Them and Us Part VI: Gazes, Second Part: Gazing and Listening From/Towards Below by Subcomandante Marcos

Them and Us

VI.-The Gazes 2.

2.-Gaze and listen from/towards below.

Can we still choose towards where and from where to look?

Can we, for example, choose between looking at those who work at the supermarket chain store, ream out the workers for being complicit in the electoral fraud[1], and publicly ridicule the orange uniforms the employees are forced to wear, or look at the employee who, after cashing out…?

Election propaganda and grocery
gift cards.

/The cashier goes and takes off her orange apron, grumbling with anger over how they reamed her out for being complicit in the fraud that brought ignorance and frivolousness to Power.  She, a woman, young or mature or mother or single or divorced or widow or single mother or expecting or without children or whatever, who goes to work at 7 in the morning and leaves at 4 in the afternoon, of course, if there isn't overtime, and not counting the time between home and work and back again, and after giving school or work the "work-suitable-for-her-sex-that-can-be-completed-with-a-little-bit-of-flirtation," she read in one of the magazines that are next to the register one day when there weren't many customers.  To her, whom those are supposedly going to save, it's nothing more than a question of a vote and done, ta-da, happiness.  "Do you really think the owners wear an orange apron?" she irritatedly murmurs.  She fixes herself up a bit from the purposeful untidiness with which she goes to work so that the manager doesn't bother her.  She leaves.  Outside her partner is waiting.  They embrace, kiss, touch each other with their gazes, they walk.  They enter a cyber cafe or whatever you call it.  10 pesos per hour, 5 pesos for a half-hour.../

"Half hour," they say, mentally calculating the budget-time-from-the-metro-bus-walk.

"Spot me some money, Roco, don't be a jerk," he says.

"Ok, but come by on payday, because if not, the owner will be all over me and you'll be the one who will be spotting me money."

"Ok, but it'll be when you get a cell phone, dude, because I'm working at a car wash."

"Well, wash it, dude," says Roco.

The three of them laugh.

"7," says Roco.

"Ok, look for it," she says.

He goes to enter a number.

"No," she says, "look for when it all began."

They navigate.  They get to where there are just over 131.[2]  They play the video.

"They're bourgeois," he says.

"Settle down, revolutionary vanguard.  You've got something wrong with your head if you judge people by their appearances.  Just because I have light skin they call me güerita and bourgeois, and they don't see that I live paycheck-to-paycheck.  It's important to see each person's history and what they do, dummy," she says, smacking him upside the head.

They keep watching.

They watch, they shut up, they listen.

"So they told Peña Nieto all that to his face… they're brave, yes, it's obvious they've got balls," he says.

"Or ovaries, idiot," and another smack from her for him.

"Watch out, my queen, I'm going to accuse you of inter-familial violence."

"It would be gender violence, idiot," and another smack.

They finish watching the video.

Him: "So that's how things start, with a few people who aren't afraid."

Her: "Or they are afraid, but they get it under control."

"Half an hour!" Roco yells at them.

"Yes, let's watch it."

She goes smiling.

"And now what are you laughing about?"

"Nothing, I was remembering," she gets closer to him, "what you said about 'inter-familial.'  Do you mean that you want us to be a family?"

He doesn't miss a beat:

"That's right, my queen, later is late, we're already getting there, but without so many smacks, kisses instead, and more below and to the left."

"Hey, don't talk dirty to me, dude!" another smack.  "And enough of 'my queen,' aren't we against fucking monarchy?"

Him, before the strong smack: "Well, yes my… plebeian."

She laughs, him too.  After a couple of steps, she says:

"And do you think the Zapatistas will invite us?"

"Of course, Vins is my buddy and he said that he's tight with sockface because he let him win at Mortal Kombat, on the little machines, so all we have to do is say that we're friends with Vins and done," he argues enthusiastically.

"And do you think I'll be able to bring my mom?  She's already pretty old…"

"Of course, speaking of witches, if I'm lucky my future mother-in-law will get stuck in the mud," he ducks his head expecting a smack that doesn't come.

Her, angry now:

"And what the hell are the Zapatistas going to give us if they're so far away?  Do you really think they're going to give me a raise, make people respect me, make it so fucking men don't look at my butt on the street, and that the fucking boss stops looking for excuses to touch me?  Are they going to give me money so I can make rent, so I can buy clothing for my daughter, my son?  Are they going to lower the price of sugar, beans, rice, oil?  Are they going to put food on my table?  Will they stand up to the cop that comes around everyday to bother and demand money from the people in the neighborhood who sell pirated discs saying that it's so they don't report them to Mr. or Mrs. Sony…?"

"It's not 'pirate,' it's 'alternative production,' my quee….my plebeian.  And don't get all huffy with me because we're in the same boat."

But she's already on a roll, so no one can stop her:

"And you, are they going to give you back your job at the plant, where you were qualified as a who-the-hell-knows-what?  Are they going to validate your classes, the training courses, and all that so that the asshole of a boss takes the company to I don't know where, and the union and the strike, everything that you did, to later end up washing cars?  Or like your brother, El Chompis, whose work they took away and they disappeared the company so that he can't defend himself and the government with its same old babble that it's to improve service and world class and blah blah blah and did they really lower the rates, no, they're more expensive, and the fucking lights go out all the time[3] and fucking Calderón goes to shamelessly teach classes to gringos[4], who are the masters of all this shit.  And my Dad, may he rest in peace, who went to work on the other side [of the US-Mexico border], not to do the tourist thing, but to make money, dough, moolah, to take care of us when we were younger and there crossing the line the migra came down on him as if he were a terrorist and not an honorable worker and they didn't even give us his body and that fucking Obama, it seems as though his heart is the color of the dollar."

"Damn, stop your car and pull over, my plebeian."

"It's just that every time I think about it I get mad, working so much so that in the end those above keep everything, the only thing that's left to privatize is laughter, although I doubt they'd privatize that, because there's not much, but tears, yes, there's an abundance of those and they get rich… richer.  And then you come along with your stuff about the Zapatistas here and Zapatistas there, and below and to the left and the eighth…"

"The Sixth, not the eighth," he interrupts.

"Whatever, those dudes are far away and they speak Spanish worse than you."

"Hey, hey, don't be mean."

She wipes away her tears and murmurs: "Fucking rain, it ruined my esteelauder, and I'd fixed myself up all nice for you."

"Boyeeeee, I like you even better with nothing on."

They laugh.

Her, very serious: "Ok now, let's see, tell me, are those Zapatistas going to save us?"

"No, my plebeian, they aren't going to save us.  That and other things we have to do for ourselves."

"Well then?"

