connections to high people in office. Military and paramilitary groups, as well as drug cartels, did the dirty work, in exchange for being allowed to operate with impunity.

This moche — “chop off” — system didn’t just involve presidents. Congressional representatives participated, too, ensuring that everyone got a cut. The Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, for instance, donated $4 million to the campaign chest of former president Enrique Peña Nieto. Part of that then went to pay off legislators to pass energy “reforms” benefiting Odebrecht. A Congress-for-hire.

In 2018 AMLO made tackling corruption the centerpiece of his presidential campaign. How important was that to his victory?

Critically important. AMLO did not go so far as to name capitalism itself as the problem, but he did effectively equate corruption with neoliberalism. And the people were fed up with the rule of the PRI/PAN that was causing ordinary families to live in fear of physical and economic violence.

We were in the Zócalo the night AMLO won the election. We felt a sense of relief and joy, a feeling that the country was being lifted out of a supremely dark time. Compare those 2018 celebrations to Calderon’s inauguration in 2006, when he had to sneak in the back door of Congress, do a 30-second express inauguration in the midst of chaos, and be hustled back out. Or to 2012, with Pena Nieto’s inauguration. They had to wall off Congress, and protestors faced terrible repression.

On August 1, Mexicans voted in a national referendum, a consulta, on whether former presidents could be prosecuted for the crimes they committed. If Mexicans feel so deeply about fighting corruption, why did only 7 percent of the population turn out for the consulta?

Morena wanted the consulta to be held on the same day as the midterm elections on June 6, but conservative forces would not allow it. It was a big ask to get people to go back to the polls just two months later, in a first-ever referendum barely promoted and mostly ignored by the media.

What then do you see as the significance of the consulta? Did it amount to a defeat? How will it influence future politics?

The consulta inaugurated participatory democracy. For the first time, people were asked their opinion on a critical policy matter. The mainstream press, the INE, and right-wingers who called voters “clowns” all opposed even holding the referendum. Yet 6.5 million people still voted — and 95 percent of them voted “yes.”

Yes, the turnout did fall far short of the 40 percent of the electorate needed to make the vote binding, but I see other reasons to view the voting as a victory. The turnout was highest among poorer, rural, and indigenous areas in the South. In some places, like Tlalpa, Guerrero, the turnout hit 98 percent!

In areas like Palenque and Ocosingo in Chiapas, in Zapatista territory, turnout also ran high. The Zapatistas have intermittently called for voter absentionism in recent years, but they mobilized to a degree for the consulta. Perhaps that’s because the demand for the consulta came from below, from those who’ve suffered most from corrupt rule.

The consulta, most significantly, has put the crimes of past presidents back in the public eye and re-opened debate. The victims of massacres spoke out, and a justice movement has been re-invigorated, with a rally a week after the vote, for example, at the Zocalo in México City to demand there be no immunity for crimes against the people.

The right did not win anything by boycotting the consulta, as nothing is stopping the Justice Department from going ahead with corruption prosecutions. If it doesn’t, a people’s tribunal or truth commission could become extra-judicial vehicles for accountability. We’re seeing renewed energy to bring corrupt ex-leaders to justice, one way or another.

The Case of México vs. the U.S. Gun Companies

This ad for Colt pistols would be more accurate if it read “OFTEN IMPLICATED.”

The Stop US Arms to Mexico project, a joint effort of Global Exchange and the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights coordinated by John Lindsay-Poland, is working to reduce both US legal arms sales and illegal gun trafficking to México. Guns from the US, the project notes, have become “a central contributor to growing violence experienced by communities and migrants in Mexico.” The AMLO administration last week moved against that gun trafficking. Stop US Arms to Mexico has offered this analysis of that move.

Lawsuit is step in the right direction, but more needed, say experts

August 4, 2021

The Mexican government filed suit in federal court today against a dozen U.S. gun manufacturers whose weapons have been used in thousands of homicides and other violent crimes in Mexico.

“The Mexican government’s legal action is a positive and important step, making gun production companies responsible for distributing military-grade guns to businesses with bad records of selling guns to criminals or others involved in illegal trafficking,” said Marco Castillo, co-director of Global Exchange.

More than 70 percent of all firearms recovered and traced from crime scenes in Mexico came from the United States, according to official U.S. data.   

At the same time, the violence crisis in Mexico goes beyond illegal trafficking. Police and military officers receive legally exported U.S. weapons that have been used to commit human rights violations and crimes, including the disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, the massacre of 19 migrants in Camargo, Tamaulipas earlier this year, and many more documented tragedies in Mexico...

“Without civilian oversight of México’s gun registry and a civilian counterpart to the Mexican army, the movement of guns in México will continue to be a black box,” according to Castillo. “The Army has complete control over information on gun imports, national production and sales to police and private individuals, as well as over missing and stolen firearms. This lack of transparency is unsafe and worrisome, since many crimes are committed with guns stolen from the military”. 

We call on both the Mexican and U.S. governments to carry out a regional strategy to address the crisis of cross-border gun transfers and violence.

Recent news reports and commentaries, from progressive and mainstream media,
on life and struggles on both sides of the US-México border

Genaro Lozano, México’s Quiet Return to Diplomatic Leadership, Americas Quarterly. During the Cold War, México defended Latin American interests before the US and also provided asylum to intellectuals and politicians persecuted by dictatorships in Spain and South America.

César Enrique Pineda, El México de López Obrador, Jacobin América Latina. Oligarquías, capitales y clases subalternas en tiempos de la Cuarta Transformación.

Brett Wilkins, México Files Historic Lawsuit Against US Gun Companies Fueling Cartel Carnage, Common Dreams. The first-of-its-kind suit alleges U.S. weapons firms design, market, and sell guns in ways they know arm the drug cartels.

Sebastián Barragán Hidalgo, The Pegasus Project Has Exposed the Magnitude of México's Surveillance Problem, The Wire. President López Obrador, a clear victim of espionage as a candidate, seems committed to ending spying from the government. Whether he can deliver remains to be seen.

Oscar Lopez, ‘We’re Living in Hell’: Inside México’s Most Terrified City, New York Times. The terror began around 2007 as the government’s assault on the cartels led them to splinter, evolve and spread.

John Ackerman, Hacia una nueva institucionalidad electoral, La Jornada. Si no avanza pronto una nueva reforma electoral, la incipiente democracia mexicana estará en riesgo constante.

AMLO dará amnistía a presos que fueron torturados o no tienen sentencia,  Polemón. El presidente anunció la semana pasada un decreto para dejar en libertad a presos que hayan sido torturados y que han permanecido encarcelados sin sentencia por más de 10 años.

Kevin Sieff, Legal U.S. marijuana is pouring into México, Washington Post. For years, advocates of legalizing marijuana in México have argued that the country could establish an enormously profitable industry, given its years of producing the drug illicitly. But legalization has moved much faster north of the border, giving places like California a huge advantage.

The Mexico Solidarity Project brings together activists from various socialist and left organizations and individuals committed to worker and global justice who see the 2018 election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador as president of México as a watershed moment. AMLO and his progressive Morena party aim to end generations of corruption, impoverishment, and subservience to US interests. Our Project supports not just Morena, but all Mexicans struggling for basic rights, and opposes US efforts to undermine organizing and México’s national sovereignty. 

Editorial committee: Meizhu Lui, Bruce Hobson, Bill Gallegos, Sam Pizzigati. We welcome your suggestions and feedback. Interested in getting involved? Drop us an email!

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