Friday, July 15, 2005

Murders that don't make international news



When a retired Acapulco politician is killed close to where the cliff divers perform, that makes the international news services, and you can read about it the next day in Cleveland or Tacoma. Most local murders don't get that kind of coverage because their victims were poor and the motives of the perpetrators were more base: domestic violence, robbery, gang rivalries.


There is a serial killer loose in Acapulco. He strangles prostitutes. Between the Costera and the
downtown market where tourists by souvenirs of leather, silver, and pottery, there are some
cheap hotels "de paso". Couples arrive without luggage. The rooms have no plumbing, but hopefully clean sheets, and are rented by the hour. At one of these, hotel Kika, the victim was a fourteen year old prostitute (or "sexo-servidora"as the new PC term would have it). Her name was Jazmin Gomez Lopez, but on the street she was "La Pelona" (Baldy). Several others have been attacked since, but she is the one who still sticks in my mind.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

education in Edo Mex

July has a couple of notable Sundaysin Toluca. The first is usually an electiondate: national or state or municipal, depending upon the year. People vote inabout the same numbers as they do in the U.S.but usually emotions do not run high or arethere many surprises when the results come in.
The second Sunday is the one that people await with anticipation and fear, for theresults are less predictable and much morerelevant to their lives. On this EducationSunday, the newspapers have a fifty pagesupplement, mostly consisting of code numbers.Each number represents an applicant to thestate's public high schools and university UAEM (Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Mexico).

The Jimenez Gonzaga family has two daughters,ages 14 and 17. Both are responsible and studious.The younger just graduated from public middle school(secundaria as it is called here), while theelder just finished public high school (preparatoria).Each girl had earned high grades, but had to payalmost 600 pesos each to take a special exam to get into the next level of public education. The youngerwants to go to the public high school that iscollege prep (right where her sister went and succeeded). The older one wants to go to UAEMand study accounting.

The Sunday newspaper contained good news and badnews for the Jimenez Gonzaga family. The youngerdaughter was accepted, and if they can come upwith another registration fee in ten days (andafford to pay for books and uniform) their daughtercan go to the public high school. The bad news wasthat the older daughter was not accepted into theschool of accounting at UAEM.
Across this state, UAEM accepted thirteen thousandstudents, all of whom had good high school grades,good test scores, and the luck of the final lotterytype selection. The programs drawing the greatestnumber of applications were medicine, law, gastronomy(food service management), psychology, dentistry, andarchitecture.

What happens to the seventeen thousand (57% of theapplicants) who were rejected? There are no communitycolleges to attend with hopes of transfering into UAEMas a sophomore or junior. The applicants could waitand try next year, with an even larger number ofrecent graduates. Another alternative presented itselfin the same newspapers: hundreds of ads for privateuniversities. The really good ones (Monterrey Techor Iberoamericana) don't have to advertise anymorethan M.I.T. or Stanford do. The places that do advertise have the reputation of a University ofPhoenix.
There is one more last hope. The newspaper mentionedthat there are still some slots open at UAEM, andif the applicant wants to pay another applicationfee August 8 and take another test August 14 (foryet another fee), she can complete for one of thosefew slots. There are no more accounting slots forthe big UAEM campus Toluca, so the Jimenez Gonzagafamily must choose if their daughter will apply fora slot in Tourism at the Toluca campus or for anaccounting slot at a branch campus inTemascaltepec, an hour and a half away, and thenfigure out how to pay room and board in additionto tuition, books, and of course, more fees.

The real tragedy is occurring on the high schoollevel. A third of the applicants to the publichigh schools in this state did not gain acceptance.Most working class families cannot afford to sendtheir children to the growing number of privatehigh schools. Thanks to child labor laws, you haveto be 18 to get a good job (such as on the assemblyline making PT Cruisers at the Daimler plant). So,what becomes of a 15 year old boy who doesn't makeit into high school? The lucky ones go back touncle Joe's farm, or work in a family business.The really unlucky one's get their pictures on thepoliciaca pages of the newspapers.

