Posted on 05/21/2006 4:06:24 PM PDT by Larousse2
Mexico Voters Fear Nation on Edge of Chaos
By JULIE WATSON, Associated Press Writer Wed May 17, 6:12 AM ET
Police enraged by the kidnapping of six officers club unarmed detainees. A bloody battle between steelworkers and police leaves two miners dead. Drug lords post the heads of decapitated police on a fence to show who's in charge.
Less than two months before Mexicans elect their next president, many fear the country is teetering on the edge of chaos — a perception that could hurt the ruling National Action Party's chances of keeping the presidency and benefit Mexico's once-powerful Institutional Revolutionary Party, whose candidate has been trailing badly.
Some blame President Vicente Fox for a weak government. Others say rivals are instigating the violence to create that impression, hoping to hurt National Action candidate Felipe Calderon, who has a slight lead in recent polls.
A poll published Friday in Excelsior newspaper found 50 percent of respondents feared the government was on the brink of losing control. The polling company Parametria conducted face-to-face interviews at 1,000 homes across Mexico. The poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
The conflicts are "a warning sign," said Yamel Nares, Parametria's research director.
Security is the top concern for Mexicans, and Fox has struggled to reform Mexico's notoriously corrupt police. Meanwhile, drug-related bloodshed has accelerated, with some cities seeing killings almost daily.
In April, suspected drug lords posted the heads of two police officers on a wall outside a government building where four drug traffickers died in a Jan. 27 shootout with officers in the Pacific resort of Acapulco.
A sign nearby read: "So that you learn to respect."
Last week, Zapatista rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos said Mexico was in a "state of rage," and warned that tensions were similar to those that preceded the Zapatistas' brief armed uprising in January 1994 in the southern state of Chiapas.
He said his group is committed to peace, but many fear his increased public profile — after years of hiding out in the jungle — could foreshadow greater polarization among Mexican voters.
The masked leader said a May 3 clash that left a teenager dead and scores injured in San Salvador Atenco, 15 miles northeast of Mexico City, is an example of the growing tensions.
Marcos has been leading nearly daily demonstrations in the town following the incident, which began when a radical group of townspeople kidnapped and beat six policemen in a dispute over unlicensed flower vendors. Police responded with rage the next day. Television crews captured officers repeatedly beating unarmed protesters, and several detained women alleged officers raped them.
The clash followed another bloody battle between steelworkers and police trying to break up an illegal strike at a plant in Lazaro Cardenas last month. Unions later threatened to shut down the country.
George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William & Mary, said the violence reflects Fox's lack of leadership.
"The state has become much weaker under his watch," Grayson said.
Recent polls show Calderon has overtaken longtime presidential front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, whom opponents have portrayed as a leftist demagogue similar to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
But that could change if PRI candidate Roberto Madrazo can convince voters that Mexico was more stable under his party's 71-year reign, which ended with Fox's victory in 2000. Mexican law bars presidents from seeking re-election.
Madrazo has tried to paint himself as the law-and-order candidate — though so far his poll numbers have remained well behind those of Calderon and Lopez Obrador.
"It's not going to help Lopez Obrador who has been associated with the rabble rousers, but Madrazo can come out and say with his party at least Mexico had continued stability," Grayson said.
Gerardo Aranda, a tourism guide in Mexico City, said he won't go back to the PRI, but he doesn't know who he will vote for.
"No one really knows now what could happen next," he said. "All the candidates are bad. ... There is so much anger toward the government, everyone is against everything."
I keep remembering the Iraqis caught in mexico who were detained for a month then released and told to "go north".
Thanks guys.
A good reason for slowing the flood of immigration. Do we need pistoleros in the street of San Antonio and Los Angeles?
I know.
Firends don't let other friends decapitate people....
Fox has certainly been a terrible disappointment.
After 70 years of PRI corruption, what do we get? More corruption, apparently.
Beyond a disappointment I'd argue. A disgrace!
The Post-Nafta Mexican Peso Crisis:
Bailout or Aid? Isolationism or Globalization?
