Felipe Calderón's Political Autism

By Gilberto López y Rivas. Translated from the Spanish by Manuel Talens* for Axis of Logic and revised by Les Blough Aug 12, 2007, 06:27

Gilberto López y Rivas

Autism, a pathological isolation affecting human beings and leading them to lose contact with reality, seems to characterize Mexican President Felipe Calderón, who from his illicit presidency is unable to pay attention to the roar coming from wide sectors of society extremely concerned about the country’s impending fall over the precipice. Surrounded by military and police who murder families in police posts, kidnap, rape, torture and make militants disappear, or intrude into people's homes without warrants, the de facto Executive office holder doesn't seem to understand the seriousness of the problems - problems that he and his associates are causing with their repressive policy and their apparent complicity with a number of sectors in the Mexican power structure. These include genocidal governors, concealors of pederasts and perpetual union leaders who have become both, campaign bosses of the ruling party and unconditional allies of the usurper.

International bodies like Amnesty International and the Interamerican Commission of Human Rights have observed the repressive nature of the federal government, the states, the armed forces and the police and the total impunity of human rights violations in Mexico. The worsening of institutions in charge of administering justice has even forced the setting up of the National Popular Court of Justice which recently determined:

“The Mexican State has abandoned the foundational constitutional principle that public power emanates from people and it is instituted for the benefit of the people. It has forgotten that national sovereignty resides essentially and originally on people, and has generated a policy of criminalization of social struggles, with persecution, harassment, brutal repression, torture, political murder, forced disappearance, violating individual guarantees in all cases, with abandonment, indolence, inability and complicity by the State at its three government levels: federal, state and municipal and by the three powers of the Union, i.e. Executive, Legislative and Judicial.”

The Court began its trial receiving accusations and evidences that impute those who act as public servants, headed - among others - by Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, Enrique Peña Nieto and Mario Marín of the commission of diverse crimes: (1) ordering and propitiating extrajudicial executions, forced disappearance of people, systematic torture of all arrested from social movements, particularly in San Salvador Atenco and Oaxaca; (2) attacking the bodily integrity and health of national groups, particularly Indians and children (genocide) (3) ordering and propitiating lesions, sexual violation, robbery, housebreaking, organized delinquency and undue exercise of public functions.

Resistance movements exist in numerous states of the country, fighting repression and economic policies rigorously applied by the ruling group. The Regional Coordinator of Montaña and Costa Chica de Guerrero Community Authorities and Executive Committee of the Community Police, for instance, have denounced the violent and illegal arrest of residents holding community positions by ministerial and judicial authorities of the state: “... showing once again the true face of our country's judicial system, a corrupt system that, far from rendering justice, sells the enforcement of laws to the highest bidder.”

In the town of San Isidro Aloapan, Oaxaca, which is an example of struggle in defence of forests and indigenous autonomy, activists are demanding the freedom of political prisoners wrongly arrested on June 18th.

In Morelos, entire towns are rising to stop the real estate trend to confiscate water and to depredate other natural resources with the unconditional support from the Partido de Acción Nacional government in office (PAN: National Action Party). The Ejército Popular Revolucionario (EPR: Revolutionary Popular Army) insists authorities should prove two of its militants - Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sánchez - are alive after they disappeared due to the action of military and police forces, and also ask for the freedom of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience.

On the other hand, from August 19th to 21st Felipe Calderón, George W. Bush and Stephen Harper will meet in Montebello, Canada, to promote measures of security within the framework of NAFTA. This will, without doubt, l mean the increment of actions and the reform of the juridical basis to control and eliminate social movements opposing the looting of Mexican natural and strategic resources for the benefit of capitalist corporations.

During his first year in office, Calderón and the dominant class seek to ignore the insults accumulated by civic-democratic, labor union, social, ecological, indigenous and revolutionary movements which have been severely repressed. These movements have been subjugated and criminalized but not defeated. Their tactical withdrawal portends a social belligerency of unsuspected intensity and reach in the immediate future.

Mexico is a country of deep radicalization of its social processes. This is not a question of historical determinism, but a feature characteristic of a people able to accumulate their offenses into movements with a long breath. But the group holding power now does not appear to see the strength of these movements; nor does it seem to be interested their history and their power to project themselves into the future. The ignorance of the this transient ruling class lies in parallel to its authoritarian exploiter, in submissive vocation to the US interests.