MEMIN PINGUIN: not a platform on which to take a stand on racism



Imagine a 1950s type pre-adolescent boy, with red striped shirt, baseball cap (viser won in front) and old stylehigh top tennis shoes. He's sometimes naive, sometimes clever, always cute,and 100% boy. He is to Mexico what Dennis the Menace or Beaver Cleaverwas to the U.S. Now there is talk of making this retro comic strip figureinto a TV series or even a movie.
There's one complicating factor in this innocent nostalgia. Memin Pinguin is obviously of African Ancestry, and is portrayed stereotypically. Just last month, this beloved cartoon character was honored with a Mexican postage stamp.That was the spark (President Fox's comments about Mexicans doing work "even the Blacks won't do") was the accumulated dynamite leading to the explosion of rage from African American leaders who saw this as just another verification of Mexican racism.

The reaction among Mexicans is predictable:

1. "of all the things to get upset about"!

2. "you Gringos are the real racists"!


I agree with the Mexicans on the first point.What little I remember of Memin Pinguin is that this is pretty tame fare, and certainly nothing as overtly racist as the old radio program "Amos N Andy" or the 1970s TV program "Sanford and Son."

On the second point, I don't dare disagree with Mexicans south or north of the border. Just over this past year when I have had Spanish language mass in my Redlands home, some of the older attendees told me that when they were teenagers, the rule at the public swimming pool was segregated swimming. Mexican kids had to wait for their special day (the day before the pool was drained).

But there is another point which most Mexicans are not yet willing to address: the Mexican prejudice against blacks here in Mexico. After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire, over two hundred thousand African slaves were brought to Mexico, just as the Spanish, English, French, Dutch, Portuguese and Americans had done in other situations requiring tropical plantation agriculture. In Mexico, the African arrival was concentrated on the two coasts: around Veracruz in the gulf and around Acapulco's Costa Chica on the Pacific. Perhaps the best example of such a community is Cuajinicuilapa, Oaxaca, about four hours south of Acapulco. They have a museum worth a look: Museo de las Culturas Afromestizas.

Many of these Black Mexicans were among the first to fight in the independence movement of 1810 (and it is even rumored that some of the founding fathers of the Republic had some African ancestry). The new nation immediately abolished slavery, but then forgot about its third root of cultural heritage. Some of the black, isolated, rural and coastal villages in the states of Veracruz, Guerrero and Oaxaca were among the last to get electricity in the 1980s. Health care and educational facilities beyond primary grades are rare in these communities.If a student with African looks makes it to the university, the students and professors start off with the assumption of a foreign student from Africa or the Caribbean.

Here in Acapulco it is common to see persons of mixed African descent. You'll see them quite prominently as beach vendors, fishermen, sanitation and agricultural workers, somewhat less represented as hotel maid, and even less in high end retail establishments. They are so over-represented in stick shack "favela" squatter developments that these slums are often called "barrios negros."

It is against this background that we must viewMemin Pinguin. His looks may be stereotypical, but the behavioral stereotypes do not apply.In that sense, the revival of interest inMemin Pinguin may serve to bring about an acknowledgement of Mexicans of African descent,of their role as the "Tercer Raiz" of Mexican culture.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

EdoMex election: a change of latitude

Sometimes you change your point of view about something asyou get further away from it, in time or distance.

About 28 hours after the polls had closed in the governor's election I got on the bus from Toluca to Acapulco thinking it was a pretty honest election, one candidate was the clear winner, and at least things are stable in the big state. But my mind keeps coming back to the conviction that the two losing candidates were more qualified, and had better ideas.

Since my arrival in Acapulco at 4:30 AM Tuesday, I have been submersed in the local PRD culture. A cartoon in Wednesday's Diario17 showed it plainly. An electoral commission official sits and looks the other way while a handsome face sits atop a big money bag labeled "campaign spending." For Acapulquenos, the EdoMex election is the prime exampleof what is wrong with this country: the concentrated wealth and political power of the country's center.

