Peso Crisis - III

1

• Peso Crisis - III
• Grassroots Response
• to
• Repression Austerity

2
Initial Reactions

• News of govt rupture of talks military
  offensive
• is reported in news media
• circulates rapidly through solidarity networks
• News Reports Critiqued
• media largely parrot govt line on arms cache
  conspiracy
• govt line critiqued on Net
• lack of evidence, illogic of charges
• later evidence proves silly and minimal

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Mobilization

• Organization of protests to pressure Mexican govt
  to back off,
• repeat of Jan-Feb 1994
• giant marches in Mexico City (200,000)
• much larger scale, measured Zapatista political
  success in interim and govt political failures
• Demonstrations against Mexican Embassies
  Consulates in some 40 countries

4
Public Debate

• Debate in Press
• letters to the editor
• op-eds critique Mexican govt, engage pro-govt
  apologists
• Debate on Internet
• Internet lists, newsgroups not just solidarity
  but involve people on all sides, including those
  who defend Mexican govt
• e.g., Cleaver debate with Price

5
Mex Govt Bankruptcy

• Fall back into old Cold War rhetoric
• red-baiting pro-democracy supporters
• Inability and unwillingness to engage ideas
  arguments of Zapatistas
• Political bankruptcy measured by recourse to
  military means
• Chase Report revelations undercut Govts
  credibility

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Observers

• International observers flooded into Chiapas
• repeat of early 1994
• put Mexican military under public scrutiny
• drew in more mass media than might have been the
  case otherwise
• More difficult to obtain access to conflict zones
• Mex govt had learned from previous experience

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Widening of Protest

• Chase Report linked Mexican govt actions to Wall
  Street
• Clinton bailout linked those actions to
  Washington
• So....
• protests widened from purely political to
  confrontation with economic interests
• e.g., anti-Chase demonstrations
• e.g., anti-bank protests in Canada, etc.

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Mobilization Against Austerity

• May 1, 1995 giant march in Mexico City by rank
  file workers against
• govt austerity and
• against unions who tried to avoid demos
• El Barzon formed
• response to high interest rates credit
  restrictions
• small businesses threatened with bankruptcy
• farmers faced with foreclosure
• middle class faced with losing homes, etc.
• Demos spread all over Mexico, esp at banks govt

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Expansion of Informal Sector

• Soaring unemployment and falling real wages
• Flight from formal to informal sectors
• Informal sector already largest in Mexico
• terrain of entrepreneurship? (de Soto)
• terrain of community recomposition outside of
  capitalism?
• e.g. Tepito extensive commerce, extensive
  leisure political self activity

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Immigration

• Reduction of opportunities in Mexico
• ? increased differentials South North
• ? increased pressure/attraction to migrate
• Birds of Passage
• immigrants not just driven, nor flotsam
• immigrants make decisions
• decisions change when parameters change
• immigration a form of struggle, shift to more
  favorable terrain

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Campesino Self-activity

• Intensified conflict in Chiapas
• increased desperation of campesinos
• reduced hopes for peaceful solutions
• reduced options in cities, ? wages
• Acclerated self-organization
• partly pro-EZLN in South
• partly autonomous mobilization throughout Mexico
• e.g., Tarahumara in Chihuahua, emergence of EPR
  in Guerrero?
• e.g., formation of a National Indigenous Congress

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Spreading Guerrilla Groups

• EPR
  FALPMG

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Results

• Mexican Govt forced to stop military offensive
• Failed to arrest EZLN leadership
• Mobilization of new campaigns in defense of
  arrested
• Accelerated development of international observer
  camps in Chiapas
• Return to negotiations
• Intensified low intensity warfare
• against campesino villages
• against priests, foreigners, observers, supporters

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