"Ah, well, they're going to teach us."

"What are they going to teach us?"

"That we're not alone."

She remains silent for a moment.  Then:

"Nor alone[4], dummy,"another smack.

The collective van looks like it's going to explode with people.  We'll see if the next one has room.

It's cold, it's raining.  They embrace each other more, not so that they don't get wet, but rather so they get wet together.

Far away someone is waiting, there's always someone who is waiting.  And while he waits, with an old pencil case and an old and shabby notebook, he keeps track of the gazes from below that are seen in a window.

(To be continued...)

From any corner of any world.

SupMarcos.
Planet Earth.
January 2013.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
"The Nobodies," based on the text of the same name by Eduardo Galeano.  Played by La Gran Orquesta Republicana, a ska-fusion band, Mallorca, Spanish State.  Members: Javier Vegas, Nacho Vegas: sax.  Nestor Casas: trumpet.  Didac Buscató: trombone.  Juan Antonio Molina: electric guitar.  Xema Bestard: bass.  José Luis García: drums.



_______________________________________

Liliana Daunes narrates a very other story called "Always and Never Against Sometimes."  Greetings to the Chiapas Solidarity Network, which struggles and resists right here in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Latin America, Planet Earth.



_______________________________________

"Minimum Wage," by Oscar Chávez and Los Morales.




Translated from the original Spanish by Kristin Bricker.

Translator's Notes:

1. Enrique Peña Nieto allegedly bought votes with grocery store gift cards with the full knowledge of the supermarket chain in question. 
2. Refers to the #YoSoy132 movement against Enrique Peña Nieto, sparked when 131 university students organized a protest against his visit to their campus. 
3. Refers to former President Felipe Calderón busting the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME).
4. Calderón teaches at Harvard now.
5. Many Spanish speakers have noted the sexism they argue is inherent in the need to feminize and masculinize nouns and adjectives.  The Zapatistas in particular look for ways to use more inclusive language, and this exchanges makes reference to that.  When the boyfriend says that the Zapatistas will teach us "That we're not alone" he says "Que no estamos solos," using the masculine form of alone (solos), which, according to the rules is what one does in mixed company.  So his girlfriend responds, "Ni solas," saying that women are also not alone.

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Guerrero Protesters Demand Education, Not War

By Kristin Bricker, Americas Program

Acapulco: Fourty-nine students are on hunger strike
for the right to attend college.

Several thousand people marched on Acapulco, Guerrero, this past Saturday chanting, “We don’t want war, we want education!” The march occurred during poet Javier Sicilia’s visit to the seaside city as his caravan of drug war victims makes its way to the Mexico-Guatemala border.

Acapulco was once an international resort destination. Now, drug war violence has scared away many tourists who are afraid of becoming the cartels’ next victim. Last year, the kidnapping and murder of twenty Mexican tourists in Acapulco dealt a devastating blow to the city’s tourism industry. Drug traffickers apparently mistook the group of mechanics from Michoacan for a rival drug gang.

The increasing violence in Acapulco drove 800 teachers in 300 public schools to \strike last week to demand that the government take measures to increase security in their schools. The strike has kept at least 50,000 students from beginning the 2010-2011 school year. The teachers say they won’t return to classes until it is safe to do so. Teachers around the state are supporting the Acapulco strike by occupying all of the Ministry of Public Education buildings in the state. They are threatening to strike, too, if the government doesn’t reach an agreement with the union this week.

Shoot-outs outside schools are now a regular occurrence. Just this past week, shoot-outs occurred outside of three public schools in Acapulco. The teachers are afraid that criminals will seek refuge on school grounds during shoot-outs. One of their strike demands is to improve the schools’ facilities to prevent outsiders from entering the schools.

“There’s schools here that don’t even have a telephone,” complains Roman Maynardo López Pachuca, spokesman for the Guerrero State Education Workers Coordinating Committee (CETEG), the democratic organization within the National Education Workers Union. “They installed these so-called ‘emergency buttons’ in the schools, but they’ve never worked. If a teacher hits the button, sure, the police will arrive eventually. But it’s usually an hour later, or whenever they feel like showing up.”

“There’s been a wave of extortions, phone calls, anonymous threats, and, in some cases, some teachers have been kidnapped, and others have been carjacked at gunpoint,” explains López Pachuca. “Last month, we received an anonymous threat that named certain teachers by name,” recalls Lopez Pachuca. “It demanded that those teachers who earn more than eight thousand pesos per fifteen-day pay period turn over half their salaries” to a criminal group.

“They’re also demanding 50% of the Christmas bonuses,” says César Gonzalez, representative of the CETEG in Chilpancingo, Guerrero. “In exchange [for the payments], the schools would be protected by them [the criminal organization]. Moreover, if these teachers [who pay the quota] have problems with other teachers or with students’ parents, they [the criminal group] will make sure that the teacher or parent stops causing problems.”

Gonzalez says that organized crime first started demanding quotas from teachers in Acapulco, but now they’ve extended their threats to teachers in other parts of the state, such as Tierra Colorada.

The union has refused to pay. “If they tried to make good on their threats, there would be an uprising of all of the teachers in Guerrero, ” warned Lopez Pachuca.

The union spokesman isn’t making empty threats. His local, Section 14, has historically been one of the most militant locals in the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE), and it is one of just a handful of democratic locals in the union. The local stood up to the military during the Dirty War in the 1960s and 70s in Guerrero, which was ground zero for the military’s brutal campaign against social movements across the country. Now, decades later, Section 14 refuses to be intimidated by organized crime.

“We teachers are not proposing a repressive police-military operation,” insists Lopez Pachuca.  ”Instead of responding to crime, they focus more on repressing the social movements that protest the situation.”

Hunger strikers' sign reads, "Stop Militarization, We Want Education!"

The union spokesman blames the violence on the government’s decision to declare war on organized crime.

“This strategy of all-out-war, far from solving the violence problem, has only made it much worse,” he argues. “The problem is exacerbated when they ignore the simplest part, which is the extreme poverty that prevails throughout Mexico.”

According to the Mexican government’s own statistics, 46.2% of the population—that is, 52 million people—live in moderate or extreme poverty. Another 34.5% percent are classified as “vulnerable.” Lopez Pachuca explains, “This drives people to obtain money through illicit means out of necessity to pay their bills.”

“The strategy of all-out-war has failed, and it is time to change that strategy,” argues Lopez Pachuca. “A new strategy should combine intelligence work with social justice. There are students who were rejected from public universities, and they don’t have money to attend private colleges. There needs to more access to high school and college education, and special attention needs to be paid to the poorest sectors of society.”