There are three things that Acapulquenos cannot stomach:the PRI, Chilangos (people from Mexico City), and Toluquenos.Chilangos are held in the same regard here as New Yorkers are viewed in Vermont, or Californians in Oregon: loud, pseudo-sophisticates with too much money. It is different withToluquenos. They are perceived as humorless workaholics who want to bring order and punctuality where ever they go (and Acapulco only functions, if that is the word, in a chaotic and off-schedule mode).

Acapulquenos think that Chilangos and Toluquenos turn to money to solve any problem. So, what else could account for the defeat of Lopez Obrador's protegee, Yeidckol Polevnsky?The longer I'm here, the more I think like an Acapulqueno. Maybe what happened is that the EdoMex voters saw the disordered campaigns of Polevnsky and Mendoza and thought,"we can have none of this chaos" and so they stayed with the symbol of stability: Montiel's Atlacomulco dynasty.

Mexican jail or French jail?

Ex-convict Raul Salinas Gortari, the brother of ex-President Carlos Salinas Gortari,was recently released from the big prison outside of Toluca(on charges of complicity in the assassination of his ex-brother-in-law,Enrique Ruiz Massieu here in Acapulco in 1994). A Mexican judge threw out his conviction for lack of evidence,but a French judge has concluded that Raul Salinas must stand trial next February in Paris,for ¨laundering¨ nearly four million dollars. His ex-wife Adriana will be a co-defendent.

Cardenas will not run in 2006

Imagine a presidential candidate with the pedigree of John F. Kennedy, Jr. and the track record of William Jennings Bryan. Like JFKJr, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano is the son of a beloved 20thcentury president (Lazaro Cardenas (who nationalized the oil companies). Like WJB, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas ran for the presidency three times (under the banners of a coalition of populist, reform, and leftist parties) only to lose three times.

Young Cardenas rose rapidly in the ranks of the PRI and served as governor of the western agricultural state of Michoacan in the 1970s (where he was best remembered for the abolition of prostitution). He made known his aspirations for the presidency, but was told that it was Miguel de la Madrid's turn in1982, so he patiently waited another six years. When de la Madrid then gave the finger of nomination (el dedazo) to his finance minister,Carlos Salinas Gortari, Cardenas refused to sit by quietly, but decided to run as a third party candidate.

Since that time Cardenas has been a major polarizing figure in Mexican politics. No one is neutral about CCS: either you love him or hate him. His admirers view his 1988 (and subsequent) campaigns as a selfless quest to reform the country, while his detractors have seen him as a tireless self-promoter who can't seem to take three "no's" for an answer.

In the 1988 election, Cardenas started with his own new party, PFCRN (Partido Frente Cardenista para laReconstruccion Nacional). He then worked a political miracle unifying the scattered parties of Mexico's left: PPS (Partido Popular Socialista), PSUM (Partido Socialista Unida de Mexico), and PARM (Partido Autenticade la Revolucion Mexicana). Only the old Trotskyites of Partido del Trabajo resisted his call (at that time).

To understand Mexico in 1988, you have to understand that it was still in a throes of an economic crisis,and the PRI candidate, Salinas Gortari, was seen as the architect of the economic policies which had been painful (and had not yet born fruit). The conservative PAN (National Action Party) had won some governorships in the north and had nominated a respected agribusinessman from Sinaloa, Manuel Clouthier.

Every Mexican I have ever spoken with since July of 1988 was convinced that Cardenas won (although I did read one article which speculated that maybe the real popular vote victor was Clouthier!). In any event, no one thought that Salinas got more than ten percent of the real vote, but after more than a week of falsifying the totals, the PRI-dominated electoral commission declared that Salinas had won the three way race with 50.1%.

To his credit, Cardenas did not call for a revolt. He decided to pull his supporters into a new party, PRD PartidoRevolucionario Democratico. Some local chapters, like the one in Acapulco, attracted broad support from academics, business, labor, and old PRI reformers, and started to win seats in the congress and mayorships.

