Here is something you might not
know: Mexico was ruled by the same political party for 71 years. Now, after a brief pause of 12 years, the same party
is back: the Institutional Revolutionary Party (or
PRI) won the last election promising that it was a new party. The “Nuevo
PRI” or “new/reformed” PRI was going to be more
democratic and leave behind the authoritarian past that it had been known for. This promise was at the centre of Enrique
Peña Nieto’s campaign during the elections back in 2012. Part of the
international optimism about Mr. Nieto’s victory was derived from a perceived change in politics-as-usual in Mexico. Now,
that optimism has all but disappeared. This text is an
attempt from someone who has been part of the protests against Mr. Nieto to
explain what is happening and why.
Who is Enrique Peña Nieto?
Peña Nieto is a politician that
grew within the traditional ranks of the PRI party. He was a bureaucrat during the tenure of Mexico State’s governor Arturo
Montiel. Being his personal secretary, he became the protégée of a state
governor known for his corruption and authoritarianism. His political rise eventually turned him into Mexico
State’s governor in 2005, helped by a mixture of family and political
connections in a state that has been ruled by the PRI for 89 years without interruption.
During his tenure in the
year 2006, Peña Nieto oversaw a violent police operation in the town of San Salvador Atenco2. The population had been resisting attempts to
wrestle agricultural land away from them using eminent
domain, in order to build a new airport. Back
then and today, the social situation was grim: Mexico State is amongst the most violent areas of the country and the images of policemen chasing and hitting protesters in the streets of the town were broadcast on live television. After the operation, reports of
rape and disproportionate violence surfaced. The violent
repression of the protests in Atenco would haunt Peña Nieto during his presidential campaign. This would trigger massive
student protests against him years later.
#Yosoy132 is born
Now, let’s skip forward 6 years.
It’s 2012 and Peña Nieto is campaigning to be president. His visit to a
renowned private university ended with a Q&A round in which students asked
him about the San Salvador Atenco operation.
He sternly defended having “reestablished the rule of law” and had to be escorted by his entourage out of the
university among thousands of students that booed him and chanted “this
university doesn’t want you”. Signaling the unrepentant stance of Peña Nieto towards human rights abuses, that first protest
mutated into a massive student social movement named
#Yosoy132 that warned about a possible authoritarian regression if Peña Nieto
won.
Thousands of young people took to
the streets (I was among them) and organized rallies and protests to try and break the information monopoly
that the two dominant media conglomerates in Mexico exert upon the news. What
seemed like an easy election for Peña Nieto turned into a difficult scenario: he led comfortably in the polls by about 20% but the student protests and other
political factors reduced that lead to a mere
6% in the final vote. For better or
for worse, the movement didn’t stop Peña from winning, who achieved victory using a combination of sophisticated and shady funding techniques
and more traditional vote rigging practices,
common to all political parties in Mexico. After his victory it was yet to be
seen if the predictions that the
student movement made would become true. Students warned people to be
ready to “switch their clocks back 70 years”. Those of us who participated in
the student movement feared that the way in
which the PRI governed would be back: rigging elections, violently repressing student protests, mismanaging the
economy and just being outright anti-democratic.
Many of these fears were displaced
by something else: during the first two years of Peña’s presidency, an ambitious reform agenda was set and it
met its own objectives in record time. While the
student protests never ceased, the country was busy trying to understand what
11 constitutional reforms meant – Peña Nieto made so
many changes to laws that it’s safe to say he changed the fundamental legal structure of Mexico. The
participants in the student movement like myself remained sceptical about the
reform’s purported benefits, but international optimism and a fragmented political opposition at home made it
difficult to unify any criticisms. The warnings about a flawed and corrupt
political system did not spread to everyone. What nobody could foresee is that
a terrible incident would unify Mexican society in a call for justice and an
end to impunity.
Mexico’s violent nightmare
It’s no secret that Mexico has
security problems. More than 80% of crimes in Mexico remain unsolved. If anyone outside of Mexico heard anything
about the country in past few years it’s probably related
to drug violence. What is probably not well known is the extent to which this
violence has penetrated Mexican society. Drug cartels have literally bought a
place in the mainstream political system. For example, in
Michoacán state, the governor’s son was recorded having a relaxed conversation
and beers with the leader of a fearsome cartel named “La Familia Michoacana”.
Accusations of members of
the chamber of deputies being financed by, or being part of, drug cartels have been circulating for years now. This is the immediate
preamble for the atrocity that happened in Guerrero
state, in the city of Iguala. A terribly dangerous combination is present in
many parts of Mexico, especially in Michoacán
and Guerrero state: Drug trafficking money has infiltrated municipalities and governments, extorting, bribing, blackmailing
or even killing elected officials to make them comply
with their demands. When it proved more convenient, the cartels effectively
bought or infiltrated the candidacies of
political parties and in many cases, obtained
political representation through elections.
