Revolutionary Conditions Continue to Mature South of the Imposed Border:

The Economic and Social Roots to Rebellion In México

The objective of this analysis is (a) to provide a base upon which we can understand the roots of armed struggle south of the militarily imposed border and how it relates to us in the occupied territories; (b) to challenge those who hold the perspective that revolution is not possible in Mexico; (c) and support the liberation process on both sides of the militarily imposed border, furthering the eventual unity of all formations struggling for the liberation of Mexican people.

It is no secret that the social, economic, and political situation in México has remained antagonistic to the masses of Mexican people. The sharpest example of this insecurity has been under the reign of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) since 1924. With few exceptions, the PRI government has done nothing to uplift the miserable conditions under which the great majority of our pueblo have been forced to live under. On the contrary, it has been under their direction that the vicious exploitation and imposed misery has come to its worst - as is the case presently in México.

At the beginning of the 1970's, the socioeconomic conditions that existed in Guerrero reflected the situation throughout the country. Guerrero, a southwestern state of the Mexican republic, is a special case in that it was from this region that a significant revolutionary force was born. Under the leadership of Lucio Cabañas Barrientos, a rural elementary school teacher, a politico-military organization named El Partido de los Pobres (PDLP) rose from Guerrero's deep social misery, economic isolation and political repression (See past issues of ¡LA VERDAD! for more information on the PDLP). This force openly and physically challenged those responsible for these conditions - the vende-patria PRI government. For the first time in generations the PRI government reacted to the conditions in Guerrero - but they moved not to uplift its people out of poverty but to put down this righteous rebellion with the Ejército Mexicano.

During the years that Partido de los Pobres (1967 - 1974) fought in defense of the people, 40% of the national defense budget was used to fund actions in Guerrero for the purpose of putting down this popular struggle (Los Secuestros de Zuno, Figueroa y la Muerte de Lucio Cabañas, pg. 13). The fact that such a large part of the national budget was used to put down the PDLP-led guerrilla warfare underscores the deep fear that the neo-colonialists who rule México have of armed people ready and willing to fight for their rights. The PRI government responded with intense and wide military and paramilitary violence against a group of Mexican men and women who had grown tired of working to better their conditions unsuccessfully through those avenues offered to them by the same PRI government.

As part of the strategy to destroy the PDLP (during the years 1967 to 1974), the PRI government left an undetermined number of dead and over 600 "disappeared" in Guerrero, a state of about 1.4 million people. If we compare this to the 2,500 who were disappeared during the military Pinochet dictatorship in Chile - a country of over 14 million people, and a dictatorship which lasted for over 17 years, this is an incredibly high number of victims that the PRI had disappeared in Guerrero. We also have to consider what it means to be to be "disappeared" - to be tortured, killed, and your remains disposed of - this exposes the true nature of the PRI dictatorship as one as vicious as any other in Latin America.

The PRI campaign against Genaro Vásquez Rojas and the Asociación Civica Nacional Revolucionaria (another armed group in Guerrero), and Lucio Cabañas and the PDLP, was momentarily victorious for the PRI and its anti-popular army. In the end, Vásquez was assassinated in 1972 and Cabañas died in combat in 1974. Even though the armed struggle was defeated, the only road possible for the betterment of the gente living in this region continues to be the need to bring revolutionary change through armed struggle.

While the PRI was extremely effective in murdering our leaders, it did nothing to eliminate the terrible conditions in Guerrero (and throughout México) that continue to exist to this day. It's here that we find the basis of the relationship that we have as Mexicanos with the vende-patria PRI government - a relationship based on a sick parasitism, with a small gang of thugs drinking champagne in Acapulco getting rich, while the majority of our gente live with misery, insecurity, poverty, ignorance and violence.

Presently, the national economic condition in México has not improved - if anything, it has worsened at every level. NAFTA, Solidaridad, "privatization," and other policies implemented most recently by the PRI organization has "helped" the Mexicano people down the road from survival to mere subsistence. Once again, Guerrero serves as a clear example of our national condition. In the Municipality of Tlacoachistlahuaca, the second poorest municipality in Guerrero and the 11th poorest in the nation, 73.7% of the population is illiterate, and 50.8% speak only their indigenous language. In the entire state of Guerrero close to 90% of the economically active population does not receive any direct form of income, making a living of small plots of land - while the remaining 10% are forced to leave the region, the state, or the country in a search for work (Proceso July, 1996).

Once Again the People Respond to the Repression of the PRI Organization

During March of 1995 Amusgos and Mixtecos, indigenous Mexicanos from the region known as La Sierra del Sur, rebelled first against the municipal government, and then the state and federal government. This rebellion was once again a struggle against the socio-political and socioeconomic conditions of the region. In the pueblo of Rancho Viejo and under the leadership of Marcelino Lobos the people took over the municipal government seat, changed the name of the pueblo to Rancho Nuevo de la Democracia, and continue, to this day, to defend the area through armed struggle. Among other things, they are demanding the resignation of the PRI representative in the region, Armando Ramos Brito, mayor of Tlacoachistlahuaca. This movement forms part of what is now called the Frente Amplio para la Construcción del Movimiento de Liberación Nacional (FAC-MLN) and represents over 20,000 indigenous fighters in this region of Guerrero. The PRI has declared the area a "foco rojo" - a zone of guerrilla activity and therefore giving a license to kill to the Ejército Mexicano. It is open season on hungry Mexicanos in Guerrero.