In 1994 Cardenas was ready to try again, but initially this appeared inappropriate, for the PRI had chosen a youthful reformer, Donaldo Colosio. Also, the economy was on an upswing: it looked as though Salinas' bad tasting medicine had worked. Then, Colosio was assassinated and thePRI went for a replacement candidate completely out of character, the introverted but competent Ernesto Zedillo.To everyone's surprise, he agree to debate Cardenas andthe PAN candidate, Diego Ceballos. Not accustomed to formal debates, Cardenas performed poorly. Ceballos shined in the first, focusing his brash attacks onCardenas. In the next debate Zedillo's soft spoken confidence lifted him about the rhetorical duel of the other two. On election day,Cardenas came in a distant third. Despite some local frauds, I think that the positions of the candidates would not be changed by a more thorough and honest count.

In 1997 Cardenas decided to run for governor of DF, the federal district (equivalent the mayor of Mexico City). Since he had carried DF in both of the presidential elections,it was a safe bet. For the next three years, he used that office as a platform to posture, and blame the PRI for
not letting him succeed.

The 2000 presidential race had new candidates for the PRI (Labastida) and PAN (Coca Cola president turned Guanajuato governor, Vicente Fox). The presidential debates had a pattern similar to those of six years before. Tracking polls revealed that Cardenas started off in last place, and lost ground as the campaign went on. Voters who wanted real change, left Cardenas and headed for the rising Fox. Voters who wanted to prevent a PAN victory, left Cardenas and voted for Labastida.

Over the last few years, another PRDista with presidential aspirations has followed Cardenas' path, moving from Tabasco to Mexico City to occupy that springboard position. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador AMLO now seems the favorite to win not onlythe PRD nomination, but the presidency. Last March, when it appeared that AMLO would be disqualified from running (on some rather questionable charges), Cardenas let it be known that he could be persuaded to run a fourth time. That idea sold as enthusiastically as a three day old fish in Acapulco's municipal market. Now it appears that AMLO will not be disqualified, so Cardenas has decided to make the retirement announcement.

Cardenas says that he will now devote his time to building a great coalition to work on progressive causes: "Un Mexico Para Todos." He got off a few parting shots, criticizing his party for its structural weakness,absense of debate about priorities,recent ideological detours and the propensity to seek alliances (most recently with Partido del Trabajo). I'm sure his admirers will continue to see him as the guiding beacon of the left, while his detractors will read into his latest words a mixture of bitterness and self-justification.

Leaving the stage, we have the most colorful figure inMexican politics since ... his father.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Another day, another assassination

As I was returning from my morning walk along the Pie de la Cuesta Beach, a funeral procession tied up the traffic on the highway at KM 10 west of Acapulco. Another death, but life goes on in aradise, I thought to myself.

Two hours later I was in the center of the city, more specifically in PAN headquarters, right across crom Parque Papagayo. I was waiting to interview the local leader, when the TV news came on about the assassination of N.P. Jose Ruben Robles Catalan. As he arrived for breakfast at the Hotel Mirador, not far from where the cliff divers perform, gunmen in three cars started firing. Over two dozen shots pierced the windows of the car. The driver was killed, but Robles Catalan and an 8 year old grandson got out of the car and fled to the lobby of the hotel where other bullets hit and killed him (but fortunately missed the boy). News coverage has been continuous, and there is speculation as to the motive.

Robles was a Notario Publico, and in Mexico that office gives many of the services which require an attorney-at-law in the U.S. In the early 1990s Robles was a minister in the state government. He had a hand in several government crackdowns on rural dissidents. After leaving office, Robles and the governor faced a criminal trial, but were cleared of any criminal wrongdoing. That dissident movement has become transformed into a guerrilla uprising, which every once in awhile attacks the army or police. They are probably more active than the Chiapas Zapatistas, but lack someone as media savvy as Subcomandate Marcos. Could this be the settling of an old score? No doubt, some guerilla group will take credit for this murder.

Whenever anything like this occurs here, the first lament is usually Los Narcotraficantes. Reformers who try to clean up government run afoul of the Drug Cartels. Most people just want to stay out of their way, but end up knowning too much. Lawyers, accountants and notaries public may get to know too much. The family members I have communicated with are convinced that Robles Catalan was done in by narcotraficantes because they feared him.

The busses kept running. The fishermen still sold their bundles of red fish. The lady in the stall selling toys switched her TV away from the news coverage back to her favorite novela (soap opera).

