Mexico

The Financial Times, mouthpiece of the British bourgeois, is so worried that a social explosion could take place in Mexico that it is advising a recount.

In spite of the denials of the world media there is abundant evidence that massive electoral fraud has taken place in Mexico to stop Lopez Obrador becoming the next president of the country. What they fear is the mass movement that is building up behind Lopez Obrador. This manoeuvre can only be stopped by mobilising the full force of the workers and poor masses.

As you are already aware, massive electoral fraud has taken place in Mexico to prevent the PRD candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) from becoming president. We make an appeal to all left wing activists around the world to follow closely these important events in Mexico which we will be covering on a day to-day basis.

It is clear to everyone that Lopez Obrador of the PRD won the elections in Mexico on Sunday, but the official results are being withheld and every attempt is being made to deny what has happened. The only way of making sure that the right wing accepts the victory of the PRD is by mobilising the workers and youth who massively voted for Lopez Obrador.

The Mexican miners have suffered brutal attacks in the recent period. This is the answer of the Mexican government to their militant stance in defence of their rights. We ask you to send solidarity message to the address provided.

On April 20, Mexican police killed three steel workers while attempting to break a strike in the city of Lazaro Cardenas. This is part of an attempt by the right wing Fox government to destroy the Miners' and Steel Workers Union (SNTMMRM). The recently created Front for Trade Union Autonomy and Unity has called for a protest general strike.  See also a document by the Mexican Marxist Tendency Militante on the 1906 Cananea miners’ strike and the lessons for the miners’ struggle today: “Centenario de la huelga de Cananea; CANANEA Y PASTA DE...

More than 1.2 million people took to the streets of Mexico City on Sunday April 24 in the so-called “March of Silence” to protest against the politically motivated case against Mexico City’s mayor, Lopez Obrador. The attacks against him have backfired on Vincente Fox and the Mexican ruling class, and the balance of forces is now tipped heavily in favour of Lopez Obrador and the mass movement.

On the same day that Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador officially announced his intention to run for the presidency in front of some 500,000 supporters, he was also stripped of his political immunity, and could face trial over charges for ignoring a court order to stop building a road to a hospital. If the case against him is not resolved before the middle of January 2006, he will be ineligible to run in the campaign next year.

The political situation in Mexico is heating up. The anger of the masses has been aroused by the political interference of the United States in the internal affairs of the country and that anger is threatening to boil over into an all out social explosion. The most popular candidate in all polls for next year’s presidential election, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), has not even officially announced his intention to run as PRD candidate for the presidency, and US imperialism and Mexico ’s ruling class are already trying to block him from running for office.

The year 2004 is beginning and with it also the second half of Vicente Fox's term in office. On the international level, turbulence and crises on all levels will be on the agenda. While it is certain that there is a possibility of economic growth, this does not mean that the crisis of Mexican capitalism has been resolved, nor that stability will be possible. On November 27, for the first time, a packed public square chanted the slogan of a general strike. But this is only the beginning; the principal struggles of the workers, in defense of their economic interests, as well as against the capitalist system, have barely started.

Since 1993, more than 4,000 women - workers and students - have disappeared in Ciudad Juarez. According to Amnesty International, 327 of them have been found tortured, raped, mutilated and murdered, after having been kidnapped in the centre of the city at the end of their workday in the maquilas [assembly plants in the US border region], or leaving their computing academies, their bodies abandoned on vacant land.

Between August 9 and 11 in Oventic, Chiapas, the history of "Aguascalientes" as a rebel territory of the EZLN ended. This has made way for the establishment of civil administration in the areas where the EZLN has set up autonomous municipalities. It is a clear sign of the open intention of the EZLN leadership to go from being a military organization to being a local or regional political organization.

On Saturday June 21, Alan Woods, editor of Marxist.com delivered an address in the auditorium of the Trotsky Museum in Coyoacan, Mexico City on the present world situation. The meeting was packed, with over 150 people in a hall that seats only 80. In order to get everyone in, people sat in the passages and the staff of the museum had to open the side doors, where people stood outside, trying to listen.

On May 31, 26 peasants were ambushed and murdered in the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca. They belonged to the community of Santiago Xochiltepec, and the authorities initially blamed the massacre on intercommunity conflicts. However there have been allegations concerning the role of logging companies that operate illegally in the area and receive protection from state and paramilitary forces.