As allies in a broad social movement that brings together groups and individuals with various political backgrounds and analyses, we believe that one of the important steps to take in order to build a strong base of opposition to the SPP, is open dialogue about the various political positions and alliances we engage in.

 

Though allies from Mexico will generally not have a presence in Montebello, the devastating consequences that the SPP will dictate for Mexicans also demands that we seriously consider the voice of the vast amount of progressive grassroots groups and organizers who have spoken out against the actions of the PRD, Iruegas specifically, and any claims to a “legitimate” Mexican government.

Many examples, both past and current, make evident the political line of the PRD, which though it claims to be a progressive political party inclined towards Mexico’s poor, has served to entrench neo-liberalism, state violence, militarization and poverty across the country. In fact, amongst others, various Indigenous, campesino and student groups in Mexico have stated that the PRD in many areas of the country has carried out actions more reprehensible than were ever witnessed under the well-known dictatorial, right-wing rule of the Partido Revolucionario Institucionál (PRI).

In the state of Guerrero, where PRD Governor Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo has been in power since 2005, the Indigenous communities who have been actively resisting the PRD-backed plans for what will be the largest hydro-electric dam in Mexico, La Parota, have faced an intense government sanctioned attack in the form of paramilitary intimidation, political arrests and murders. La Parota is expected to result in the flooding of 17,000 hectares of land, the expropriation of the land of 25,000 campesinos and to indirectly affect another 70,000 due to the resulting environmental destruction. Despite clear objection from the local communities, as exhibited in a popular assembly carried out recently by the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the Parota Dam (CECOP) where residents of the affected area unanimously voted against the project, Zeferino, the PRD and its leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador have continued to push for the project, claiming that it is necessary for the development of the area. It is however clear, as Members of CECOP have asserted, that the project will only serve to
further develop the encroaching tourist zones in the state.

La Parota falls in with larger plans of neo-liberal development, known as the Plan Puebla Panama (PPP), a complex of transportation routes and accompanying industrial development, set to link Mexico to Central America which will ravage the Mexican country-side and further the displacement that those of us opposed to the SPP are denouncing as a grave human rights violation. During his term with Vicente Fox’s Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), Gustavo Iruegas worked actively to further plans for the PPP, ignoring the voices of those opposed to the same policies that we will be opposing in Montebello next week.

In the state of Chiapas, various human rights organizations such as the Human Rights Centre Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, as well as reporters with the independent media and well known paper La Jornada, have denounced the actions of the military and state police, controlled by PRD governor Juan Sabines. Sabines’ actions have been identified as being aimed at bringing the Mexican military into the Zapatista territories of Chiapas. López Obrador has maintained complete silence on the issues.

Another well known example of the PRD’s complicity in the repression of various marginalized sectors of the Mexican population, were its actions against the people of San Salvador Atenco in May of 2006. The PRD Mayor of Texcoco, Nazario Gutiérrez, was directly responsible for breaking accords with the Peoples Front in Defense of the Land (FPDT) and sending in police forces to forcefully remove flower vendors. The police’s actions in Atenco resulted in two deaths, the rapes and sexual assaults of dozens of women and the imprisonment of hundreds of children, women, men and elders. There are still political prisoners from Atenco, over a year after the police’s violent actions.

Finally, we need to address the actions of Gustavo Iruegas, who notably has also served with the PRI. We would like to share with you words from a communiqué sent out by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN)'s Subcomandante Marcos on January 1, 1999 addressing the actions of various politicians and parties involved in the massacres of, threats and attacks against the Indigenous communities of Chiapas. As you are all aware, the Zapatistas have been one of the major grassroots Indigenous-led movements in Mexico, fighting against neo-liberal policies represented by agreements such as NAFTA and the SPP. In 1999, Marcos directly referred to Iruegas’ actions by saying that he was one of the various “names that government hypocrisy has held… None of them [politicians including Iruegas] has had the valor of, knowing they were being used by the war [dirty war being waged against the Indigenous Zapatista communities], refusing to be complicit in the assassinations that are the sole products of the government in the conflict of the Mexican southeast.”

In a communiqué from February 2007 in which Marcos describes the Zapatistas' reasons for criticizing the PRD, he goes on to say that Iruegas is “one of the architects of the Acteal massacre [massacre at the hands of the PRI government and paramilitaries in 1997 in Acteal, Chiapas which resulted in the murders of 45 women and men who were attending a prayer meeting], an apologist for the strategy (which has failed, of course) that 'you have to strike the EZLN to get them to dialogue', one of the 'I don’t see you, I don’t hear you' of the governmental delegation at the Democracy Table in San Andrés [San Andrés accords of 1996 through which the EZLN attempted to reach an agreement with the Mexican government on the issues of Indigenous social, political and economic rights. Despite signing during the first phase of the accords, the government continued with its military and paramilitary attacks on Zapatista communities resulting in a breaking off of the negotiations, and never agreed to the Zapatistas' conditions for the continuation of dialogue.], the very same one [Irruegas] that said that the PRI would never leave power and that the Zapatistas should "start getting used to that fact…"

It is clear that Iruegas, irrespective of the political party he has served under, has been complicit in the exact politics and attacks against communities that we are coming together as a movement to protest in Montebello.

Presenting the PRD by its self-given title – “The legitimate government of Mexico”, and reinforcing this, ignores on the one hand, a vast section of the Mexican left, from various political backgrounds, that continues to contest the legitimacy of the Mexican electoral process as it exists and on the other hand, the neo-liberal, anti-Indigenous, anti-campesino, anti-worker, anti-women and anti-poor policies that the PRD, its current leader Andrés Manuel Lopez Obradór and politicians such as Iruegas have been responsible for in various areas of Mexico for years.

It is thus, as a network of groups struggling for a full measure of justice and dignity for oppressed peoples – the vision that our opposition to the SPP is rooted within – and our solidarity with our allies and marginalized peoples in Mexico that we ask you to consider these facts about Gustavo Iruegas and the political party he will be representing when he comes to Ottawa on August 19th. Respectfully, we put forth that:

- a withdrawal of the invitation would be the clearest indication of what we hope will be collective indignation on the part of our allies in the Council at the actions of Iruegas and the PRD

- if this is not possible, we do hope that concrete questions can be asked of Iruegas by Council members and teach-in participants regarding these actions to hold him accountable for these violations of the peoples of Mexico.

 

 

Thank you.

In Solidarity,
PGA Bloc Montreal