Another two deaths, then life goes on in paradise. But, it would go on better and longer without the Narcotraficantes and the Guerrilleros.

Monday, July 04, 2005

Edo Mex governor: a post mortem on the election

Did this state election just sweep away most of the predictions and assumptions about the 2006 Presidential race, by weakening the supposed power of those who were either front runners or kingmakers prior to July 3? Let´s speculate how each party is affected.

Did the PRI victory show that a party completely focused on one thing (winning) and not getting side tracked on ideology or personality is well on its way to doing the same thing on a national level next year? The PRI party head, Roberto Madrazo from Tabasco, is now going to be compared with PRI party bosses in Toluca (e.g, former governor Emilio Chuayffet and outgoing governor Arturo Montiel) who orchestrated Sunday's victory.

The PRD front runner, Andres Manuel Lopez Obredor, demonstrated that his short coat tails don't extend outside the city limits of the Mexico City. He campaigned heavily for the PRD candidate, Yeidckol Palevnsky, and she came in last, even though the largest cities in Mexico State are suburbs of Mexico City.

As for the PAN, its great titular head is still "lame duck" President Vicente Fox insisted on having a celebration of the fifth year anniversary of his presidential victory. He held that rally on Saturday night, just hours before the polls opened just beyond the city limits. There were many busloads coming in from the suburbs that are outside the federal district boundary, and therefore in Mexico State. All this couldn't lift the PAN candidate to victory.

Bottom line: PRI came out of this EdoMex election looking like a classic, effective, political machine. PAN and PRD candidates may have excellent qualifications and great issues, but they can´t win if their campaigns self-destruct over distractions.

EDo Mex governor: results seem valid


Election returns came in speedily last night from the largest and most diverse state of the Republic's 30 odd states, Estado de Mexico.

THE WINNER: Enrique Pena Nieto, of the PRI & PVEM, with almost half of the vote.

Both of the other candidates were far behind, getting about quarter each.

I was one of the first on site observers to call the 1988 presidential election a fraud, but I think that these 2005 EdoMex totals are valid in the aggregate and do not represent appreciable tampering. Here are my reasons.

1. On Monday July 4, the day after the election, each polling station (like a precinct) posted a handwritten total for that station (SEE IMAGE ABOVE). A tour of several around the state capital, in different neighborhoods all show the dramatic trend of the PRI candidate getting a clear majority of the votes. These hand drawn papers, the size of a flip chart sheet, are signed by observers from each of the three major parties.

2. The statewide totals were quickly published by the media. We woke up to see the numbers in the newspapers and hear about it on the radio. Back in 1988 it took the PRI over a week to tweak the numbers to give Carlos Salinas Gortari a phony victory.

3. The results are consistent with the magnitude and trends of tracking polls. Back in early March, the first polls showed a close three way race. Two weeks ago, it was clear that the PAN Mendoza had gained no traction despite his focus on hot button issues, and that PRD Yeidckol´s campaign had self-destructed. The PRI was picking up Yeidckol´s deserters and growing. In the past two weeks, the only big move seemed to be that the PAN Mendoza campaign self-destructed with more rumors about his drunkeness and riotous behavior at campaign rallies.

4. Very early Monday morning, Mendoza called Pena Nieto to give a gracious concession.

At this point, the only one who seems to doubt the validity of the results in Yeidckol Polevnsky, saying she will mount an official challenge to the results.

My advice: give it up, Ms. Polevnsky! In all the local precinct totals I saw this morning in Toluca, she came in dead last. Even in the city´s poorest neighborhoods on the southwest side (and they are not really that poor) she was getting only 10-20%. Even assuming she did much better in the PRD strongholds of Mexico City´s outlying slums like Nezahualcoyotl, there´s no way she could beat the PRI strength in the rural areas.

fears of voter intimidation failed to emerge


It all started with a cryptic two words painted on walls of Toluca neighborhoods: policia municipal. That was the entire message on that wall. It was obviously part of the governor election campaign. The colors, simple blue letters on white background, are trademark of the PAN. It just so happens that the PAN has lad the last two mayor´s of this prosperous industrial state capital. The PAN is tough on crime. Perhaps the intended meaning of the message was something like ¨We local police like the PAN stand on crime and hope that you support the PAN candidate for governor.

