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## author     : wnu@igc.apc.org
## date       : 07.12.97
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          WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
             ISSUE #410, DECEMBER 7, 1997
  NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499

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OPPOSITION TAKES OFFICE IN MEXICO CITY

In a simple ceremony attended by Mexican president Ernesto
Zedillo Ponce de Leon and many of the country's political
leaders, on Dec. 5 center-left opposition leader Cuauhtemoc
Cardenas Solorzano began a three-year term as the first
elected governor of the Federal District (DF), the
administrative unit for the nearly 9 million residents of
Mexico City. Cardenas won office in July 6 elections with
more than 47% of the vote in a three-way race; in the
balloting his Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD),
which Cardenas helped found in 1989, swept the DF
Legislative Assembly, taking 38 of 40 seats. [La Jornada
12/6/97; New York Times 12/6/97]

On Dec. 4 Cardenas announced a cabinet composed mostly of
PRD members and close collaborators, despite pledges for
"plural government." For the sensitive position of attorney
general Cardenas named Samuel Ignacio del Villar Kretchmar,
a PRD legal adviser; retired Lt. Col. Rodolfo Debernardi
Debernardi will head the Public Security Secretariat (SSP,
the police department), although Cardenas had promised to
end military involvement in the police. To balance
Establishment figures like Del Villar, a Harvard PhD who
advised former Mexican president Miguel de la Madrid
(1982-1988), Cardenas named a number of advisers with
radical backgrounds, including human rights activist Rosario
Ibarra de Piedra and local organizer Marco Rascon, famous
for using a pig mask and guerrilla theater to upstage
Zedillo's 1996 state of the nation address [see Update
#345]. [LJ 12/5/97]

Despite the PRD's control of the local government, much of
the power in the DF remains with the federal government,
dominated by President Zedillo's long-ruling Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI); until this year the president
appointed a "regent" who headed the DF government. With
limited powers, Cardenas confronts what the left-leaning
Mexican weekly Proceso calls "the apocalypse": housing
shortages, major transportation problems, massive pollution,
a soaring crime rate and staggering levels of police
corruption and human rights abuses. [Proceso 11/30/97] To
add to the DF government's problems, its debt rose by
749%--to 12.5 billion pesos, or $1.5 billion--during the
three-year administration of the last regent, Oscar Espinosa
Villarreal. [LJ 12/3/97] In one sign of what Cardenas'
cabinet faces, its coordinator, Porfirio Barbosa, was robbed
by armed men as he rode a cab just one hour after the
inauguration. The robbers stole a watch, some money, and the
manuscript of a talk the new governor was giving that
evening. [Clarin (Buenos Aires) 12/7/97 from Reuter]

Cardenas' electoral program--written by several members of
the new cabinet and edited by mystery writer Paco Ignacio
Taibo II-- called for a "city for all" that would confront
these problems with better planning, clean government, and
citizen participation [see "Mexico: Can the Left Run North
America's Largest City?" Weekly News Update supplement
6/14/97]. The new administration gives itself 100 days to
implement some phases of the plan, especially the
involvement of citizens in the government. [Proceso
11/30/97] Before the inauguration, the effort was limited to
a series of public forums where attendance was "not massive,
and was far from representing citizen participation,"
according to Mexico City-based US journalist Peter Gellert.
[Mexican Labor News and Analysis vol. 2, #22, 12/5/97] But
Government Secretary Rosario Robles Berlanga said on Dec. 4:
"We're talking about citizens' committees in the
neighborhoods...made up of people whose connection is having
a problem in common." "This is an innovative job which shows
the difference in the new government, a job to which we're
going to dedicate these 100 days in a significant way." [LJ
12/5/97]

"[A]t least some elements within the [PRI] will seek to
stimulate bad karma for Cardenas," warns Mexico City-based
US journalist John Ross. "[T]he comparison to the
orchestrated upheaval that once toppled the fledgling
leftist [Salvador] Allende government in Chile is
inevitable." [Mexico Barbaro #92, 12/26/97-1/2/98] In
September, Marco Rascon charged that some of the city's
problems with the police might be a conscious
destabilization effort [see Update #398]. On Dec. 2 US
embassy charge d'affaires Charles Brayshaw told reporters
that the US has offered Cardenas assistance in training the
DF police forces. A group of experts from the Los Angeles
Police Department (LAPD) has already arrived to discuss the
subject and "see if we come to an agreement," said Brayshaw,
the acting ambassador. [LJ 12/3/97] [Human rights abuses by
the LAPD, especially the videotaped beating of African-
American Rodney King, provoked a virtual rebellion in Los
Angeles in the spring of 1992.]

But for now most DF residents are optimistic, although
realistic, about the new government. A poll published on
Dec. 5 in the independent conservative Mexico City daily
Reforma showed 71% expecting some level of improvement. [NYT
12/6/97] "[I]n our time we never thought we'd be able to do
this with votes," remarked a newly appointed delegacion
(borough) official who had been jailed during student
protests in 1968. [LJ 12/6/97]

MEXICO: HYUNDAI WORKERS STRIKE, REBELS MARCH

Welders at the Han Young de Mexico maquiladora (assembly
plant) in Tijuana, Baja California Norte, went on strike on
Dec. 1 to support a hunger strike three laid-off unionists
began on Nov. 20. The plant, which produces chassis
exclusively for the Korean- owned Hyundai Motors in San
Diego, has been a focus of international attention since
Oct. 6, when the welders became the first workers in the
maquiladoras along the Mexico-US border to vote for an
independent union. The local branch of the National
Conciliation and Arbitration Board (JNCA) threw the vote out
on Nov. 10 [see Updates #394, 402, 403, 404, 407, 408, 409].
Also on Dec. 1, the offices of the Union de Defensa Laboral
Comunitaria (UDLC), which has coordinated local support for
the workers in Tijuana, were broken into, and legal papers,
membership rosters, computer disks and the fax machine were
stolen. UDLC coordinator Enrique Hernandez Felix believes
that break-in was the work of government agents; the
computer was not touched, but all the papers and files in
the office were rifled. [Labor Alerts/Labor News (Campaign
for Labor Rights) 12/2/97]

US ruling circles may be feeling pressure from the attention
the situation has gained in the US and South Korea, feeding
opposition to trade accords like the 1993 North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) including Canada, Mexico and
the US. According to an editorial in the New York Times, US
president Bill Clinton has "raised the Han Young issue with
President Zedillo. Mr. Clinton surely knows that the cause
of free trade is not helped when NAFTA's labor guarantees
are squashed so blatantly." [NYT 12/6/97] On Nov. 10 Clinton
was forced to postpone unpopular new "free trade" measures
at least until 1998 [see Update #407].

On Nov. 29 some 10,000-15,000 indigenous supporters of the
rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) marched
through the streets of San Cristobal de las Casas, the main
city in the highlands region of the southeastern state of
Chiapas. Meanwhile, rebels blocked roads leading to the city
for more than five hours. Anthropologist Andres Aubry told
reporters that the march was meant to underscore that the
Zapatistas and their sympathizers had not abandoned their
struggle for more rights. "The Zapatista movement still has
pulling power, and this march seems to confirm it," Aubry
said. "It was the biggest gathering of ski mask-wearing
Indians since the armed uprising in 1994," he added. During
the demonstration the Zapatistas warned that the armed
conflict could resume if the federal government does not
respond to the demands of indigenous peoples. [Reuter
11/30/97; Mexico Update (Equipo Pueblo) #151, 12/3/97 from
Reforma (Mexico City) 11/30/97]