1996-09-26 Local Press
Summary of Local Press Clippings from Mexico
September 26, 1996, Credit Lyonnais Securities (USA) Inc.
DEMOCRACY
PRI Assembly; Differences. Disciplines and Discrepancies
The institutional Revolutionary Patty (PM) held its 17th National Assembly on September 20-22. Grassroots activists joined with some "dinosaurs" to enact some significant changes in the party apparatus. Perhaps the most significant is a change in the statutes that requires party candidates for the offices of President or Governor to have ten years party experience and to have been popularly elected to office in the past. This is seen as a response of grassroots militants to the increasing role of "technocrats" in elected offices.
Presidents de la Madrid, Salinas and Zedillo all would have been disqualified from running from president under the current rules, since none held elected office before being President. Most current Cabinet members are not eligible to seek the Presidency in the year 2000 under these rules, unless they resign and run for another office in the 1997 midterm elections. Only three cabinet members (Secretary of the Interior, Emilio Chuayffet; Secretary of Tourism, Silvia Hernandez; and Secretary of Agriculture, Francisco Labastida Ochna) are currently eligible. The Assembly also determined that at least 30% of PM candidates must be women.
Following the inauguration on Friday night, party activists began clamoring for the expulsion of Carlos Salinas from the party. The issue was relegated to one of the working groups and later it was agreed that it would be sent to the Honor and Justice Commission; in other words, no action will be taken. This was another issue dividing grassroots militants from national level technocrats, but this time the technocrats won.
A working group of the Assembly also approved language stating that the PM would oppose the privatization of petrochemicals, a process which is currently on hold, but considered a priority of the Zedillo government. Following the Assembly, some discrepancies between what was actually approved and what was printed in the final documents arose, angering delegates who feel they have been deceived by the party leadership. For example, although the Assembly voted that candidates for President, Governor, AND SENATORS needed to fill the new requirements, the word "Senators" was left out of the final document. In addition, PM President Santiago Onate began to waver on the petrochemicals issue just one day after the Assembly, when he said that the proposal to oppose the privatization was to be sent to the National Executive Committee; the Assembly itself wasn't defining the party's position, he said. (La Reforma, 22-24 September)
Opposition leaders criticized the Assembly, saying that Salinas is still calling the shots in the PRI, and that the party missed a great opportunity to undertake real reforms. (Reforma, 23 September).
Mare Murders in Baja California
On September 20, Jorge Garcia Vargas, a high level official from the National Institute for Combating Drugs (INCD) in Tijuana was found murdered along with his three bodyguards. The four were found strangled with signs of torture in an INCD truck. Two days before he was murdered, Garcia Vargas told La Jornada, "We are investigating thirty businesses and shops in Tijuana, all under suspicion of laundering drug money... the arrest warrant against one of them is about to be issued." This is the second murder of a federal police chief in Baja California in a period of one week. On September 13, another federal police officer, Ernesto Ibarra Santes was murdered. He had only been in the position since August 17, when he replaced one of the officers removed during the purge of corrupt officials by Attorney General Antonio Lozano. According to the director of the Bi-National Center for Human Rights, Victor Clark Alfaro, before he was killed Ibarra told him that he had discovered links between drug traffickers and local politicians and business people, including PAN Senator Ricardo Gonzalez Cruz. Gonzalez Cruz is apparently now under investigation, and has denied any ties to drug traffickers. (La Jornada, 22 September)
Cordoba: Invite Me to Testify
Former Salinas top advisor Jose Cordoba Montoya sent a letter to the Congressional Commission in charge of following up the Colosio assassination case, asking that he be called to testify. Cordoba sent a similar letter to Attorney General Antonio Lozano in March, after politicians and press reports continued to insist that he and Salinas should be called to share what they know about the case. "Don't you think that such a meeting would help to clarify some doubts the Commission might have?" asked Cordoba. Millions of Mexicans are asking the same question: why haven't these men been called to testify? (Reforma, 20 September)
ECONOMY
Micro Business Suffering
According to a government study, 48.4% of Mexican micro businesses don't last more than five years, and only 30.8% live more than ten years or become small businesses. In an international comparison, Mexico is qualified as having a very low level of development among its businesses in terms of exports, research, and science and technology, among other areas. (El Financiero, 18 September)
Banks Defend Themselves
The President of the Mexican Banking Association, Jose Madariaga Lomi said that the commercial banks have had to put 60 billion pesos (about $8 billion) into capitalizing their banks in the past 15 months, which is 1.5 times the total paid for the banks when they were privatized for 39.711 billion pesos in 1992. (He neglected to point out that prior to the most recent crisis many banks had already recovered their full investment). Madariaga said that the banks' principal problem is no longer the growing portfolio on non-performing loans, but rather, it is finding a way to make the population "understand" what the banks have done in recent months. (La Jornada, 22 September)
60% of Mortgage Debtors Could Lose their Homes
If they do not restructure their debts by September 30, 60% of Mexicans who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments could lose their homes. According to the debtors' organization, El Barzon, only 292,795 of a total of 900,000 mortgage debtors have restructured their debts under a recent government program designed for them. Under the program, if the delinquent mortgage holder does not restructure his/her debt by September 30, home ownership will be transferred to a trust fund, and the former owner will have to rent the house from the trust fund.
