MEXICO IN CRISIS

Donald E. Schulz

May 31, 1995
ii

*******

The views expressed in this report are those of the author

and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of

the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the

U.S. Government. This report is approved for public release;

distribution is unlimited.

*******

Comments pertaining to this report are invited and should be

forwarded to: Director, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army

War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA 17013-5050. Comments also may

be conveyed directly to the author by calling commercial (717)

245-4123 or DSN 242-4123.

*******

The author wishes to thank Drs. Gabriel Marcella, Steven

Metz, and Earl Tilford, Jr., and Colonel William Allen for their

incisive comments on earlier drafts of this work. Needless to

say, any errors of omission or commission are entirely the

author’s responsibility.
iii

FOREWORD

This is the first of a two-part report on the causes and

nature of the crisis in Mexico, the prospects for the future, and

the implications for the United States. In this initial study,

the author analyzes the crisis as it has developed over the past

decade-and-a-half, with the primary focus being on the 6-year

term of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and the first few

months of his successor, President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León.

Contrasting the euphoric hopes generated by the North American

Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the explosive events of 1994

and early 1995, he explains how a country with such seemingly

bright prospects went so wrong. He argues that the United States

has few foreign policy concerns more profoundly consequential for

its national interests–including its security interests–than the

political stability and general welfare of Mexico. For that

reason, it is especially important that we understand what has

happened and why.

 Dr. Schulz’s preliminary findings are sobering. Despite

some promising moves by the new administration with regard to

judicial and police reform and a more cooperative approach to the

political opposition, he questions President Zedillo’s

willingness to challenge the Partido Revolucionarío Institutional

<D>(PRI) elite and the narcotraffickers. The fundamental problem,

he suggests, is that Mexico’s political economy is dominated by

an oligarchy that has grown accustomed to borrowing from

foreigners to enrich itself. If he is correct, then there is

likely to be trouble ahead, for the current bailout will only

perpetuate the system, virtually assuring that there will be

another crisis down the road.

 The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to publish this

report as a contribution to understanding events in this

important country.

 WILLIAM W. ALLEN

Colonel, U.S. Army

Acting Director

Strategic Studies Institute
iv

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

DONALD E. SCHULZ is an Associate Professor of National Security

Affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War

College. He is the coauthor of The United States, Honduras and

the Crisis in Central America and coeditor of Revolution and

Counterrevolution in Central America and the Caribbean; Cuba and

the Future; Political Participation in Communist Systems; and

Mexico Faces the 21st Century (forthcoming). His articles have

appeared in Foreign Policy, Orbis, the Journal of Inter-American

Studies and World Affairs, and Small Wars and Insurgencies, as

well as such media outlets as Newsweek, The Washington Post, the

Miami Herald, and the Christian Science Monitor.
v

SUMMARY

This study examines the development of the crisis in Mexico,

with the primary focus on the 6-year term of President Carlos

Salinas de Gortari and the first few months of his successor,

President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León. It poses the question of

how a country with such seemingly bright prospects as Mexico in

the wake of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

approval by the U.S. Congress could so quickly plunge into

crisis. The answer is that these problems had been festering for

some time. By 1994, a combination of factors–including recurrent

economic crises, a failure to introduce meaningful political

reforms, the social devastation wrought by neoliberal economic

policies, continuing corruption and mismanagement by Mexican

political and economic elites, human rights violations, and the

growing power of narcotraffickers–was sufficient to destabilize

what had long been considered one of the most stable countries in

Latin America.

The prospects for the future are mixed, at best. While some

substantive political, judicial and police reforms have been

belatedly made, serious doubts remain as to how far President

Zedillo will be willing/able to go in challenging the power and

perquisites of the traditional government/Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) elite and the narcotraffickers. A

major threat to these elements would probably in itself be

destabilizing; it could also be personally dangerous for Zedillo

at a time when political assassinations are becoming increasingly

commonplace. Moreover, corruption and inefficiency are so

ingrained in the political institutions and practices at all

levels of Mexican society that nothing short of a wholesale

cultural revolution seems likely to solve the basic problem. Such

fundamental changes in values are notoriously difficult to carry

out and would take years, indeed decades, to accomplish. Thus,

while the economy may pick up in a year or two and significant

advances in democratization may occur, political violence and

social turmoil will continue, at least in the short-to-medium

run. In turn, this will pose serious problems for the United

States, especially in the areas of illegal immigration,

narcotrafficking, and all the costs and dangers they pose for

American society.
1

MEXICO IN CRISIS

The perfect dictatorship is not communism, not the

Soviet Union, not Cuba, but Mexico, because it is a

camouflaged dictatorship. It may not seem to be a

dictatorship, but it has all the characteristics of

dictatorship: the perpetuation, not of one person, but

of an irremovable party, a party that allows sufficient

space for criticism, provided such criticism serves to

maintain the appearance of a democratic party, but

which suppresses by all means, including the worst,

whatever criticism may threaten its perpetuation in

power.

Mario Vargas Llosa1

Whither Mexico? During the 1993 NAFTA debate, supporters of

the free trade agreement painted a portrait of a country rapidly

vaulting into the 21st century, modernizing economically,

democratizing politically, creating a more prosperous and

equitable society for its citizens while curtailing northward

migration, maintaining political stability, and entering a new

era of harmonious cooperation with the United States. Then came

1994–the “year of living dangerously”–and suddenly Mexico seemed

on the verge of wholesale disintegration.

What happened? How could a country with such seemingly

bright prospects go so wrong? And where is it going from here?

These are no small questions. The United States has few foreign

policy concerns more profoundly consequential for its national

interests than the political stability and welfare of Mexico.

Yet, U.S. political and military leaders–not to mention the

public at large–have only recently begun to realize that. Indeed,

many still take their southern neighbors for granted. That is no

longer a viable option, however. Mexico has entered a “time of

troubles,” and precisely because its economy and society have

become so intertwined with our own, its problems are increasingly

becoming our problems. Whether in the form of illegal aliens,

drug trafficking, violent and nonviolent crime, growing welfare,

educational and medical costs, racial strife, economic losses for

U.S. investors, companies and labor, or the decline of the

dollar, the net result is an erosion of U.S. security and wellbeing.
2

Thus, the need for a better understanding of the Mexican

crisis in order that we may better protect ourselves from its

fallout. This report is the first part of a two-part study

examining the causes and nature of Mexico’s malady and the

prospects for the future. We will begin with an historical

analysis of the crisis as it developed from roughly 1982 to the

present (April 1995), with the main focus being on the 6-year

term of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and the first few

months of his successor, Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León. In a

subsequent report, an assessment will be made of the prospects

for democratization; the outlook for socioeconomic development;

the likelihood of continuing political stability; and the future

of the U.S.-Mexican relationship.2

 A number of policy

recommendations will be offered in the hope that certain obvious

(and not so obvious) pitfalls can be avoided. Along the way,

also, we will suggest how all this affects the U.S. Army.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Economic Crisis, Political Decay, and the Deinstitutionalization

of Hegemony.