The rumors that then spread on the street is that the PAN wanted to steal the election and would do so by sending plain clothes policemen to every polling station, observing how people were voting, and threatening harm to the families of those who voted for the PRI. (There are apocryphal stories about this type of thing happening years ago, when it was the PRI in power and in control of the police.)

The poll workers seemed to be on the lookout for such threats. There were handmade signs saying "Your vote is private." When I walked into the police place two doors down from my house, and started taking pictures, one of the workers (who was not a neighbor, and therefore did not know me) challenged me, asking which party I was working for. When I explained that I was writing for this blog, he said there was no problem.

No one has reported any real instances of intimidation.

I think this who rumor may have been one of the factors (but not the major one) behind the PRI´s landslide victory. Voters now believe that elections are honest enough for them to stand up against presumed threats of intimidation. Mexican´s trust the system and expect that it will be honest. Just a decade ago, the attitude was submissive to the institutional power of the PRI, now no one can be allowed to intimidate them, not the PRI nor the PAN.

Real democracy has arrived.

Election Day: on the ground in Toluca


Turnout seemed heavy, and the voters came in a steady stream from early morning. The usual heavy afternoon rains did not fall in Toluca until after the polls had closed. The media have reported a lighter than expected turnout in other parts of the state.

About a thousand basic, no frills polling stations stretched around the state. The ones I checked seemed to be adequately staffed. A fifty page newspaper supplement told each voter to look on his voter card for the four digit section number, and was then given the street address of where he was eligible to vote.

This Mexican voter card (credencial de elector) is as big as a credit card, and has the voter's signature, fingerprint, and photograph. It has become a national ID card, and is required for opening a bank account or registering your children for school.)

Poll station workers had large books with photocopies of the cards of all the people who had been assigned at that location. If someone showed up at the wrong location, or if the person did not look like the picture, she could not vote. This anti-fraud procedures are a great leap over the ballot box stuffing of the past (and more advanced than anything in the U.S.) Of course, what happens to the votes after they are collected and before the totals are announced remains the weakest link in this process.

Edo Mex governor candidate: Yeidckol Polevnsky


Yeidckol Polevnsky, PRD and PT. She has a master's degree in industrial psychology, and has been CEO of a chemical company, and member of many commissions on trade and globalization. She campaigned very closely with Mexico City's popular mayor (and presumed front-runner for the PRD presidential nomination) Andres Manuel Lopez Obredor.

What the man in the street thinks about her is "Why did she change her name? How come she has three birth certificates? Why didn't she admit earlier that she is the niece of a former president?" The candidate then came up with explanations about a parental divorce and an adolescent pregnancy (which sounded quite plausible), but it was a major distraction away from key issues and qualifications.

She ran on the slogan "Someone like you" which apparently failed to connect with the rank and file, because they don't have her education, wealth, or connections. Many of her recent press communiques failed to turn around her slide in the polls. Some campaign aids claimed that UFOs had been buzzing her campaign rallies. From my perspective, this was a stellar candidate with potentially great issues, but the campaign has been completely mismanaged.

Edo de Mexico governor candidates: Ruben Mendoza




Ruben Mendoza, PAN & Convergencia, mayor of a Mexico City suburb. This guy is no lightweight, having earned a master's degree in political science from Cambridge. He has a solid record of municipal accomplishments. His slogal is "el cumplidor" ("the guy who gets things done"), but the people in the street called him "el feo" (sort of the opposite on the physical attractiveness index from "el guapo").

He raised several key issues, such as keeping drugs out of schools (thereby capitalizing on recent press coverage in Toluca and around the state). However, when I mentioned Mendoza, the people in the street talked about rumors that he is a drunk, and even shows up at campaign rallies intoxicated and exhibits an excessively belligerant tone. One of his worst moments caught on film is when he led a mob looting the PRI opposition´s cache of toys. On the eve of the election, he reported left the Toluca airport for a little R&R in Cancun.