In June of 1995, the massacre of Bado de Aguas Blancas outraged the world (see April-June 1995 issue of ¡LA VERDAD!). It was here that 17 campesinos, members of the Organización Campesina de la Sierra del Sur (OCSS), were murdered in cold blood by the Procuraduria General de la Republica (PGR) under the orders of Ruben Figueroa Alcocer, then governor of Guerrero. Exactly one year later, the FAC-MLN organized a manifestation in memorial of those murdered at Aguas Blancas. During the process of this event a guerrilla group calling itself the Ejército Popular Revolucionario (EPR) descended from the hills, heavily armed and in uniform, and took over the stage to announce its existence to the world. From the podium a member of the EPR made what would later be called La Declaración de Aguas Blancas. This declaration went as follows:

"We fight against oppression, injustice, humiliation, and theft of our children, our women, our workers, peasants, indigenous peoples, marginalized peoples, and students.

1) We struggle to overthrow the anti-popular, antidemocratic, demagogic, illegitimate government which works in the interests of national and international capital and those forces that sustain that capital. We struggle for the establishment of a new and distinct government from that which presently exists.

2) We struggle for the reinstatement of popular sovereignty and the reinstatement of the fundamental rights of man. We will achieve this goal with the participation of the people and with the establishment of a popular and democratic republic upholding the legitimate right of the people to alter or modify their form of government.

3) We struggle for resolution and fulfillment of the immediate needs and demands of the people implementing the necessary social, economic, and political modifications to bring about these changes.

4) We struggle for the establishment of just international relations with the international community.

5) We struggle for the punishment of those responsible for political oppression, repression, corruption, misery, hunger, and crimes against humanity."

We have studied the "Declaración de Aguas Blancas" and we see that the demands and positions of the EPR are correct and just, and therefore we can unite fundamentally with those demands. We do understand and recognize that the conditions that would give rise to a group such as the EPR do indeed exist, not only in Guerrero but in any place that Mexicanos may be found - including in Aztlán/México Ocupado.

Since the EPR made its presence in Guerrero publicly known, they have had several armed confrontations, inflicting over 50 casualties on the Army (at least tens soldiers and police have been killed), and they have made declarations explaining that they have forces in other parts of Mexico. On August 25, various newspapers reported that the EPR had held a "press conference" in a secret safe-house in Mexico City, where they reiterated their intention to destroy the current oppressive system and create one that works for the benefit of all its citizens - not the just the wealthy few. (See the August 26, 1996 issues of La Opinión, Jornada, and San Diego Union-Tribune.)

While we do not know the origins of the EPR, we have read in various publications and heard from some activists that the EPR has origins in the organizations who have struggled in the Guerrero region in the past, and some have suggested that they might be tied into a small militant organization known as the PROCUP-PDLP (Partido Revolucionario Obrero Clandestino Unión del Pueblo-Partido de los Pobres).

To give us an idea of who the PROCUP-PDLP is we quote from a communique dated March-April 1991:

"Hermanos, hermanas, camaradas:

Giving continuity to the historical struggle of our revolutionary heroes: Morelos, Flores Magon, Villa, Zapata and many others, in 1964 and1967, the Partido Rovolucionario Obrero Clandestino Unión del Pueblo (PROCUP) and Partido de los Pobres (PDLP), respectively took the road of guerrilla armed revolutionary struggle. In response to the permanent violence exercised by the Mexican government against the people, we defined as an historical objective: taking of political power, installment of a workers government, and the construction of socialism! Participating in it were our historical compañeros Hector E. Hernandez Castillo and Lucio Cabañas Barrientes, who fell in combat against the Mexican army.

"Actually the economic, political, and social conditions that our people live under have, generally speaking, worsened, and it is here that we find the causes, origins, and motives for the development of the revolutionary armed struggle which exists in our nation. Thousands of Mexicanos have found themselves in absolute misery - hungry, desperate, and socially maginalized - suffering the most wide spread exploitation and the denied the most basic and elementary human rights.

"In contrast with this situation, a small handful of rich bankers, industrialists, merchants, and large landowners - national and foreign - have in their possession all the national power and wealth, having as a principle instrument the bourgeois state and enriching themselves through Yanqui Imperialism. They (the rich, national and foreign) have developed in all spheres a national plan of counterinsurgency directed to combat the reality of social uprisings and revolutionaries, which are the reality of expression and discontent of people hungry for justice and liberty." (see En una Trinchera de la Resistencia Popular, Manifesto, colectivo de PROCUP-PDLP)

While the economic, political and social conditions continue to be against the well-being of our gente, the means of struggle used by the EPR and other groups will continue to be considered legal, correct, and legitimate. Liberation, freedom, justice, dignity, and democracy will continue to be mere words until we, as a nation, decide to make them real, by any means necessary. Therefore, the unity of Unión del Barrio will always be on the side of those forces who take up the banner of a México free of the tyranny of the PRI dictatorship and towards building a new and more humane form of social organization, that works in the interests of the majority of our pueblo. True freedom will only come to our people under a system that redistributes the natural and economic resources of our nation in a way that secures the well-being of the great majority of el pueblo Mexicano. We uphold all movements that continue to lead this struggle forward.

¡Que Viva La Lucha Armada!
¡La Revolución No Ha Terminado!