Any evaluation of Mexico’s prospects–especially its

prospects for democracy–must begin with an appreciation of the

durability of Mexican authoritarianism. In Mexico, the current

political system has survived essentially intact for 66 years,

ever since the old revolutionary elite founded the hegemonic or

“official” party (originally called the Partido Nacional

Revolucionario, today the Partido Revolucionario Institucional or

PRI) in 1929. Over the years, noncompetitive elections were

institutionalized within a formally multiparty, pluralistic

framework. Not only was “the perfect dictatorship” disguised as a

democracy, but it displayed an extraordinary capacity to

regenerate itself through co-optation and reform. In this sense,

change served not as an agent of systemic transformation but

rather as a means of preserving continuity. Historically,

electoral and party reforms were employed as tactical devices to

maintain the legitimacy of the system and the hegemony of the

governing elite and the dominant groups within it, and their

instrument, the PRI.3

Nevertheless, since the 1960s–and especially since the
3

violent suppression of the student protests of 1968–the Mexican

system has been undergoing a process of gradual, though

accelerating, erosion.4 This disintegration has been marked by

cycles of crisis and reform, with each new turn of the latter

giving rise (or at least contributing) to a succeeding crisis

right up to the present.5 Thus, while gatopardismo– changing in

order to remain the same–has been essential to the maintenance of

systemic equilibrium in the short-to- intermediate run, the

strategy has been unable to prevent long-term decay. Rather than

addressing the deeper, more fundamental problems that were

undermining the system, reforms were designed to merely buy time

through piecemeal adjustment. The result, by the 1980s, was a

“generalized crisis [that] increasingly encompassed the entire

system.”6

By far the most powerful catalyst in this escalating process

of political decay was the economic crisis that struck Mexico in

the summer of 1982. Up until that time, the legitimacy of the

political system had been based not only on its capacity to

maintain order and security, but on an “economic miracle” that

had been able to provide real increases in living standards even

in the face of rapid population growth and a highly unequal

distribution of wealth. Between 1933 and 1981, the Mexican

economy grew at an average annual rate of 6.2 percent, increasing

eighteenfold.7

 Politics was a positive-sum game in which people

from all socioeconomic classes could benefit, though granted some

“won” far more than others.

In August 1982, however, the bubble burst. The country

plunged into a period of financial crisis and economic stagnation

unprecedented since the Great Depression. During the sexenio (the

6-year presidential term) of Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado,

economic growth stagnated while unemployment and inflation soared

(the latter reaching 132 percent in 1987), real wages fell by at

least 40 percent, and per capita GNP dropped from U.S. $3,170

(1981) to U.S. $1,860 (1988).8

 Those who were most vulnerable

were the hardest hit. Nor was their plight helped by the de la

Madrid administration’s neoconservative economic strategy, with

its emphasis on cutting government spending (especially on social

programs) and reducing the size of the bureaucracy. With less

wealth to distribute, politics became a zero-sum game in which

the lower and middle classes lost while the wealthy continued to

prosper. In effect, this meant the end of the inclusionary social
4

contract that had brought all social classes under the umbrella

of the PRI and that constituted one of the crucial legitimizing

myths of the regime.

Coming off a period of rising expectations spawned by the

oil boom of the late 1970s/early 1980s, the economic downturn

heightened relative deprivation and produced a “J-curve” effect.9

While it did not lead to revolutionary violence, it seriously

undermined the PRI and the political system as a whole, causing

major divisions within the ruling elite, weakening corporatist

controls over civil society, giving rise to a growing number of

independent popular movements, and leading to the emergence of a

formidable political opposition that by 1988 would come

dangerously close to toppling the PRI from its hegemonic

pedestal.

As the struggle for systemic transformation picked up steam,

traditionally dominant political institutions (the PRI and its

affiliates) eroded even as alternative institutions were being

formed or rejuvenated. As the regime lost its ability to

materially reward widening segments of the population, its

legitimacy and system of controls weakened. The corporate network

of interest group representation became increasingly ineffectual,

especially with respect to the middle and peasant sectors. Even

the PRI’s domination of organized labor–one of the most crucial

pillars of its political power–eroded notably, as oficialista

labor leaders lost their ability to control the political

behavior of the rank-and-file. At the same time, a remarkable

flowering of civil society occurred. Especially after the

devastating Mexico City earthquakes of 1985, social forces that

had previously been co-opted or excluded increasingly gave birth

to new organizations, most of which focused on very specific

demands. By the end of the 1980s, hundreds of independent

nongovernmental organizations had been formed. Their ranks

included political parties and business, labor, peasant, mass

media, and human rights groups. And increasingly they began to

find common cause through alliances, coordinating committees and

coalitions of coalitions. In 1988, many of these groups became

active participants in the electoral process.10

Meanwhile, the ruling elite was increasingly riven with

factionalism and strife. Within the PRI, tension was growing

between the traditional dominant políticos and the técnicos who
5

had come to dominate national policymaking under de la Madrid. In

part, this conflict was the product of policy differences.

Throughout the decade, elite unity was shattered by bitter public

debates over economic reform. Many old-guard políticos viewed

such measures as the privatization of state enterprises, the

reduction of subsidies, and the curtailment of public spending as

betrayals of the party’s revolutionary heritage. At the same

time, they tended to view political reforms with suspicion,

fearing that increased competition would undermine the PRI’s

hegemony and their own power and lead to political instability.

While the division between políticos and técnicos was by no means

clear-cut (not all técnicos are political reformers and some can

best be viewed as “technopols”–i.e., as combining technical and

political skills and outlooks),11 in general those who favored

traditional economic solutions got frozen out of power.12 In

October 1987, some of these elements left the party to form an

opposition movement under the leadership of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas

and Porfirio Muñoz Ledo. Others remained in the PRI, but their

tepid support for the oficialista candidate, Carlos Salinas de

Gortari, undermined the party’s ability to get out the vote.

By early 1988, then, the PRI’s hegemony was crumbling under

pressure from diverse political forces both from within and

without the party. From the left, dissident former priistas were

joining with socialists, populists and nationalists to form a

Frente Democrático Nacional (FDN) in support of Cárdenas’

presidential candidacy. From the right, disgruntled medium and

small entrepreneurs, hurt by the economic crisis and resentful of

the government’s favored treatment of big business, were rallying

to the banner of the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) and its

candidate Manuel Clouthier. In contrast to Cárdenas, who had

inherited the name and at least part of the mystique of his

revered father (former President Lázaro Cárdenas), and Clouthier,

who was a fiery orator, the PRI’s Carlos Salinas seemed a

colorless figure. His candidacy was unpopular within his own

party. He was the representative of the new technocratic

generation that was wresting control from the “dinosaurs” in the

party apparatus and organized labor. Salinas’ nomination was

perceived by the Old Guard as evidence that it would continue to

be marginalized and denied real power in the coming

administration. Nor, in spite of his credentials, did he have

that much support within the government, where many bureaucrats

feared for their jobs under an austerity-minded administration.
6

The upshot was that many who would ordinarily have lent strong

support to the PRI candidate’s campaign either went through the

motions or defected.13

Thus on July 6, election day, many traditional PRI voters

abstained or went over to the opposition. Only through massive

fraud was Salinas able to capture even a bare plurality. When the

early returns showed Cárdenas in the lead, the government’s

computers went dead, allegedly for “environmental reasons.”14 Only

after a week’s delay in which Cárdenas ballots were found

“floating down rivers and smoldering in roadside bonfires” were

the official results released: Salinas had “won” 50.7 percent of

the vote, the narrowest margin of victory in the PRI’s history.