El Barzon announced a campaign called, "It is my children's house, and I will defend it," and warned that about 8% of delinquent mortgage debtors (70,000 families) are unable to pay any rent. Six of every ten mortgage holders have stopped their regular bank payments. The total portfolio of non-performing mortgage loans is estimated at more than 117 billion pesos (about $16 billion). Between January and August, bankers have confiscated properties worth 9.64 billion pesos (about $1.3 billion): including ranches, machinery, houses, factories, vehicles and businesses. (El Financiero, 18 September)
Credit Unions In Trouble
More than 500 credit unions around the country hold a portfolio of 25 billion pesos in non-performing loans. They are currently unable to provide further financing for more than 60,000 micro and small businesses that previously depended on them, which could cause a massive closure of businesses and up to 600,000 layoffs. Nacional Financiero (Nafin) was the principal provider of funds to these credit unions until it froze its lines of credit in October 1994. (La Jornada, 23 September)
Private Sector for Petrochemical Privatization
In response to the Pill Assembly's rejection of the privatization of the petrochemical industry, private sector leaders urged the government to continue with the privatization process, arguing that it is an important tool in reactivating the economy. Finance Secretariat spokesperson Alejandro Valensuela said that, "Privatizations must continue in all areas, but alternatives that lead to greater productivity and efficiency and greater domestic and foreign private investment must be sought." (Reforma, 24 September)
CHIAPAS
Army Pressuring Zapatista Zones
EZLN Sub-Commander Marcos said that the government is lying when it says that it isn't carrying out military maneuvers in the conflict zone and that it hasn't modified its military position for a year and a half. "The government is very far from restarting the dialogue and the federal army is advancing toward war," Marcos said. He added that the government is trying to "pressure us militarily to return to the useless and deceitful discussion." Marcos also said that under the disguise of social service, northern Chiapas is being militarized.
On the 11th anniversary of the 1985 earthquake in Mexico, Marcos recognized the important role that civil society has played in Mexico over the past eleven years. "This new force, civil society, that bothers government officials so much ... today gives us hope that it is possible to rebuild the country, even with the destruction wrought by the neo-liberal project on the Mexican nation." (Reforma, 20 September)
Reporters Under Investigation in Chiapas
Representatives of national and international associations of journalists are demanding that the Mexican government respect journalists' rights after a series of reporters have been harassed by Mexican authorities seeking information about the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR). The most recent incident happened in Chiapas, when an agent from the Attorney General's Office, visited the home of a local reporter who covered one of the EPR's clandestine press conferences, to ask where/how she got her information. Similar incidents have occurred in Oaxaca and Guerrero. (La Jornada, 22 September)
Civil War in Northern Chiapas?
Several non-governmental organizations asked the mediation commissions CONAI and COCOPA to visit the northern zone of Chiapas to understand "the situation of civil war that prevails in the region." After having spent a month in the region, various human rights groups noted that "the violence in the north of the state shows characteristics of a civil war." (La Jornada, 18 September)
Army's Social Service
Around 675 Mexican army troops were sent to the Chiapas jungle for 15 days to distribute 500 tons of food and 25 tons of medicines. (La Jornada, 18 September)