contents the event
Mexico: a new country?
2
• José Martínez Cruz
• Markets reassured by left victory
• Results • The Zapatistas and the
"new left" • PRD: reasonable and respectable? • Small parties collapse, except for the Greens • The
PRD and the social movements •
What's left of the Mexican left?
• Dan La Botz americas
8 USA: inside the UPS strike
• Martha Gruelle
10 APEC versus humanity
• Harold Lavender
12 Canada: Anti-ecological populism • Harold Lavender
14 The São Paulo Forum
• José Martínez Cruz
16 Latin American news briefs europe
19 France's Socialist government
• Raghu Krishnan
21 EuroMarch news (unemployment)
23
Britain: Uniting against communalism and racism
• B. Skanthakumar asia
24 Thailand: Labour party (re)founded
• Satya Sivaraman
25
Hong Kong: Solidarity against the
World Bank/IMF • G. Greenfield
26
East Timor: Mandela v. Suharto
• B. Skanthakumar
26 Australia: Fast track deportation •
The greatest land grab since 1788
• New Labour Party holds national conference • John Tully regular features
32 book notes
34 conference notes
36 NetWorking
36 well read • the radical media
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3
Markets reassured by left victory control of the intelligence services.
• public works projects by the armed forces, to improve their image among the population.
International capital reacted enthusiastically to Cárdenas's victory. The Mexican Stock Market continued its record-breaking rally.
"This has to be very positive and healthy and is going to generate confidence in Mexico," Hugh Pace, president of Goodyear Mexico told the Wall Street Journal shortly after the election.
Why should Mexican and international capital apparently be so delighted with the victory of Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas and the PRD? Quite simply because the PRI has not been very effective recently. The January 1994 Chiapas Uprising led by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) provoked a national political crisis, followed in December of 1994 by the devaluation of the peso, and the "tequila effect" which threatened the international banking system.
Those two events were followed by appearance of a second guerrilla organisation, the People's Revolutionary Army (EPR) and the subsequent militarisation of several Mexican states -- Chiapas, Tabasco, Guerrero, Oaxaca.
In addition military-style conflicts between and among drug dealers, the police and the army led to the militarisation of northern border states such as Chihuahua.
Taken altogether, the PRI appeared by 1997 to be leading Mexico -- the neighbour of the United States and one of its most important economic players--into an enormous crisis. The U.S. could not permit Mexico to become a Colombia or a Peru. Political and social disturbances threaten the orderly operation of banks and corporations and jeopardises investment.