The opposition had gained almost half the seats in the Chamber of

Deputies and four seats in the Senate. This was the first time

ever that the PRI had lost a Senate race.15 The perfect

dictatorship, it seemed, was in the process of either being

transformed into a democracy or disintegrating altogether.

THE SALINAS SEXENIO

The Reinstitutionalization of Hegemony.

Thus was born, amid political turmoil and illegitimacy, the

historic sexenio (6-year term) of Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

There was here no little irony. During the campaign, Salinas had

made a point to stress that his would be a “modernizing”

presidency not only in terms of economic reform but in the

political realm as well. In the so-called “Declaration of

Hermosillo,” he called on his colleagues in the PRI to reject

their old habits of electoral fraud: “We should recognize that to

win elections, it is necessary to convince and not just

conquer.... I want to win, and I also want people to believe in

our victory.”16 The reality of what had actually happened seemed

to mock his professed commitment to democracy.

There was another contradiction as well: this most modern of

Mexican presidents had come to power at the head of a political

organization whose social and political bases were in the past.

The PRI found its greatest support in the most underdeveloped,

backward and isolated areas of the country–in the povertystricken, rural south rather than in Mexico City (which went to

the FDN) or the northern border states (where the PAN was
7

strongest), among the old, the uneducated, the peasants and the

caciques (local bosses). In contrast, Mexico’s future–the urban

middle and working classes, the educated and the young–largely

voted for the opposition.17

The problem, of course, was that Mexico was changing.

Economic development and modernization were transforming the

socioeconomic structure in ways that were weakening the

traditional culture and the social groups that supported it. A

significant proportion of those sectors were already abandoning

the PRI and, in conjunction with other, more recently emerged

groups, were demanding substantive political reforms.18 The PRI’s

hegemony had been broken. The question was whether, or to what

extent, it could be restored, or whether the leadership would now

permit a substantive transformation of the system to something

more approximating democracy.

In his rhetoric, at least, Salinas seemed to opt for the

latter. There was always, however, a basic dilemma–namely, how to

introduce “democracy” without jeopardizing the power and spoils

of the ruling class? No political elite can be expected to

voluntarily preside over its own demise, and the PRI leadership

was no exception. Thus part of the challenge facing the new

president would be to modernize the party and the political

system in concert, so as to enable the former to maintain its

dominance, albeit under somewhat more competitive circumstances.

This was a slippery slope. The danger was that, in the

process of introducing reforms, the government might not only

undermine the PRI but political stability as well. Salinas was

acutely aware of the risk of trying to simultaneously introduce

major economic and political changes, and he became even more so

as the Gorbachev experiment in the Soviet Union, which had tried

to do just that, unravelled during 1989-91. How could one

maintain order and create new bases of political support while

requiring even greater economic sacrifice? As Salinas himself

observed: “Some countries are attempting [both economic and

political] reforms at the same time, and they end up with no

reform at all, and even graver problems.” His conclusion: the two

would have to proceed at “different rhythms,” with economics

having the priority. As for the seeming incompatibility of

democracy and continued PRI dominance, he noted that: “I keep

hearing that in Mexico one party has held power for years, but
8

when I think of how one party has ruled long in countries like

Japan or Italy, I pay less attention to the criticism.”19

Yet, the issue could not be ignored. Among other things,

Salinas’ economic and political strategies were inextricably

interconnected. On the one hand, his goals of maintaining

political stability and PRI dominance depended on economic

recovery and the generation of prosperity. On the other, his

economic development strategy depended on attracting

international support, especially from the United States. The

centerpiece of Salinas’ economic policy, the North American Free

Trade Agreement (NAFTA), depended precariously on U.S. politics,

in particular upon the approval of the U.S. Congress. In turn,

that meant that a concerted political and public relations effort

had to be made to cultivate an image of a responsible,

modernizing and democratic Mexico.

The result was something akin to an optical illusion.

Political reforms were embraced, but the substance of democracy

remained evasive. Electoral reforms were largely meaning- less,

in some cases even tightening the PRI’s grip on the government

and electoral apparatus. At the state and municipal levels, fraud

continued unabated. Indeed, it seemed to be undergoing a certain

“modernization,” as new techniques (cybernetics) were added to

myriad traditional ones.20 On occasion, when these maneuvers were

too blatant or the opposition protested too vociferously creating

a public relations problem for the regime, President Salinas

would step in and resolve the dispute. This led to the removal of

a number of “victorious” PRI candidates and, in some cases, their

replacement by opposition leaders, giving the appearance of

liberalization, while defusing embarrassing protests and coopting some elements of the opposition (especially the PAN, which

was allowed to acquire three governorships). But it had little to

do with democracy. Rather, this was an integral part of the

Mexican system of presidencialismo, which gives the president

almost absolute power during his term of office.21 This was the

hard core of the authoritarian system, and there was no

indication that Salinas intended to weaken it. On the contrary,

he seemed to be streamlining the system and centralizing even

more power in the upper echelons of the party and government,

particularly in the presidency.22

Other reforms met similar fates. Despite of promises to
9

democratize the internal workings of the PRI, little was

accomplished. (Over 90 percent of the party’s candidates for the

Chamber of Deputies in 1991 were chosen by the traditional method

of dedazo, or appointment from above.) Though Salinas upon taking

office launched a highly publicized campaign against corruption,

this seemed to be as much the product of his need to establish

himself as a strong leader (which was especially pressing given

the way in which he had limped to victory in the election) as

anything else. This was a time-honored tactic, which allowed him

to distance himself from the venality of the past and demonstrate

his commitment to reform.23 But it made no more than a dent in the

endemic malfeasance plaguing the body politic. Lured by huge

amounts of easy money and a virtual guarantee of impunity, many

of the country’s high-level military and police officers forged

ties with narcotics traffickers. At the same time, public funds

continued to be diverted to private purposes, including the

financing of PRI political activities. The government’s

privatization program provided new opportunities for its

supporters in the business sector to make financial killings.

