[toeslist] FW: May 7: Political Update on Mexico
 
Resent-Date: Fri, 9 May 2008 00:05:42 -0500 (CDT)


From: Alan [mailto:ilcinfo@earthlink.net] Sent: Thursday, May 08,
2008 5:58 PM To: Recipient List Suppressed:

Subject: May 7: Political Update on Mexico

"Caldersn and Mouriqo [Minister of Interior' Are Rats and Scoundrels!"

-- Chant of Brigadistas in Campeche, during tour of Andris Manuel
Lspez Obrador

May 7: Political Update on Mexico

BY ALAN BENJAMIN

The struggle over who will own and control Mexico's vital oil
resources continues with full force.

Today, the legitimate president of Mexico, Andris Manuel Lspez
Obrador, began his tour of Mexico's southern states to promote the
campaign of the Frente en Defensa del Petrsleo to defend Mexico's
oil resources. This campaign was launched earlier this year by the
National Democratic Convention (CND) of Lspez Obrador.

Referring to the decision by the Mexican Congress to organize a
series of Congressional debates over the five-point "energy reform"
packet presented to the Congress by usurper President Felipe Caldersn
and his Minister of the Interior, Juan Camilo Mouriqo, Lspez Obrador
told a large crowd of supporters in Campeche that, "We are going
to take advantage of the [72-day] period of debates to build our
Resistance Movement. ... They want to take away our oil resources
and turn them over to Chevron and Repsol, but we won't let them!"

In his speech, Lspez Obrador established what he called the four
principles that guide the Resistance Movement in relation to this
debate on energy "reform." He stated, "We will not accept anything
that violates the Constitution, that undermines national sovereignty,
that will privatize our oil resources or that will foster corruption
in Pemex."

Lspez Obrador also insisted that the Mexican people must have a say
in a matter as vital to the nation as its oil resources. "After
they finish the debates in the Congress," he said, "there must be
a national referendum so that the people can decide their own fate.
.. We will not accept a reform concocted by the PRI and the PAN."
He added, "All the people of Mexico must be consulted. The legislators
can have the last word, but only after the people have had their
say."

Lspez Obrador concluded his speech with the call to "strengthen the
movement, organize ourselves better and ensure we have 200,000
organized Brigadistas in the Zscalo square of Mexico City on June
29." The crowd responded to this passionate speech with chants of
"Caldersn and Mouriqo Are Rats and Scoundrels!"

Lspez Obrador's call for a referendum has created a big stir among
the political establishment. The national coordinators of the two
ruling parties in Mexico immediately rejected the call for a
referendum. In a joint statement, Santiago Creel of the PAN and
Emilio Gamboa of the PRI said there is no provision in the Mexican
Constitution to hold a referendum or plebiscite. They added, "One
man cannot tell us what to do. This is why we have a legislative
body. His proposal is inadmissible. Its only aim is to have him to
shine in the media so that he alone can set the agenda for the
Congress."

Creel and Gamboa went on to state that they are "open to debate and
to changes in the reform proposals -- but these changes will only
come from our legislators in a plural, open and democratic manner."

This joint statement in turn prompted a statement to the press by
former Mexican Supreme Court Justice Juventino Castro, who stated
that "Caldersn reform proposal is unconstitutional ... and therefore
it is in order to call on the President, as provided in Article 26,
Section 3 of the Mexican Constitution, to establish a procedure for
popular participation in the system of national planning, such as
a plebiscite, to advance the nation's economic development."

Meanwhile, Manlio Fabio Beltrones, the coordinator in the Senate
of the PRI, the political party that dominated Mexico's politics
for more than 70 years, said that the PRI supports the energy reform
package submitted by Caldersn but warned that there would "have to
be some changes to ensure that the reforms are consistent with
Mexico's Constitution and our national sovereignty."

Many legislators in the PRD, the party of Lspez Obrador, have echoed
this position expressed by PRI leader Fabio Beltrones, stating that
they are willing to amend Caldersn's "reform" plan to "bring it
more into compliance with Mexico's Constitution."

Hence, on the one hand, there is movement afoot in the legislature
to produce a "better privatization" plan -- one that would have the
support of a wing of the opposition movement to give it some
legitimacy; but on the other hand, the Resistance Movement in the
streets has drawn a line in the sand, explaining it will not accept
any amendments to this privatization plan. The whole Caldersn plan
must be scrapped, they say.

How this tug of war, this class struggle, will play out remains to
be seen.

The PRD Senate coordinator, Carlos Navarrete, announced that the
PRD has not "discarded the possibility of presenting its own reform
plan as an alternative project."

The problem, of course, is the following: What kind of "alternative
reform"

proposal is Navarrete talking about here?

All too often, in the name of being "pro-active" and proposing
"alternative reforms" so as not to appear "rejectionist," activist
movements have succumbed to the pressures of the ruling class and
its institutional frameworks. This has usually meant going along
with some form of privatization or some form of "free trade"
agreements -- against the needs and aspirations of the peoples in
their countries.

There is nothing wrong in principle with proposing a counter plan
to the plan proposed by those who are hell-bent on turning Mexico
oil's resources over to the U.S. and foreign oil corporations. There
is certainly the need to clean up the corruption in Pemex and to
improve the system of administration of this giant nationalized
enterprise. There is a need for a genuine reform of Pemex (not one
that parades as a "reform" but is in fact a privatization plan),
as Lspez Obrador has stated time and again. Within the framework
of Lspez Obrador's four principles, there is certainly an alternative
plan that could be put forward. Such a reform, of course, would
have to reject all the points in the Caldersn Plan.

But if the proposed "alternative reform plan" -- as some in the PRD
envision -- seeks to find common ground with the conservative forces
in the PRD and with the PRI -- in the name of "opposing the worst
aspects" of the Caldersn plan -- the movement will be taken down
the slippery path to acceptance of the basic premises of reform and
privatization. This is inevitable. It is only a matter of time,
then, before Pemex is given back to the transnational oil corporations.

To be continued.