This was the case in Iguala, the mayor had close ties with the dominant drug cartel in Guerrero. He was accused of killing a member of his own political party that competed with him
for the candidacy and rumours of his
lavish lifestyle were widespread.
Nobody from the federal, state or local government did anything about it, even
though the information was known to the Attorney General’s office. What
happened later is a direct result of
that failure to act.
The
tragedy of Ayotzinapa
In the vicinity of Iguala, there
is a rural teacher’s school in Ayotzinapa that houses many students. They go there to break away from a circle of poverty
and exclusion that traps most of Guerrero’s peasant
and indigenous youth. By being rural teachers, these students
attempt to secure an income and educate themselves.
Living in a state plagued by social
inequality, Ayotzinapa’s students face many
difficulties that range from lack
of government funding up to outright police and political opposition to their demands for social equality. The students were well known in Guerrero for their combative stance and were always a
thorn in the government’s side, frustrating local
politicians that wished they would not agitate the population into demanding more
from their government.
Those students were in route for
the city of Iguala on September 26th aboard some buses, their aim was gathering funds to travel to Mexico City so they could
attend a demonstration commemorating a government
massacre against students in Mexico City that happened in 1968. While many of
the facts are not clear yet, it’s believed
that the mayor of Iguala thought that they were going to disrupt a political
rally of his wife, which was set to be his successor. The students had
protested blocking highways and commandeering buses before, hence the
suspicion. What followed was one of the most
barbaric acts in Mexico’s history.
The mayor ordered the police to
stop them. Police officers stopped the buses and opened fire on the unarmed students, killing 3 people, among them
a football player from a bus that was confused as being one of the
students’. They kidnapped the students, one of which turned out dead the day after with the
flesh and eyes removed from his skull, having been tortured to death. The rest, according to the government’s investigation,
were taken to a garbage disposal site, summarily executed and then burnt
to be finally disposed of by dumping their charred remains into a river.
This act shocked the nation. The forced disappearance of 43 students at
the hands of local police, the mayor and a
drug cartel was unprecedented in that the line between criminals and government
was completely erased. It made it obvious that government officials were
criminals and criminals were government
officials. It also enraged people because it was known by authorities at
the highest level that this could happen. In short,
Ayotzinapa was a ticking bomb waiting to explode. Thousands of Mexicans have taken to the streets to protest
Peña’s government response, which has
been characterised as slow, insufficient and insensitive. It took the government weeks to react and start investigating seriously and it was mainly due to
political pressure exerted from
street protests.
A big question floats around in many countries
around the world. What changed in Mexico? Why are the protests so
massive? What happened? Many of the answers are within the story we’ve told here:
ever since Mexicans can remember, violence and political oppression have been a part of their daily lives. Even for those who are lucky
enough to have a college education and are
relatively well off, the constant in their lives is a sense of insecurity.
Economic opportunity for the great
majority of people has remained elusive. Government corruption is widespread
and tolerated. But the change that Ayotzinapa brought forth is the sense that
government and crime are now
indiscriminately killing citizens. There
is a feeling that nobody is safe. This can be a watershed moment: maybe, Mexicans have realised that their
current political system is seriously flawed and they can push for change. Some of the persons that looked away from the
protests of the #Yosoy132 movement are now joining in massive, civic and
nonpartisan protests calling for justice and
against Enrique Peña Nieto.
The protests are varied but one element is common to most protesters:
disillusionment with the entire political
class. Initially, the call for Guerrero’s
governor to resign were so strong
that he was forced to step down. Now,
many are calling for the Attorney General
and Peña Nieto’s resignation. Never
before had such a broad section of Mexican
society demanded sweeping political
change without consideration of any
political party, politician or ideology.
There is a strong sense that in Mexico, no
government mechanism works, not the economy, not the police, not the judiciary. This
frustration, coupled with an enormous amount of young people that demand a
better future, has been the catalyst of the protests in support of Ayotzinapa. The Mexican government is at a
tipping point. Mr. Peña has proposed a series of 10 measures that range from special economic
zones in Michoacán and Guerrero, to judiciary reforms to provide Mexicans a quick, easy access
to justice in everyday affairs such as divorce or labour issues. Unfortunately for him, these
measures did not go very far in gaining back the confidence of the population. Most people think
it’s too little and too late. Also, the proposed reforms ignore a fundamental fact: legal
changes do very little in the way of improving
things when the problem is the
application and effectiveness of the law.
The
Mexican people have raised the bar
higher than that. They demand something much more difficult to accomplish: real
economic development, equality in the opportunities to educate themselves, a more egalitarian country and a stop to the
violence. Mexicans like me that have gone out of the streets and demanded justice for Ayotzinapa have rallied behind the
cry “Todos somos Ayotzinapa” (We are
all Ayotzinapa). For us, justice for the 43 disappeared students is also a
demand of justice for all Mexicans.
We are two months into the protests and the story is still unfolding. Hope is
out there that, for the first time, Mexico can change. I hope it does.