Meanwhile, judicial reforms further concentrated power in the

hands of the executive, and authoritarian controls over the labor

movement were tightened.24

Human rights violations also persisted. Prior to 1982, the

government had been able to rely largely on economic rewards to

maintain political control. But when the economic crisis hit this

was no longer possible, and the regime had been increasingly

forced to employ repression. Now Salinas was trying to reverse

that equation by rebuilding the economy so that negative

incentives could be replaced by positive ones.25 That would take

time, however. The turmoil of 1988 and the growing aggressiveness

of opposition parties and interest groups presented an immediate

perceived threat to political stability and PRI dominance. And so

while some small measures were taken to reduce human rights

abuses, the basic pattern of violence, intimidation and impunity

remained unchecked. Local labor bosses formed goon squads to kill

rivals and terrorize rebellious union locals. Rural strongmen

hired death squads to cow peasants seeking the enforcement of

land reform laws. The Federal Judiciary Police–Mexico’s

equivalent of the FBI–arrested, “disappeared,” or assassinated

human rights monitors, labor organizers, campesino and indigenous

rights activists, journalists, environmentalists and other

troublesome elements. Cárdenas supporters, in particular, became
10

favorite targets. According to officials from the Partido de la

Revolución Democrática (PRD), which had been formed in the

aftermath of the 1988 elections in an effort to maintain

Cárdenas’ political following, some 250 party members died or

vanished under mysterious circumstances during the first 5 years

of the Salinas administration.26

But repression and the facade of reform were not the only

means used to undercut the opposition and restore PRI hegemony.

Economic rewards were employed as well. Under Salinas, social

spending rose substantially, even as the overall budget was

drastically reduced. Between 1988 and 1994, spending on education

more than doubled. Spending on health care and social security

rose by 82 percent and on urban development by 51 percent.

Thirteen and a half million more people were provided with

potable water, 11.5 million with sewage service, and 4 million

with electricity. Two and a half million new houses were built.27

 The centerpiece of Salinas’ social policy was the National

Program of Solidarity (Programa Nacional de Solidaridad–

PRONASOL), which provided poor communities with a vast array of

public services. This was a fundamentally political program,

designed to weaken the nascent alliances that had been formed

between the PRD and those social groups representing the urban

poor. The intent was to co-opt the latter by incorporating them

into the state’s distributive network. At the same time,

Solidarity also represented an attempt to rejuvenate and

reinstitutionalize the PRI by forcing it to establish new

political bases outside its traditional power structures. Above

all, however, it strengthened Salinas’ political standing and the

system of presidencialismo.28

Complementing the president’s social development strategy,

moreover, were the promise and evidence of economic recovery.

Between 1988 and 1990, the rate of increase of the Gross Domestic

Product grew from 1.2 percent to 4.4 percent annually. And though

it declined to 3.6 percent in 1991, per capita Gross National

Income kept rising (to U.S. $1,900, compared to U.S. $1,710 in

1988). Inflation plunged from 159 percent in 1987 to around 23

percent in 1991.29 Foreign investment flooded the country. While

the government’s neoliberal economic program benefitted almost

entirely the rich and the middle class (which gained ready access

to U.S. consumer goods),30 even the poor could hope for a better
11

future. The capstone of the president’s economic strategy–the

NAFTA–promised to spur growth, create jobs, raise living

standards, and catapult the country out of the ranks of the

“Third World” into the community of “developed” nations. In the

meantime, Solidarity provided a downpayment to those who had not

yet benefitted from the government’s economic policy. In effect,

the program became a symbol of Salinas’ good intentions.

By mid-term, then, a combination of factors had considerably

strengthened the political position of the president and the PRI.

Salinas had proven himself to be an exceptionally strong leader,

with a vision of the future that appealed to millions of

Mexicans. Some had already reaped tangible rewards from his

policies, and many more had acquired hope that they too might

soon benefit. Nor were his accomplishments limited to the

domestic realm. By entering into a partnership with the Bush

administration to negotiate NAFTA, he had acquired hemispherewide stature–a source of nationalistic pride. Salinas was leading

Mexico into the 21st century, and he was doing so not as a

supplicant but as an equal partner of the United States.

Meanwhile, political reforms provided a facade of

democratization even as the PRI continued to enjoy an

overwhelming advantage in such areas as financing, access to

state resources, and news coverage. Critics continued to be

subjected to threats and violence. The PAN had been at least

partially co-opted, much of its economic program having already

been adopted by Salinas and many of its leaders “tamed” by having

been brought into the system. (Once having won state and local

elections, PAN officials quickly became dependent on the federal

government for the resources they needed to govern effectively.

They thus tended to curb their combative instincts lest they be

punished.) At the same time, the less compliant PRD had become

the target of a concerted campaign of propaganda, intimidation

and electoral fraud, designed to demoralize, isolate and divide

it, while siphoning off its political support. During these

years, the strength of the Cárdenas coalition steadily ebbed. The

PRD proved to be less a coherent institution or political party

than a conglomeration of diverse groups and ideologies held

together by the personalistic leadership of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas.

Without a national election to showcase its strongest political

asset, however, the party lost much of its appeal.31
12

Thus were the conditions created for the PRI’s dramatic

recovery from the political trauma of 1988. Through a combination

of fair means and foul, the party–with a few significant

exceptions–swept the state and local elections of 1989 and 1990,

culminating in a smashing victory in the August 1991 mid-term

elections. In the latter, the PRI received over 60 percent of the

national vote, winning 310 of the 500 seats in the Chamber of

Deputies (up from 266 in 1988). The party also won all six of the

gubernatorial posts that were contested and all but one Senate

seat. It even prevailed (overwhelmingly) in the area of its

greatest weakness, the Federal District.32 To all appearances, PRI

hegemony had been restored. Only time would reveal this as an

illusion.

From Reinstitutionalization to Crisis.

On November 17, 1993, the U.S. House of Representatives

ratified the North American Free Trade Agreement, ushering in a

new era in U.S.-Mexican relations, Mexican economic development

and, arguably, in Mexico’s political evolution. Passage had not

come easily. It was obtained only after a prolonged and fierce

political struggle that had included the negotiation of side

agreements designed to make the pact more palatable to U.S.

critics. Even so, it had not been clear until almost the final

moment that the measure would pass. In the months preceding the

vote, Salinas had even distanced himself from the agreement a

bit, seeking to deflate public expectations in the event it was

rejected.

The NAFTA victory marked the high point of the Salinas

sexenio. The president had now established himself as a visionary

and a statesman; many considered him the greatest Mexican leader

of the century. Public opinion polls showed him to be widely

popular. Economically, the country seemed poised to make the

transition from underdevelopment to modernity. Politically, the

PRI seemed invulnerable. Given the magnitude of the achievement,

how could the party fail to consolidate its newly restored

hegemony?