By Brett M. Humphrey
This essay discusses the events of the 1994/1995 Mexican peso crisis, subsequent U.S. Congressional/Executive debate over sending U.S. financial aid, and executive action. The United States had entered the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) one year earlier, and investors and politicians were hailing it as a great success. The United States seemed positioned to be the financial leader of the new post-cold-war era. But beginning on December 20, 1994 when Mexico decided to no longer support the peso against the dollar, the peso’s value dropped over 50%. This devaluation hurt Mexico, international investors, and the legitimacy of the NAFTA and trade liberalization. Those in support of the NAFTA felt the side effects of inaction in response could possibly reach neighboring countries, and result in an economic crisis. President Clinton could ill afford to sit idly by. However, the 104th Congress was sympathetic towards the anti-NAFTA labor-left and the anti-NAFTA protectionist-right. The recently elected “Contract with America” Republicans were elected on an agenda of government reduction not increased spending. This essay examines events leading to the devaluation, subsequent debates, and the President’s action. It concludes that if the United States is to maintain its economic dominance it must continue towards liberalized trade and globalization, and withstand the protectionist and labor movement’s desire to move towards isolationism.
http://www.lib.utah.edu/epubs/hinckley/v2/humphrey.htm
You got it. It's not like the tide of "refugees" is going to be a big improvement on the present wave of "migrants". We'll just have another reason to be p.c. and accept the Latinization of our country. Think maybe this is why W is trying to shore up Fox's image?
Seg
"A bloody battle between steelworkers and police..."
I thought those EMPLOYED steelworkers would have no cause for violence.
I grimace when I think of what milions and millions of UN-EMPLOYED Mexicans might do here.
I think it is going to turn bad here, and my feelings/fears were confirmed by a MinuteMan I telephoned last week.
Methinks there is something really rotten going on, and it ain't in Denmark!
At the risk of hijacking this thread, has anybody given serious thought to simply have the U.S. take over Mexico before Mexico takes over us? I mean, if we can overthrow the Iraqi government half a globe away, why can't we do it to our own neighbor?
I'm not talking about a military seizure as much as a corporate buy-out. We can make them a territory-state like Puerto Rico and, over the course of 40 years or so, turn them into five new U.S. states. We would still have border security during the transition time.
It would eventually eliminate illegal immigration and improve both economies undoing all the black market things going on in secret.
I'm not looking for reasons why this won't work (anybody can be negative) but for reasons why/how this could be accomplished.
As I see it, if we give them amnesty then we are just inviting more illegals. If we try to kick them all out, we open up a Pandora's Box of ill-will, violence, and attempts to enter the country illegally.
By simply absorbing Mexico into our own country and finding transitional ways to meld the two under U.S. law, you could end the problem as well as expand our economy and replenish our military forces.
Coming soon to a neighborhood near you.
Oh no he hasn't. He's struggled to get them under control of his party - so that the money flows uphill to PAN, not PRI. The "police" in Mexico are nothing more than a uniformed protection racket.
Fox may be more refined in his appearance than his predecessors, but make no mistake about it: He's playing the same game and has no intention of changing it.
Were he to try, he would end up dead anyway.
Mexico hasn't changed in 500 years. If anything, it's getting worse as their population outruns their social system by leaps and bounds. Fox himself recently admitted it will be "generations" before anything changes. For a moment there, he came out of character and was honest.
Civil war, fomented on the left in Mexico, will come.
And it will, and already has, spill over into the United States.
If not, tomorrow, we may have to build a minefield.
With friends like Mexico and Prez Fox, who needs enemies?
So, you'd like to live in a country where the single largest voting block by far would be ethnic, nationalist Mexicans?
Um, it might be "U.S. law", but it would be made by Mexico.
American laws aren't handed down from the mount. They come from the people. With 140 - 150 million ethnic Mexicans constituting oh, 1/3 to 1/2 the population, they will make the rules. Unless of course you're advocating some sort of "Reconstruction" period for them where they are deprived of vote and nationality, and are psychologically "reconstructed" to not be themselves.
Personally I think it would be easier just to enforce our immigration laws.
ping
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