Education Deficit

The striking teachers are demanding that the government dedicate more resources to education in Guerrero, particularly in the poverty-stricken outskirts of Acapulco. They want all students to have free access to all levels of education, including universities.

According to UNESCO’s Education for All Global Monitoring Report, 19% of Guerrero residents aged 17-22 have fewer than four years of education—one of the worst rates in the country. The average Guerrero resident has only a middle school education, and indigenous peoples fare much worse. Forty-two percent of Mexico’s monolingual indigenous population (that is, those who only speak an indigenous language) is in the bottom twentieth percentile for the number of years they attended school.

Most of Mexico’s students are forced to end their education early due to a severe shortage of schools and teachers across the country. Last year, children in 46 rural towns in Guerrero did not attend school because the schools in their communities didn’t have any teachers at all.

The nation’s public universities also suffer severe shortages, leaving scores of young Mexicans with no hope of a professional education if they can’t afford private universities. The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) rejected 90% of applicants in 2010; it turned away 105,386 applicants in just one of its admissions cycles that year. That same year, the Autonomous University of Guerrero rejected 35%, or 3,408 applicants.

Forty-nine rejected applicants are currently on their 32nd day of hunger strike in Acapulco’s town square to demand admission to the Autonomous University of Guerrero. “We have 9.9 [out of 10] grade-point averages,” says Berta Zuñiga, one of the hunger strikers. “We will not let an admissions exam undervalue us as human beings.”

Unfortunately, Mexicans’ demands for increased access to education have fallen on deaf ears. In July, Javier Sicilia and other drug-war victims met with Congress. During the dialogue, legislators agreed to significantly increase the education budget. “They promised that there would enough money for college and high school education so that any student who wanted to study could,” recalled Sicilia in Guerrero. “We don’t see that promise reflected in the 2012 budget.”

The proposed budget increases the Ministry of Public Education’s funding just 1.9% over last year, while the already bloated drug war budget would increase more than 10%.

“We demand that by next week, those who want to study are incorporated into the student body,” said Sicilia to cheering Acapulco residents. In the war on drugs, “it’s young people who are dying, and it’s young people who are killing. We can’t let this go on, because if we do, we’ll lose Mexico altogether.”

Kristin Bricker is a reporter in Mexico. She is a contributor to the CIP Americas Program www.cipamericas.org and is currently covering the 10-day Caravan of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity for the Americas Updater.

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Revolutionary Pedagogy in Action: Mexico's Rural Teaching Schools. East Coast Mini-Tour, April 1-11, 2011

I'm excited to announce my upcoming mini-tour.  From April 1-11, I'll be speaking in Sarasota, Baltimore, and Philadelphia about Mexico's rural teacher training schools (escuelas normales rurales in Spanish).  Mexican teachers' public enemy number one, Elba Ester Gordillo, refers to the schools as "guerrilla breeding grounds."  She's wrong, but she and the rest of Mexico's power elite are afraid of the schools because they train teachers to be community organizers, to help rural towns demand their rights and combat poverty.

Event Dates:

Saturday, April 2, 2:30pm: I'll be speaking on the rural teacher training schools at the All Power to the Imagination! Conference at the New College in Sarasota, FL.  I'm speaking as part of the Institute for Anarchist Studies' Anarchist Theory Track.
RSVP for the conference on Facebook, and share it with your friends!

Thursday, April 7, 7pm at Red Emma's Bookstore Coffeehouse in Baltimore, MD.
Red Emma's is located at 800 St. Paul Street.
RSVP for the talk on Facebook, and share it with your friends!


Monday, April 11, 7pm at Wooden Shoe Books and Records in Philadelphia, PA. 
The Wooden Shoe is located at 704 South Street.
RSVP for the talk on Facebook, and share it with your friends!

Revolutionary Pedagogy in Action: Mexico's Rural Teaching Schools

In the 1920s, Mexico’s revolutionary government created normales rurales (rural teaching schools) to train teachers to “bring education to the most marginalized and distant places in every state in the country and to offer a dignified form of life to peasants.” Rather than simply teaching students reading, writing, and math, rural teachers must also “assist in the organization of the populace to improve its quality of life and work on projects for social development” as well as “contribute to the struggle against imperialism and the nation’s bourgeoisie.”

The Mexican Federation of Socialist Peasant Students, the semiclandestine organization that coordinates the nation’s network of seventeen normales rurales, believes that providing carefully screened applicants with explicitly socialist, anti-imperialist, and antiracist education is what has maintained the normales rurales’ revolutionary project, and has protected it from the infiltration and co-optation that has derailed all other government-funded revolutionary education projects in Mexico. This presentation will cover the history and philosophy of the normales rurales as well as some of their most infamous graduates. It will also provide illustrative details about particular normales rurales’ struggles along with tactics to defend themselves against the neoliberal government that threatens to destroy them.

Kristin is a freelance journalist covering militarization, social movements, human rights, and the drug war in Latin America. She is the Security Sector Reform Resource Centre’s Latin America blogger, a regular contributor to Upside Down World, and a former NACLA research associate. Her articles have appeared in the Huffington Post, IPS, Counterpunch, Telesur, Upside Down World, Rebelión, Left Turn, the Indypendent, Por Esto!, and the News (Mexico). She has appeared on Al-Jazeera, Democracy Now!, Radio Mundo (Venezuela), Morning Report (New Zealand), and various Pacifica radio programs.

"As long as poverty exists, the rural teaching schools will have a reason to exist." 

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Chile Rescue Stirs Up Bitter Memories of Mexican Mining Disaster

by Kristin Bricker, Upside Down World

The rescue of 33 miners who spent 68 days underground following a cave-in a Chilean copper mine has struck a nerve in Mexico, where the widows of 63 miners killed in the Pasta de Conchos disaster are still fighting for justice and the right to give their husbands a decent burial.

On February 19, 2006, an explosion in the Pasta de Conchos coalmine, located in the state of Coahuila, buried sixty-five miners. Only two bodies were ever recovered. Grupo México, the Mexican company that owns the mine, left the other sixty-three bodies in the ground.

As the the Chilean miners were raised to the surface on October 13, widows and other family members gathered at the Pasta de Conchos mine to ask themselves what would have happened if the Mexican government had responded as the Chilean government did. "In Chile they declared that they were alive," said the families in a statement. "They didn't condemn them to death, they weren't discouraged by the 700 meters that separated them, nor by the fact that a rescue beyond a depth of 300 meters had never been attempted before." The Pasta de Conchos miners' location is estimated to be only 150 meters below the surface.