Beneath the surface, however, trouble was brewing. Since

1990, the economy had steadily declined (from a growth rate of

4.4 percent in 1990, to 3.6 percent in 1991, to 2.6 percent in

1992). In 1993, it grew only .4 percent (manufacturing shrank 5
13

percent). By year’s end, the country was experiencing negative

growth.33 Added to this were the deleterious effects of the

government’s neoliberal economic policies. Although the upper and

upper middle classes had substantially benefitted from many of

these measures, the same could not be said for the vast majority

of the poor. By now most tariffs, food price controls and

subsidies for food and agricultural inputs had been eliminated;

the economy had been opened up to the large-scale importation of

food and feed; credit and technical assistance had been

privatized, as had over a thousand state corporations. In early

1992, moreover, Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution, which had

provided the legal basis for the long moribund agrarian reform,

had been revised. The government announced a formal end to the

land redistribution program. Ejido members who had received land

now acquired the right to sell, rent, sharecrop or mortgage it

and to enter into contracts with private entrepreneurs, including

foreign investors.34 In effect, Mexico’s communal landholdings

were being privatized.35

One can scarcely overstate the potential significance of 

these changes. In their totality, they seemed to be the beginning

of a “silent revolution” at the grassroots of Mexican society.

Already hundreds of thousands of workers (1.15 million in 1993

alone) had lost their jobs as privatized state industries slashed

their work forces and companies unable to compete with the influx

of inexpensive U.S. products cut back their operations or went

out of business.36 The impact was especially traumatic in the

countryside. After 1989, only maize and beans continued to

receive guaranteed prices. Peasants growing other crops often

found it difficult to sell their produce. Under NAFTA, moreover,

the situation seemed likely to become much worse as tariffs and

import quotas on maize and beans were phased out, along with corn

subsidies, over a period of 15 years. With the reforms of Article

27 now permitting the sale of ejido lands, it appeared highly

probable that inequality and land concentration would get much

worse, as poor peasants came under increasing pressure to sell

out to large agro-export producers. How many people would

ultimately be affected was difficult to say, but some analysts

estimated that 700 to 800,000 agricultural workers might be

displaced by declining corn prices. Others suggested that as many

as 15 million people could be forced out of agriculture as a

consequence of NAFTA and other policy changes.37 A U.S. Embassy

political officer predicted that out of the roughly 20 million
14

Mexicans working the land in 1993, only half would be left in

2009.38

 These worst-case scenarios are subject to debate. Two

years after the reform of Article 27, there had been no massive

privatization of communal lands. (In large part, this may be

attributed to the slow pace at which the reforms were being

implemented.)39 Nevertheless, there were growing indications that

ejido social organization was crumbling and that agrarian

conflicts were on the rise. Many peasants reacted to the reforms

with confusion, suspicion, and sometimes open hostility.40 As the

economy continued to decline–along with the prices for such basic

products as wood, coffee, cattle and corn–desperation grew. Not

even the social programs of Solidarity could neutralize the pain

of declining incomes, rising unemployment, and increasing

landlessness.

This was especially the case in the poverty-stricken

southern state of Chiapas. There the economic decline had been

particularly sharp. Chiapas was Mexico’s primary coffee-producing

state. But between 1989 and 1994, the international price of

coffee had fallen from U.S. $120-140 to U.S. $60-70 per

hundredweight. Combined with changes in federal government policy

(a reduction of available credit, for instance), this had led to

a 65 percent drop in income for growers.41 In the face of these

kinds of losses, Solidarity could have little effect. Indeed, in

some respects it made things worse. Though the program’s

expenditures in Chiapas increased substantially (by 130 percent

in 1989-90, 50 percent in 1990-91, 20 percent in 1991-92, and a

further 1 percent in 1992-93), much of this ended up in the

pockets of local political bosses.42 The manipulation and

diversion of Solidarity funds intensified unrest in local Indian

communities, fueling demands for socioeconomic and political

change. Twenty to 30 percent of all unresolved land disputes in

Mexico were in Chiapas.43 As conflict surged, peasants battled

other peasants, large landowners and their hired thugs, local

security forces, and even the Mexican Army. Human rights

violations proliferated. The consequence was the growing

radicalization of campesino militants. By 1993, press reports of

guerrilla activity began to circulate. By now, however, the

Salinas administration was in the midst of a fierce struggle for

the NAFTA. It was desperately trying to foster the image of a

politically stable, modern Mexico that would be a “reliable
15

partner” for the United States and Canada. Accordingly, the

reports were publicly denied. The guerrillas, it was assumed,

were a minor problem, easily manageable.

But beyond the declining economy, the spread of social pain,

and growing socioeconomic inequality, there was also a rapid

proliferation of corruption and criminal violence. Much of this

was narcotics-related. Mexico had not quite become

“Colombianized,” though there was much talk to that effect. The

immediate danger was not that drug lords would wage war on the

state à la Medellín, but that they would subvert it through

corruption. Collusion between traffickers and Mexican officials

already ran so deep that the problem seemed beyond the

government’s control. In the process, marijuana had become the

most important cash crop in Mexico. Not only was the country the

leading producer of heroin and foreign marijuana for the U.S.

market, but an estimated 50-70 percent of all cocaine shipped to

the United States passed through its borders. Much of this

activity occurred with the complicity of Mexican authorities,

especially the police.44 In 1988, drug revenues had reached levels

equal to about 1.25 to 4 percent of Mexico’s GNP, and had

represented between 6 and 20 percent of the country’s export

earnings.45 And there was no end in sight. Indeed, U.S.

intelligence and law enforcement sources reported that Mexican

and Colombian smugglers were setting up factories, warehouses and

trucking companies to exploit the increase in cross-border

commerce expected under the NAFTA.46

As opportunities for profit increased, so did drug-related

violence. Stepped-up law enforcement by the Salinas

administration (a necessity if Mexico were to be accepted as a

partner in NAFTA) led to the suppression of some cartels, though

the imprisoned bosses often continued to run their multibilliondollar operations from their cells. More important, however, by

elevating the price of drugs at all stages of production the

government’s law enforcement efforts increased earnings and hence

the incentives for trafficking. Thus, the suppression or partial

suppression of some cartels only led to a proliferation of

competing organizations. By 1993, there were roughly a dozen

grand mafiosos and other minor ones in control of these cartels,

 and they were increasingly engaged in turf wars. During the

first 5 months of the year alone, over 80 people were killed in

Culiacán, a city that had acquired the reputation of a “Little
16

Medellín”; most were believed to be drug-related.47 In May, the

violence hit home with a vengeance when Cardinal Juan Jesús

Posadas Ocampo and several other people were gunned down at the

Guadalajara airport during a shoot-out between rival gangs.

The Posadas assassination sent shock waves through the body

politic. The government’s account was greeted with widespread

skepticism. (The killing was found to be a case of mistaken

identity.) Critical questions remained unanswered. At the time,

unidentified officials had ordered the delay of a Tijuana-bound

Aeromexico passenger jet, allowing eight of the gunmen to board.

Even after it became apparent to investigators on the ground that

some of the killers had escaped by plane, Mexican officials

apparently made no effort to halt the jet or meet it in Tijuana.