The mining union that represented some of the miners killed in the Pasta de Conchos argues that, in contrast with the Chilean response, "Grupo México, with the [Mexican government's] full complicity, decided to close the mine only five days after the incident, when there was still hope that the trapped miners were alive. It condemned them to death and, above all, covered up the real causes of the tragedy."
Raúl Vera López, the bishop of Saltillo, Coahuila, said that he suspects that Grupo México doesn't want to recover the remaining 63 bodies for fear of proving that at least some of the miners survived the explosion and died awaiting rescue. "If they find the bodies all together, with clothing, bones, helmets," argues Bishop Vera, "it means that they were waiting to be rescued."

Grupo México justified calling off the rescue after only five days by arguing that it was impossible that any miner survived the explosion, which Coahuila Gov. Humberto Moreira said had reached temperatures of 600˚C. The company also presented a report that claimed that the air inside the mine could not sustain life. The report was based on air samples taken from air ducts. However, samples were taken from a part of the mine where only 15-26 workers were believed to be working when the explosion occurred.

Carlos Rodriguez of the Center for Labor Reflection and Action (CEREAL) questions Grupo México’s decision to call off the search so soon. “Why wasn’t seismic monitoring used [during the rescue attempt] to locate where people were concentrated?” he asks. “Digital plans weren’t given to the rescuers so that they would know where the miners were working. If [the company] really knew where the workers were, why didn’t it drill? If they would have drilled they could have gotten the methane gas out of there, and they would have found signs of life. Chile searched [for survivors] for 19 days. Grupo México searched for 48 hours, and it declared them all dead after five days.”

Rodriguez believes that despite the companies’ claims, some miners could have survived the blast. “The two bodies that were recovered were not burnt,” he argues. If all of the miners died from the heat of the explosion, “why is it that the only two bodies that have been recovered weren’t burnt?”
Elvira Martínez, the widow of one of the trapped miners, believes that Grupo México has consistently opposed rescue and recovery efforts because it wants to leave incriminating evidence in the ground. “They’re afraid of what could be found. They don’t want the evidence to come out: the safety conditions and, above all, how our family members died in there.”

Rodriguez believes Grupo México’s blatant disregard for safety regulations caused the explosion. “They used machinery that was prohibited because it is dangerous. The gas levels were very high. Methane gas, between 11 and 12 percent is explosive. The first measurements that were done following the explosion were at 54%. The ventilation system was extremely deficient.”

The Mexican Geological Service contracted mining specialist Raúl Meza Zúñiga to investigate the possible causes of the fatal explosion. Meza argues that the mine was being overexploited, with workers extracting over 250 tons of coal per hour. Meza believes that the dangerously high extraction rate released the methane gas that is naturally found in coal deposits, raising the level of methane gas in the mine to an explosive level. The use of soldering and welding equipment in a mine where gas levels were not properly tested could have caused the explosion.

A government-commissioned report on safety conditions in the Pasta de Conchos mine found that the supports that reinforced the mineshaft were not designed to withstand horizontal pressure, such as the pressure produced by an explosion. The explosion caused multiple cave-ins in the mine. The report concluded, “The failures that are described throughout the Pasta de Conchos report are, in almost all cases, systemic failures: of safety, of maintenance, administrative controls, of emergency preparedness, and of emergency response.”

Government Complicity

The Pasta de Conchos mine had many known safety problems for years before the 2006 explosion. Rodriguez accuses the government of not enforcing Mexican mine safety regulations that could have prevented the explosion. “We have safety inspection reports for Pasta de Conchos that go back as far as the year 2000. [The explosion] in 2006 was in danger of happening since 2000,” he argues. “The mines weren’t properly inspected. And if they were inspected, the proper precautionary measures were not required. And if they were required, the company didn’t enact them, because it was cheaper for them to pay the fine than to implement measures to guarantee the workers’ safety.”

The International Labor Organization, which is currently reviewing the Pasta de Conchos disaster, concluded that “the Government of Mexico did not do all that was reasonable expected of it to avoid or to minimize the effects of the Accident which had such devastating effects with the loss of life of as many as 65 miners.”

Bishop Vera argues, “The federal government is essentially covering up a murder that was committed by Grupo Mexico because they've systematically refused to recover the bodies.”

Certain government officials’ financial conflict of interest could have played a role in the Mexican government’s indifference in the face of glaring safety issues at the mine and the subsequent explosion. “The reason why there wasn’t a rescue at Pasta de Conchos,” argues Rodriguez, “is the relationship between economic power and political power.”

Grupo México became Mexico’s largest mining company—and its owner, the third richest man in Mexico—thanks in large part to a World Bank-mandated restructuring of Mexico’s mining sector. This restructuring opened up Mexico’s mining sector to privatization, and allowed former president Carlos Salinas to sell off the nation’s state-owned companies to his friends at bargain basement prices. Grupo México snatched up state-owned companies for a fraction of their real values.

In addition to its economic power, Grupo México has significant political power, thanks to the politicians who have worked for the company. At the time of the Pasta de Conchos disaster, two members of Grupo México’s Board of Directors also sat on the Board of Directors of the Vamos México Foundation, which is run by then-president Vicente Fox’s wife.

Several former Cabinet members have served on Grupo México’s Board. Since 2001, Juan Rebolledo Gout has served as the Grupo México’s International Vice-President. Gout served in the Salinas and Zedillo administrations, as spokesman for the President and Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs, respectively. Luis Téllez Kuenzler served as President Zedillo’s Chief of Staff and Secretary of Energy. He was Grupo México’s Chairman of the Board during the Pasta de Conchos disaster, and he served as current President Calderón’s Secretary of Communications and Transportation. Carlos Ruiz Sacristan was Secretary of Communications and Transportation from 1995-2000; he joined the Board of Directors of Southern Copper Corp. (owned by Grupo México) in 2004. Armando Ortega Gómez has served on Southern Copper’s Board since 2002. He was Grupo México’s General Counsel during the Pasta de Conchos disaster. Just prior to joining Grupo México, Ortega served as the Mexican government’s Deputy Vice Minister of Economy.

“It is this Board of Directors who could have said, ‘We will rescue the miners, no matter what it costs,’” argues Rodriguez. “The people who made the decision to not rescue the miners are the economic powerhouses of this country.”

It is not surprising then, that Manuel Fuentes, a lawyer representing the victims’ families, reports that Minera México, the Grupo México subsidiary that ran the Pasta de Conchos mine, “has not paid a single cent of its fines. Not a single Minera México employee has set foot in jail, and currently there is not a single judicial procedure open” against the company.

On the contrary, Grupo México has only strengthened its position since the disaster. The Mexican government awarded the company a mining concession in Zacatecas only two days after the Pasta de Conchos explosion.