Upon arrival, the gunmen simply walked away.48

By now the administration was caught in a growing

credibility gap. Only the previous year, its report on a gas

explosion in Guadalajara that had killed over 200 people had been

received with similar incredulity. (The authorities found that

the accident had been caused by leakage from a corroded pipe;

most locals, however, believed that officials at the state oil

monopoly, PEMEX, had been punching holes in the lines to siphon

off gas to be sold illegally.) A month after Posadas’ death,

moreover, government officials, in announcing the arrest of a

former Mexico City police chief on bribery charges, proclaimed

that they had wiped out high-level corruption in Mexico’s police

force. Again, few people believed them.49

Quite apart from the merits of these particular claims,

these incidents reflected a growing public distrust. Cynicism and

suspicion, always substantial with regard to political matters,

were spreading fast. And in large part they were being propelled

by the government’s own behavior. Beyond the corruption and

violence, the discrepancy between the administration’s promises

of political reform and its actual conduct was increasingly

difficult to conceal. In state and local elections, fraud

continued unabated. Only 11 days after the U.S. House of

Representatives approved the NAFTA, an especially blatant

instance occurred in the Yucatán, where under the guise of a

power blackout PRI operatives stole ballot boxes and altered

tally sheets to deny the governorship to a popular opposition

candidate.50
17

Nor was Salinas able to remain untouched. In February 1993,

he made the egregious mistake of presiding over a PRI fundraising

dinner at which more than two dozen of the country’s wealthiest

businessmen were asked to give $25 million each to the party’s

1994 election campaign. The meeting quickly became public

knowledge, and a scandal ensued. Critics pointed out that PRI’s

campaign would likely cost over half a billion dollars. In

contrast, in the United States, the Democratic Party and the

Clinton campaign together had spent only $96.5 million for the

1992 presidential race. Whereas individual contributions to U.S.

parties could not exceed $20,000 a year, one of the Mexican

contributors– television mogul Emilio Azcarraga–admitted that he

had grown so rich in recent years that he might give the PRI as

much as $70 million. This of course raised a telling issue: Most

of the diners that evening had either profited from the purchase

of privatized state companies, maintained business monopolies

with official support, or been given special consideration by the

government’s NAFTA negotiators. To jaundiced observers, it looked

as if Mexico’s dominant party was being sold to the barons of

private enterprise.51

After this it became much harder to take Salinas’

professions of reform seriously. While the president soon

recognized his misstep and announced his willingness to place a

cap on individual political donations, few believed that he was

willing to create a level playing field. The limit on donations

seemed little more than a political maneuver designed to placate

critics both in Mexico and the United States. (The latter were

especially important, with the NAFTA negotiations about to enter

a critical phase.) Many, if not most, Mexicans assumed that ways

would be found to get around legal restrictions.52

Moreover, in the weeks that followed evidence grew that the

“dinosaurs” (traditional políticos) within the PRI were staging a

comeback or, at least, that the “yuppies” (técnicos) around

Salinas had accepted the need for a “strategic truce” during the

coming election year. This bode ill for the prospects of

democratization, at least for the near future. At the same time,

efforts to postpone the gubernatorial election in the Yucatán

further undercut the government’s credibility. (Even some PRI

members charged that Salinas was trying to avoid the party’s

defeat.) Under such circumstances, it came as no surprise that
18

when the administration proposed new changes in the election laws

the response was mostly hostile. This was the sixth electoral

reform in 15 years. None of the previous efforts had done much to

curb fraud, which remained as rampant as ever. Critics charged

that these proposals would be no different: They were merely a

pacifier to silence the opposition and please the gringos. Some,

indeed, suggested that they amounted to an “electoral

counterreform” which would only strengthen the regime.

In perspective, the measures were a first step, but little

more.53 They did place some restrictions on political fundraising, reduce the government’s control over electoral

authorities, and give the opposition more access to the news

media. In addition, the legislature approved constitutional

amendments to assure the other parties greater representation in

the Senate and ease a prohibition on the election to high office

of Mexicans whose parents were foreign-born. The latter, however,

was not scheduled to go into effect until the year 2000, which

meant that the PAN’s strongest potential candidate, Vicente Fox

Quesada, would not be eligible in 1994. How meaningful the other

measures would be was hard to say, since much depended on their

enforcement. Certainly, the country’s past record with regard to

such matters was not encouraging.

On November 28–-the same day as the fraud-drenched balloting

in the Yucatán–Salinas engaged in the traditional destape, or

“unveiling” of the PRI’s presidential candidate. The ritual had

more than a little symbolic significance. For all his assurances

that Mexico was on the path of democratization, the decision had

been made by distinctly undemocratic means. Neither party

caucuses nor primary elections had been used; rather, the dedazo–

figuratively, the pointing of the presidential finger at the

chosen one. Clearly, Salinas had no intention of diluting the

near-absolute power of the president to select his successor. The

PRI, of course, had never lost an election at this level before,

and so it had to be assumed that the nomination of Luis Donaldo

Colosio, the minister of social development, would also be

tantamount to his election. In Mexico, it seemed, the more things

changed the more they remained the same.

The Year of Living Dangerously (I):

The Revolt in Chiapas and the Colosio Assassination.
19

On January 1, 1994, a guerrilla group calling itself the

Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) seized four large towns

and a number of smaller villages in the impoverished southern

state of Chiapas. The assault took the Mexican government and the

military completely by surprise. At the time, the army had less

than 4,000 troops in Chiapas, and many of them were on leave for

the holidays. For 24 hours, the rebels held San Cristóbal de las

Casas–a city of 90,000 inhabitants–before retreating into the

mountains. At a nearby military battalion headquarters, troops

came under steady attack for 8 days. As the army assumed the

offensive, casualties mounted. In the days that followed, at

least 145 people, many of them noncombatants, were killed. Some

villages were bombed, some captured guerrillas summarily

executed.54

The violence traumatized the country. The government’s

initial reaction was to crack down hard and look for scapegoats.

The uprising was blamed on radical priests and foreigners. Within

a matter of days, however, President Salinas recognized that a

more conciliatory approach would have to be adopted. The conflict

was receiving intense public attention both in Mexico and the

United States. Almost overnight, it had shattered the carefullyconstructed image of Mexico as a modernizing society that was

rapidly making the transition into the First World. Now the

facade had been stripped away, revealing something far less

attractive: poverty, backward- ness, carnage, and instability.

This was not the message that Salinas wanted to send. After

NAFTA, the U.S. Congress, the press and human rights groups were

virtually hovering in anticipation of opportunities to test

Mexico’s claim to be a democracy. The revolt had been timed to

coincide with the start-up of the free-trade agreement. Massive

violence would not only frighten away investors and damage the

prospects for economic recovery, but it also might create a

political backlash that could destroy the NAFTA altogether.