Despite a government order to permanently close Pasta de Conchos following the explosion, former governor of Coahuila Rogelio Montenayor Seguy managed to re-open the site’s coal washing facility by setting up a straw company that he claims purchased the plant from Grupo México. In 2007, the same year that the government ordered Pasta de Conchos closed, it awarded Grupo México thirty new concessions, including some in Coahuila. In 2008, Grupo México received another 33 mining concessions.

Faced with such cynicism, the Pasta de Conchos families have brought their case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). They argue that they have exhausted all of their legal options, but justice hasn’t been served. The IACHR process will take time, but it is their last hope to hold the Mexican government and Grupo México responsible for a crime the Mexican miners union has termed “an industrial homicide.”

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Oscar Olivera: Opposition in Times of Evo

Interview by Matteo Dean, Desinformémonos

In this interview, the prominent Bolivian leader—who prefers to be defined as an “ex-labor leader and social activist”—explains his critical position towards Evo Morales’ government, the contradictions and dangers that are seen in Bolivia now, and the perspectives of the labor and autonomous movements.

The Fragmentation of the Movement: “You’re With Us or Against Us”

In Bolivia's government, discourse and practice are completely diverging.  Individualism is encouraged and community decision-making is penalized.  Social movements are almost entirely subordinated to the government.  The saying “you are with us or against us” is in full effect.  But moreover, it’s not just that they ignore you or you don’t exist like it was not too long ago.  No, now, after the last elections, the government seems to say, “Yes, you exist, and I will annihilate you so that you won’t exist anymore.”  So there’s a strong smear and slander campaign, very low, very destructive, against some of the union or social leaders who have taken a strongly autonomous position.

I believe that there are different factors.  On the one hand, there is a general attitude, and on the other there is the presence of media officials in the government who operate these types of policies.  When Evo Morales took office, I was worried because of the type of person he is.  In the end, he is a person who has his legitimate objectives.  For example, he always wanted to be president.  Evo was one of the supporters of the gas referendum in 2004.  Many of us were against it because we considered the consultation to be a trick.  He didn’t; he negotiated with the government at that time, all so that he could become a part of that very government.

I believe that on that occasion, Evo used the people.  It doesn’t seem to me to be very honest or loyal, that he has always used his characteristic ability to seduce in order to attract people, use them, and later toss them aside, sometimes in a bad way.  He is a leader and here there is no horizontality of power; there’s not even the most minimal attempt to offer power to the people.  Here, power is concentrated in one person, and that person is Evo Morales.  He decides everything; he even approves the mayoral candidates in this country.

Moreover, he has surrounded himself with people who are very differential complacent with him, something that he enjoys very much.  I saw servile attitudes towards the president.  It doesn’t matter what sort of a past said person has if now what that president says is good.  One the other hand, a compañero who has never sold out, who has never subordinated himself to anyone, or a sector that was rebellious, that has always been autonomous, that is not tolerated.  I believe that it is a mix of personal attitude combined with a network of hotshot personalities who are absolutely unqualified to be there in the government.

For example, I can no longer communicate with him.  The last time was two years ago, and now they don’t even communicate with me.  It seems as though I am off-limits in the government.  And it seems as though the only way to tell him that here we are, insisting, we are still here, aren’t the public letters we send him or the messages that we sent through other people; it’s through mobilizations.  For example, in April 2010 the government organized an event to mark ten years since the “water war.”  It was a political party event.  Five hundred people attended, and it was made clear that the gains that were made ten years ago were one group or sector’s achievement.

A few days later we organized a march that over 10,000 people attended, and we argue that it wasn’t just one group that won, it was the result of collective construction, of a very strong social fabric, very generous, very transparent, and without discrimination of any kind.  All of that doesn’t exist anymore.  There was a lot of fragmentation and cooptation by the government.  And all of us who didn’t want to play that game were subjected to smear campaigns.

I believe that the people who are inside the apparatus fear power from below.  When we mobilized, they got scared because they saw that the grassroots was protesting.  It was the same grassroots that brought Morales to the presidency, that same grassroots that first mobilized in the “water war.”  Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca, whom I have never seen in a single battle anywhere, took the luxury of discrediting the march, saying it was an ultra-rightwing march.

It is disrespectful and it outrages me that an official who was never brave enough to meet with us face-to-face was allowed to discredit us. Moreover, if you take into account that the MAS [Evo Morels’ party] lost in urban zones, they should be trying to get closer to these people, this grassroots who voted for them but marched with us.  There is a complete blindness, an arrogant disregard for their own people.

Labor Politics in Bolivia

The project of reforming the labor code in Bolivia—proposed on May 1, 2009—has two big burdens for workers.  The first has to do with the criminalization of strikes, of protest.  There are new rules that are introduced, such as, for example, that whatever measure the union takes must have a two-thirds majority; under the current regulations 50% plus one is sufficient.  Moreover, it is proposed that, in the event of a strike, the workers who do not agree and who want to work can do so.

In the event that a union leader or another worker attempts to stop a strikebreaker, and s/he threatens attacks him, be it verbally or physically, criminal charges can be brought against that person.  On the other hand, the proposal strips all public sector workers of their right to strike.  That means that all of the water, electrical, telephone, communications, health, and administrative workers will not be able to strike.  In this way, union solidarity and the possibility of solidarity actions are under attack.

These proposals reflect an individualistic vision of the worker. We want to maintain the collective vision, where unions represent the workers in an organized manner.  We have here a precise ideology that is infiltrating itself inside the government through the technocrats.  For example, the new anti-corruption law that was passed a little while ago introduces snitching as a method.  That is, individualism—distrust in others instead of collectivism and community—continues to be encouraged.

There is not an official discourse that promotes these proposals.  I believe that there are people inside who have slipped into the government.  They are interested in getting money and financial resources so that there is macroeconomic stability.  The working world, just like the water, doesn’t matter to them.  In the same way, the people’s daily life doesn’t interest them.  In many social sectors, after five years of this government’s management, not only have things not changed, they’ve gotten worse.

We are doing two things at this point in time.  The first is the ideological struggle against the government, against individualism and snitching, against the criminalization of protest, because what not even the military governments were able to do, this government is doing.  There are people who have inserted themselves in the government and, in a very underground manner, are negotiating with economic powers, with businessmen.  The labor project must have been developed with employers; there’s no other explication.  But because Evo Morales has a very strong image, one thinks that everything he does is good.

The second is to try to resist and conserve the little that has remained of the general labor law that is over sixty years old which, yes, has turned into something contradictory and disordered, but that doesn’t mean they can impose a regressive law like the new project.  For example: this law (the government’s proposal) legalizes outsourcing. Now, on the production lines, the employees and the subcontractors work side-by-side.  Until words separate you, divide you, fragment you, and discriminate against you.

The Community and the Union

However, we have ancestral roots that refer to the concept of community.  This culture of feeling and acting as a community is being lost, and we want to save it.  From our perspective, the union can be an urban replica of a community, that is, that no one can fragment or divide us, that decisions are made collectively and by consensus, that there must be rotating responsibilities, that a position can be revoked: in short, how things work in Andean communities.

Urban Sprawl, Corruption, and Drug Trafficking in Cochabamba

In Cochabamba there are three problems.  The first is a process of very fast urban sprawl.  The State has established that land and soil are a business.  The absolutely criminal activity of urbanizing everything is being encouraged: farmland, forestry development parks, etc.  All of this is related to the issue of water.  In the city there are about ten thousand wells that are fed by the waters that flow down from the mountains.  Now those wells are drying up, they have very low water levels, which requires deeper drilling.  Faced with this situation, there is no one to stop it because it is all being promoted by both the national and local government.

The second problem is the issue of corruption.  Because institutionalized corruption has not changed, many compañeros who went to “change the state,” “horizontalize” power, or create a “participatory institutions that are open to the people” have let themselves be transformed by the state and they have become corrupt.  An example is the case of the man who was going to be Evo Morales’ successor and is now in prison: Santos Ramírez Valverde[1].

The third issue is the drug trafficking that is threatening communities here in Cochabamba.  It is paradoxical, because when the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was here, the problem was more controlled.  This is a very serious issue that will have to be faced, because there are sectors of coca leaf producers who are getting involved in drug trafficking.  If it goes on like this, it could mean that the coca leaf that brought Morales into the government will be the very thing that removes him from it.

Anti-capitalist Discourse and Inconsistent Practice

There are many contradictions between the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist discourse and the sort of capitalist development that is being promoted.  The case of the San Cristóbal mine[2] is a good example, as is IIRSA[3].  That is, that which the rightwing could not achieve, the government is now doing together with Lula (the president of Brazil).  These contradictions between discourse and concrete action do not permit the government to hide what is going on here.  The government says that everything is to get financial resources together for the people’s needs and to establish a degree of balance with nature.

But out there in the communities, where the people are opposed, the government immediately discredits whoever protests or it supplants them with other leaders who are sent by the government.  In other cases, the State is completely absent, which leads people to want to solve their problems themselves.  It is why during the past five years there have been over sixty murders.  It is the case, for example, in Huanuni, where there was a confrontation between the communities that work the mines in cooperatives and the union workers: in October 2006, 4,000 community members, very young people, faced off with union members over a deposit, resulting in 17 deaths.

The Autonomy Movement

It is a very difficult moment for the movement in Bolivia.  To start with, there are no spaces for autonomy—not indigenous, not municipal, nothing.  There is a strong image of Evo Morales that does not permit the existence of an autonomous voice.  But the people are not stupid and they find out that this is not good, even though they wouldn’t dare raise their voices because there is some level of repression.

With this government I view any autonomous space as very difficult.  It is paradoxical because this process was pushed forward by the autonomies.  No one was telling us what to do.  There was a collective deliberation between us and we made things happen.  Now this doesn’t happen anymore.  We went from autonomy to absolute subordination.

With respect to this government, there is a lot of hope here as well as in many parts of the world.  The government utilizes a Guevarist, Marxist, anti-imperialist language that leads to relationships that worry me.  For example, the relationship between Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Iranian President Ahmadineyad, and the Bolivian government.  Someone should have seen what was going on in those countries before building friendships.  For example, in Iran there is very strong repression against the labor movement and against social movements’ autonomies.

I am so pessimistic that I don’t believe that Morales’ government can manage to survive its five-year rule.  People are going to become disenchanted to some degree.  And old peasant organizer from the 1o de mayo neighborhood, a very poor area, told me: “These MAS (Movement To Socialism, Evo Morales’ party) electoral victories and this hopeful image of the government are the fruit of our efforts; but all of that is being turned into a party for the same rich people as before.”

Despite the fact that we are starting to see some discontent and disenchantment amongst the people, which is reflected in the election results that the government is so interested in, one thing is certain: people feel blackmailed in a way, because if this falls to pieces, the question is: “What happens next”?  If this breaks down, that would be a party for the rightwing, who could say to the people, “You’ve had a Marxist, a Guevarist, an Indigenist…and what did they do?”  If everything breaks down, we the downtrodden will pay, as always.

Personal and Collective Perspectives

Being indigenous is not a matter of your face, your features, the color of your skin, or your vocabulary.  It’s a matter of attitude.  The indigenous person is generous and respectful, and is transparent.  And this government, even though it might say it is indigenous, does exactly the opposite: it is authoritarian and looks down upon those who don’t think the same as it does.  That’s why I didn’t want to take a government position, because I believe that what you experience in your daily life makes you change your vision of things and your attitude.

I’ve been thinking about what to do in this context.  I have talked with my compañeros and we’ve discussed what Oscar Olivera, that figure who still has a large social base, should do now.  And we’ve decided that I should go in deep.  I opted to go deep into that social base and search and establish a new trench for struggle that would allow me to once again submerge myself in the people’s daily life, in their worries, and from there reconstruct a social fabric in case of a possible breakdown [in the government].

I stopped appearing in public spaces (the reference here is to the Mesa 18, which was organized as an “alternative” to the Climate Change Summit organized by the Bolivian government in April of this year).  I thought that it would be better to go to the grassroots and work there in what I like: talking with the people, feeling people’s concerns, going to the factories to educate the workers.  Perhaps my last public activity was the Water Fair, because public appearances expose me to government defamation campaigns and this begins to wear on me.

I wanted to go back to the factory, but the company didn’t want me.  So I stayed here, organizing the labor and popular school. We turned this place (the interview took place in the Cochabamba Manufacturing Complex) into a social center of training, information, organization, and knowledge exchange which is open to everyone, to all workers—new and old, men and women.  It’s what we’re trying to build here: a very autonomous and very critical space that has the capacity to prepare people to go to communities, to neighborhoods, and build this autonomy.

All of this is with the perspective of thinking that the solution (to the problems) lies in the people, not in politics as it is conceived and practiced nowadays.  Putting our people in state apparatuses doesn’t work at all.  It is definitely a deception.  The solution is self-management.  Here in the city, for example, there are some factories that we want to take over and self-manage.  We’ll see.

Translated by Kristin Bricker.