Moreover, this was an election year. Already there was growing

criticism of the PRI and the government for their deathgrip on

the political system, not to mention their apparent inability to

halt the socioeconomic deterioration that was occurring. Many of

the Zapatistas’ demands spoke directly to these issues, and some

of the public was rallying to their cause. It seemed unwise

politically to reject negotiations. A peaceful solution was much

to be preferred to a bloodbath.
20

Thus it was that on January 10th President Salinas did an

about-face, firing his hard-line minister of the interior,

Patrocinio González Garrido, a former governor of Chiapas. In

González’s place, the president appointed the distinguished

jurist and human rights ombudsman, Jorge Carpizo MacGregor. At

the same time, he asked Foreign Minister Manuel Camacho Solís,

the popular ex-mayor of Mexico City, to lead an effort to reach a

negotiated settlement of the conflict. In the days that followed,

a unilateral ceasefire was announced and an amnesty law issued;

the governor of Chiapas was replaced; and the controversial

bishop of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Samuel Ruiz, was invited to

join the mediation effort.55

Chiapas was a catalyst for the release of broader

frustrations. Popular sentiment in favor of the rebels now grew

rapidly. Their spokesman, a charismatic ski-masked commando

calling himself Subcomandante Marcos, quickly took on the aura of

a folk hero. Not everyone agreed with the rebels’ actions or all

of their demands, but a broad segment of Mexican society clearly

believed that many of the latter were justified. Even the

government acknowledged as much, and this lent their cause even

greater legitimacy. Soon other groups began to take up the cry.

In Mexico City, demonstrations were held and bombs set off. By

February, dozens of human rights, political, religious, Indian

and peasant organizations were expressing their “moral support”

for the rebels’ demands, and some were threatening to join the

armed struggle. In Chiapas and elsewhere, campesinos were seizing

hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural land. From the

state of Guerrero came reports of other guerrilla activity.56

Under growing pressure from the rebels, the opposition

parties and even some elements within his own political circle,

and anxious to keep the crisis from spreading, Salinas agreed to

institute more reforms. In February, for the first time, the

government accepted the idea that foreign observers be allowed at

Mexican polling stations. The opposition was promised greater

access to the media (especially television, which had virtually

been a PRI monopoly). The Federal Electoral Institute was to be

put under nonpartisan direction, and voter rolls subjected to 

more rapid and intense auditing. A new assistant attorney general

specializing in electoral affairs would be empowered to prosecute

cases of fraud. Laws would be revised to include new election-
21

related crimes. Campaign spending and fund raising would be

limited. Efforts would be made to prevent government resources

from being used for the benefit of any particular party.57

Meanwhile the PRI presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo

Colosio, began to distance himself from Salinas, criticizing the

latter’s administration for its “shortcomings” and the “excessive

concentration of power” in the office of the president. Colosio

suggested that Salinas had focused on macroeconomic issues at the

expense of the poor. The country’s profound social problems, he

proclaimed, could no longer be ignored. Democratization had to be

effectuated. From now on the PRI would receive no special favors

from the state.58

Whether–or to what extent–these various hints, promises and

reforms would actually be carried out was, of course, an open

question. Critics were quick to note that the United Nations was

being asked to play only a very limited role in the August

elections. It would not monitor the vote directly, merely

evaluate the electoral system and help organize independent

observers. Others noted that there would be less independent

supervision at the local level, where the votes were first

counted and most of the fraud occurred, than at the top, and that

much would depend on who was actually appointed to the new

supervisory bodies. Nor was the issue of the PRI’s

disproportionate access to campaign finance and the media

adequately addressed. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, for one, pronounced

the reforms unsatisfactory, dashing hopes that all of the major

candidates would agree in advance to accept the election results.

The new reforms represented a significant improvement over

those of the previous year. They could not, however, stop the

violence that was tearing at the heart of Mexican society. On

March 3d, several people were killed in a bizarre shoot-out

between federal and state judicial police in Tijuana. The

incident was triggered by the attempted arrest of Ismael Higuera

Guerrero, a capo in the Arellano Félix drug ring. State and local

authorities, it turned out, had been protecting the mafioso.59

Moreover, a week later, in Mexico City, Alfredo Harp Helú, a

billionaire confidant of President Salinas, was kidnapped and

held for ransom. The following month, in an almost identical

incident, another prominent businessman was seized. Together,

these two events sparked a wave of fear among the captains of
22

finance and industry.60

But the greatest shock was yet to come. On March 23d,

Colosio was gunned down at a campaign rally in Tijuana. This was

the first assassination of a Mexican president or president-elect

(which was what the PRI candidate was widely presumed to be,

since elections had traditionally been considered a mere

formality) since 1928. Coming on top of the killing of Cardinal

Posadas, the revolt in Chiapas, the kidnapping of Harp Helú and

the numerous other acts of violence that were consuming the

country, the murder raised the specter of national

disintegration. Mexicans were not just shocked; they were

anguished. Some, indeed, were close to panic. What was happening?

Where would it all lead?

Efforts by the authorities to reassure the public had

precisely the opposite effect. The official investigation was

marred by political interference and incompetence. Initially, it

was suggested that the killing had been done by a single,

deranged individual. By early April, however, six other suspects

had been identified, and the administration’s special prosecutor,

Miguel Montes, was spinning theories of a grand conspiracy:

Colosio had been shot twice, evidently from opposite directions.

Videotapes seemed to show six men working in concert to block the

victim’s path, obstruct his bodyguards, and clear the way for the

assassin to get a close shot. Yet, in spite of this, Salinas

apparently rejected Montes’ efforts to broaden the

investigation.61 After police discovered a bomb on a plane he was

about to board, the prosecutor backed off and returned to the

single killer hypothesis.62

Meanwhile, attorneys general came and went with blinding

regularity (three new ones since the beginning of the year); a

special commission named by the president to launch an

independent investigation resigned when it failed to receive the

necessary authority; and a Tijuana police chief, who had

questioned the government’s “lone assassin” theory in the process

of conducting an investigation of his own, was shot and killed

amid reports that someone had tampered with his evidence. These

developments undercut the administration’s credibility still

further, fueling all sorts of rumors, including speculation that

Colosio had been killed by reactionary elements in the PRI.63
23

By now the Mexican stock market was teetering. In an effort

to restore confidence and stabilize the economy, the United

States extended Mexico a $6 billion line of credit. But even so,

private investors were taking their money out of the stock market

and putting it into dollars so fast that it threatened the

stability of the peso. By mid-April, some $6 billion of capital

had fled the country.64

Nor was the economy the only thing that was hemorrhaging.

Even before the assassination, the PRI was deeply divided. The

selection of Colosio as the party’s presidential candidate had

alienated not only many of the “dinosaurs” but some modernizers

as well. Most prominent among the latter was Manuel Camacho

Solís. As mayor of Mexico City, Camacho had built a reputation as

a political conciliator and reformer. But he was also enormously

ambitious. He had expected to be chosen as Salinas’ successor and

had been furious when the latter had opted for Colosio. To

placate him, the president had appointed him foreign minister

and, when Chiapas exploded, special envoy to negotiate an end to

the conflict.