Translator’s Notes:

[1] Santos Ramírez Valverde was president of Bolivia’s state-owned oil company and leader of MAS.  He is serving thirteen years in prison for embezzling money from the oil company.  His fellow inmates now accuse him of charging them illegal fees to enter the exclusive section of the Bolivian prison where he is serving his sentence.
[2] The San Cristóbal mine has polluted water sources that serve over 10,000 people, according to a report by hydrologist and mining expert Robert Morán.  In response to the report, Olivera argued that “the government has a discourse against capitalism and imperialism, but it lets capitalist companies exploit the country’s natural resources.”
[3] IIRSA (Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America) is a South American regional integration plan initiated by Brazil.  IIRSA “promotes the development of transport, energy and communication infrastructure with a regional vision.”

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Working Class Under the Gun: Mexico’s Other War

A shorter version of this article appears in the current issue of Left Turn magazine, which is on newsstands now, or can be purchased online.

by Kristin Bricker 

Anyone who saw the police strapping on protective gear on October 10, 2009, probably thought they were preparing to battle organized crime.  That night, six thousand militarized federal police deployed to Mexico City and four surrounding states. But they weren’t there to take down a drug cartel. Their orders were to bust the Mexican Electrical Workers Union, the SME.

Without warning, the police stormed government-owned power plants and substations and ordered all of the workers out at gunpoint.  No pink slip, just the barrel of a gun—and instantly 44,000 workers found themselves jobless.  Another 16,000 retirees saw their pensions disappear overnight.  In one hour, President Felipe Calderon fired every member of the SME, one of the nation’s oldest and most powerful unions.

The move sent chills down the spine of every union worker in the country. Guadalupe Cervantes from the San Luis Potosi Independent Union of State Government Workers asked, “If the government can do something like this to the SME, what will it do to the rest of the unions?”

Calderon told the press that the government would provide the electrical workers with “assistance and training to find other jobs.”  The President conveniently forgot that Mexico is currently experiencing what is arguably the worst employment crisis in the nation’s history.  Laid-off electricians will have to get in line behind the millions of people who are already unemployed or severely underemployed.

Rising Prices

As if the lack of gainful employment weren’t enough, prices of basic necessities have skyrocketed during Calderon’s term.  Since Calderon took office on December 1, 2006, the price of the canasta básica (the government’s official measure of the cost of feeding a family of five for one day) has risen 93%.

Experts blame food prices’ sharp increase on two factors: food scarcity and rising gasoline prices.

The federal government owns Mexico’s petroleum industry, as decreed by the constitution.  Calderon has repeatedly increased the price of gas throughout his term in order to make up for budget shortfalls caused by the global economic crisis and the drug war.  Higher gas prices mean that the cost of transportation and petroleum-based chemical fertilizers also increase, which translate into higher food prices.

Food prices are also rising because successive Mexican presidents have led Mexico down a path of neo-liberal globalization.  Government policies are intentionally converting Mexico’s traditional peasant agriculture, which produces food for auto-consumption and domestic consumption, into industrial agriculture that produces for the global market.  Monoculture is replacing the milpas, a peasant farming method in which several crops are mixed together in a single field. Following Hurricanes Stan and Wilma, for example, the Chiapas government offered economic incentives to peasants who converted their destroyed milpas into African palm plantations. 

Some peasants have stopped working in agriculture altogether.  Former President Carlos Salinas’ reform of the Mexican Constitution’s Article 27 made it legal to sell ejidos (communal peasant land) and use them as collateral for loans.  Prior to the reform, ejidos belonged to the community and could only be inherited.  The reform of Article 27 was a prerequisite for Mexico’s entry into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). 

NAFTA dealt a double blow to Mexico’s peasant farmers.  It flooded Mexico with subsidized corn and other agricultural products from the United States, which destroyed the domestic market.  Farmers, faced with cheap, imported, genetically modified competition, struggled to make ends meet.  When they could no longer compete, they lost their land through sales and foreclosures, both made possible by the reform of Article 27. 

The result is that Mexican farmland is no longer producing enough food for domestic consumption.  It produces eucalyptus for wood pulp, African palm and soy for biofuels, and grain for livestock—all destined for the international market.  In turn, Mexico is now dependent on imported food, regardless of what it might cost.

Thanks in large part to NAFTA, Mexico now sends approximately 80% of its exports to the United States.  Exports constitute approximately 30% of Mexico’s gross domestic product (GDP).  When the US economy crashed and its effects rippled across the globe, demand for Mexico’s exports dropped, causing its GDP to plunge 6.5% in 2009. 

With the economy shrinking and the country in the middle of an expensive war, Calderon had to come up with money for the federal budget somehow.  In 2009, while many federal social and development experienced budget cuts, drug war spending increased.  In 2010, with the country experiencing a full-blown economic crisis, Calderon increased drug war funding yet again.  This year he expects to add 12,347 drug warriors to the military, Federal Police, and intelligence agencies.  He funded these new positions by laying off 10,000 civilian government workers.

In addition to massive layoffs, Calderon funded his 2010 budget by raising taxes.  The new higher tax covers a range of goods and services, including all imported goods.  The higher rate taxes prices that were already inflated due to years of neo-liberal economic restructuring.

Government Neglect

Valle de Chalco is a working class town located along a major highway just outside of Mexico City.  Many residents either commute to work in Mexico City or make a living in the informal economy, working in the local flea market or in workshops located in their homes.

The town was already feeling the effects of the economic crisis: the rising cost of living, stagnant wages, and layoffs mean that customers have less money to spend.  But then things got much worse.

This past February, the Mexico City metropolitan area experienced unseasonable rains during what is generally the dry season.  It rained for a week, swelling local streams.

Valle de Chalco is located next to the La Compania canal, which used to be a river.  As the government authorized and funded new housing projects upstream, the amount of runoff, raw sewage, and industrial waste that was dumped into the river steadily increased.  About twenty years ago, in order to accommodate rising water levels, the government began to pile sandbags and dirt along the riverbanks, turning the polluted river into a makeshift black water canal. 

“Any time you drive down that highway [next to the canal] you see a bulldozer putting more and more dirt around the canal,” says Chalco resident Aurura Garcia Ruiz.

The canal, despite its haphazard construction, is equipped with floodgates and sump pumps—both of which require electricity in order to function.

Blackouts

The SME had a team of electricians that worked around the clock to repair potentially dangerous electrical outages, such as those that effect sump pumps and floodgates.  When Calderon shut down the government-owned company where they worked, Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LyFC), he promised the public that 8,000 people could do the work that 44,000 SME members used to do.

Calderon turned LyFC’s grid and infrastructure over to the other government-owned electric company, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).  The union that represents CFE workers is a charro union—political parties control its leaders, and the union is pro-government and docile.

When the CFE took control of LyFC’s infrastructure, it subcontracted 200 workers to maintain the grid. The majority of those workers sleep in cots in a 10-meter by 20-meter tent that is reminiscent of an emergency storm shelter.  The 200 workers share six cold-water showers and twelve latrines.  



The SME's Secretary of the Interior, Humberto Montes de Oca, says the subcontractors are untrained and working under dangerous conditions.  He says that many of them have been injured or killed on the job: he cited one man who was reportedly electrocuted and another who fell from a tower. "This is how the government wants to see all of us workers,” he said. “With miserable paychecks, in a tragic situation, without benefits, without a collective contract, and without a union."

Even with the help of 200 cheap, expendable subcontractors, it appears as though—contrary to what Calderon claims—8,000 CFE workers can’t maintain the grid that 44,000 SME members had maintained for over 100 years.  Frequent and prolonged power outages have plagued the former LyFC grid ever since Calderon’s middle-of-the-night shotgun layoffs last October.

Unnatural Disaster

On February 3 and 4 during heavy unseasonable rains, the SME documented service interruptions that amounted to a “perfect storm” over the southern Mexico City metropolitan area.  Four electrical substations that serve that area experienced “disturbances,” knocking out the power to southern Mexico City’s drain system, flood gates, and two sump pumps, one of which served the La Compania canal in Valle de Chalco. 

The floodwaters began to rise in southern Mexico City as the rain filled the streets and rivers.  With the sump pumps and floodgates inoperable, the water filled La Compania canal, pushing against its makeshift walls until they burst on February 5.

When the canal wall burst in front of Valle de Chalco, raw sewage and industrial runoff flooded the highway, killing five motorists. 

“We blocked the street with sandbags,” recounts Luisa Lopez Santos. “We saw that the water reached a certain point and stopped rising, so we figured, 'Well, that's as high as it'll get, just like ten years ago.'” 

However, when Valle de Chalco flooded ten years ago, the drainage system and sump pumps were operational. 

“To our surprise,” says Lopez Santos, “the water started coming up out of the drains, the foundations of the houses, in the gardens...water started gushing out from everywhere.”

The SME documented electrical failures in the area throughout the week, which caused the floodwaters to retreat much slower than normal.  Valle de Chalco was under raw sewage for thirteen days.  In some areas, the dirty water filled houses’ entire first floors.

Chalco residents went at least 15 days without work.  Many of those who commuted to Mexico City for work lost their jobs for failure to show. “People couldn't get to work,” says Garcia Ruiz.  “The street was full of water and cars and buses."

Those who work in Chalco saw their livelihoods washed away along with their homes.  Everyone is finding it difficult to pick up the pieces. 

“We sell in the flea market, and our sales have dropped a lot,” says Lopez Santos.  “People who before bought a half kilo of peppers are now buying a quarter kilo because they don't have work.”

Flood survivors criticize the government’s response to the flood.  The government gave MX$20,000 ($1,640 USD) to each family affected by the flood, regardless of the damage sustained to their homes or how many people are in each family.  Residents who lost their home-based businesses received no extra aid.  Rather than disinfecting homes and helping families remove their belongings that had been soaking in raw sewage for over two weeks, teams of government workers merely pushed the “mud” out of houses with brooms and gave every family a bucket of paint and a bottle of bleach. 

A government aid worker who spoke to Left Turn on condition of anonymity says that many families aren’t receiving the little aid they are entitled to: “A lot of property owners are taking advantage to collect the aid that is owed to their renters.”

Furthermore, the aid worker says, “We have to determine the number of families in a building by the number of kitchens.”  Many poor Mexican families rent one room for their entire family and share a kitchen with other renters.  This means that five poor families who rent rooms in a building with a shared kitchen split $20,000 in aid. 

The $20,000 the government gave flood victims came in the form of vouchers that they could only use in select chain stores, making it impossible to shop around for the best price or buy used.  This means that flood victims can’t stretch the $20,000 vouchers as far as they could stretch cash. “There's a lot of people who, when they got their vouchers and figured out that they could only use them to buy a few things, decided to wash their beds,” says Garcia Ruiz.

Chalco residents are feeling the consequences of sleeping on dirty beds in dirty houses.  They have skin infections, respiratory infections, eye infections, sore throats, allergies, infected lesions: all the result of living in and breathing the filth and dust that the raw sewage left in their homes and neighborhoods. But the government’s medical teams came and left immediately following the flood, and they don’t plan to return.  The government also never sent psychologists to help residents through shock and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Coordinadora Valle de Chalco, a local coalition that is part of the Zapatistas’ Other Campaign, has stepped up to fill the gap left by the government’s criminal neglect. Through community work, they are proving that organized people can meet their own needs better than the government can. 

On February 5, when the floodwaters first began to rise, the Coordinadora mobilized to help residents move their belongings to the second floor of their homes.   They helped neighbors pile sandbags in the streets in an attempt to stop the floodwaters’ advance. 

“We initially provided human labor for the most part,” explains Coordinadora member Rafael Garfias. “Later, donations of food and money began to arrive from the Other Campaign in Mexico City and Mexico State, so we started to distribute that as well. We started to videotape and take photos so that people on the outside would know what was happening here.  Two days after the flooding, the government began to say that everything was under control, that people were fine, that no one should worry.  So we began to issue communiqués about the military and police presence.  There were no aid workers.  They sent the military.  The Navy.  The police… this was their first response.”

When the floodwaters retreated, the Coordinadora organized an autonomous needs assessment to determine its response to the disaster.  This set them apart from the political parties and factions who wanted to capitalize on the disaster.  “Right now we’re not interesting in shutting down highways or occupying the town hall,” argues Garfias.  “The Other Campaign’s slogan, ‘From below and to the left,’ is not empty rhetoric.  It means that if the government doesn’t care about us, we have an urgent task at hand.  We need to help our people get through the shock, be there with them.  If they decide to shut down a road, we’ll be there with them.  But we asked, ‘What do you want?  What do you need? How can we help?’ And they told us, ‘We need medical attention.  We need for the kids to get past their trauma.’”

So, instead of a protest, the Coordinadora organized a fair in the church.  Church ladies distributed donated food and clothing while doctors from the Other Campaign provided free exams and medicine.  A hairdresser donated her labor and cut kids’ hair while musicians sang.  Psychologists from the Other Campaign will visit the community soon. 

“The path is clear: from below and to the left,” says Garfias.  “What’s important now is the community work that will give us the strength to begin bigger projects and keep organizing."

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