But Chiapas had given Camacho a new lease on his political 

career. He had jumped into the fray with enthusiasm, quickly

becoming, like his Zapatista counterpart Sub- comandante Marcos,

a national celebrity. Together, the two men received so much

attention that they completely overshadowed Colosio, who found it

difficult to get his campaign off the ground. Along the way,

Camacho began staking out an independent position, pressuring

Salinas and Colosio to go further in their public commitments to

reform than they might have otherwise have gone. In the course of

his dialogue with the Zapatistas, Camacho allowed the agenda to

be broadened to include basic issues of democracy and human

rights that went far beyond the limited confines of Chiapas. At

times, he even made veiled threats to enter the presidential race

himself “if we fail to make advances in democracy, if instead of

a peace agreement we have polarization....” Mexico’s unity, he

proclaimed, did not consist in “unity for the sake of a mere

conglomerate” [read: the PRI]; rather, “we must create a

nonexclusive unity” by “opening up the doors of institutions to

the demands for justice of the Mexican society and people.”65

While the prospect of a Camacho candidacy caught the

imagination of millions of Mexicans, not everyone was pleased.
24

From Chiapas, Marcos warned that the Zapatistas would not allow

themselves to be used as a political stepping stone. Within the

Colosio camp, the outrage was palpable. A Camacho candidacy would

split the PRI, undermining Colosio’s chances and perhaps paving

the way for a Cárdenas victory. Accordingly, pressure was applied

on Camacho to withdraw from the political scene. After some

wavering, the erstwhile candidate acquiesced, explaining that

while he still wanted to be president the timing was wrong and

the price too high. He could best serve the country by staying in

Chiapas and negotiating a peace.66

Two days later, Colosio was assassinated. There was no small

touch of irony here. The PRI was now without a presidential

candidate. Yet, a Camacho candidacy no longer seemed feasible.

His threat of a breakaway campaign had so alienated Colosio’s

followers that any attempt to succeed the fallen candidate might

have shattered the party’s unity beyond repair. (At the wake,

Colosio’s supporters even jeered Camacho’s presence. When he

reiterated his decision not to run, they responded with cheers

and sustained applause.)67 The problem was that the alternatives

were not very appetizing. The choices were severely constrained

by the constitution, which prohibited recent cabinet members from

running. (They had to have resigned at least 6 months prior to

the election.) The most likely prospect seemed to be the former

budget and education minister, Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, who

was cut from the same technocratic mold as Salinas and Colosio.

But Zedillo was virtually unknown to party workers and the

public. He was a colorless and somewhat dogmatic personality,

with few political skills and no following. As Colosio’s campaign

manager, he had been accused of running a lackluster race. Aside

from some big businessmen and foreign investors, few could

generate much enthusiasm over his prospective candidacy.

The most obvious alternative was the PRI president, Fernando

Ortiz Arana. Ortiz was the favorite of most of the party’s

bosses. He seemed likely to attract broader support than Zedillo.

But he would have represented a sharp break from the highly

trained professionals who had dominated the Salinas

administration. He had no background in economics, was not a

member of the president’s inner circle, and it was by no means

clear that he could be trusted to continue Salinas’ program. In

the days that followed the assassination, the various party

factions began lobbying for their favorites, with Ortiz’s
25

supporters openly pushing for their man. So intense was the

infighting that at one point Ortiz Arana had to remind his

followers (who had taken to booing Zedillo and even Salinas) that

the PRI leadership had not authorized “any expression of support

in favor of any person.” The party, he said, was still in

mourning for Colosio.68

In the end Salinas, after going through the motions of

consulting with the party leadership, chose Zedillo. Neither the

decision nor the process were popular. Many PRI leaders had been

pressing for a primary election, or at least a secret vote among

themselves. Salinas, however, was determined to preserve the

powers of the presidential system. The result–rather than an

opening up of the selection process or the introduction of an

element of democracy–was another dedazo.69 What remained to be

seen was the effect this would have on the campaign. Would the

new candidate be able to heal the party’s wounds and rally the

faithful to the cause?

Finally, there was Chiapas. Prior to the assassination,

Camacho had appeared to be on the verge of a breakthrough. A

draft peace agreement had been drawn up, addressing most of the

rebels’ socioeconomic demands. Government promises of roads,

housing, schools, health clinics, and aid to farmers seemed

likely to improve the daily lives of the populace. New laws would

outlaw racial discrimination and recognize indigenous customs

with regard to such matters as minor crimes, commerce, land use,

and family relations. Except for those issues relating to

Indians, however, the accords focused almost entirely on Chiapas.

There were no tangible concessions on democratization and

electoral reform on the national level, and even those on local

political arrangements fell well short of the rebels’ demands for

regional autonomy. Demands that Article 27 be implemented as

originally intended–to give land to all peasants who worked it–

were rejected (though Chiapas was recognized as a special case

and provision was made to continue redistribution there). As for

NAFTA, the government promised to study its impact on Chiapas and

consider job retraining programs, the creation of new industries,

and other measures to cushion the impact of foreign competition.70

To most observers, these looked like generous concessions,

and it was widely assumed that peace was at hand. But the rebels

had more ambitious objectives. Moreover, past experience had
26

taught them to be wary of government promises. Commenting on the

draft, Subcomandante Marcos dismissed it as a “bunch of papers.”

Whether the government would abide by it remained to be seen. In

any case, he insisted, nothing had been settled. This was only a

“dialogue.” He had no authority to negotiate. The proposals would

have to be submitted to the grassroots communities in the areas

under EZLN control. Peace was still “far away.”71

There matters stood at the time of Colosio’s assassination.

In the wake of the killing, the rebels put their forces on “red

alert.” A communique was issued accusing the government of

preparing a “great military offensive.” The talks were suspended.

Subsequent efforts by the Zapatista leaders to submit the draft

proposal to their followers proved to be cumbersome and timeconsuming. As the weeks passed, Chiapas rapidly faded from the

headlines, overshadowed by the assassination and the growing

public focus on the political campaign.

But the Zapatistas had not disappeared. They still had their

weapons, and they were in no hurry to surrender them. Though the

ceasefire seemed to be holding, the situation remained volatile.

A provocation by either side could ignite a new round of

fighting, with massive bloodshed and the possible spread of war

to other states. To make matters worse, a dangerous backlash was

occurring. In the face of widespread land seizures, cattle

rustling, town hall occupations, kidnappings and other such acts,

some ranchers, PRI militants and other locals were already

responding with violence. In Chiapas, force and illegality had

always been the weapons of the powerful. Those who were newly

threatened let it be known that if the military and local

authorities could not maintain order, they would do so–by any

means necessary.

The Year of Living Dangerously (II):

The Elections.

Something quite extraordinary was happening. A political

system that for many decades had been one of the most stable in

Latin America had become, seemingly overnight, volatile and

unpredictable. One could no longer take the PRI’s hegemony for

granted. Nor could one make any assumptions with regard to the

overall stability of the system. The future of the ruling party

now precariously depended on a political amateur, Ernesto
27

Zedillo, whose lackluster personality and oratory made him a

singularly unattractive presidential candidate.72 It soon became

apparent, moreover, that Zedillo would be forced to rely much

more heavily on the PRI Old Guard than would have Colosio. In a

campaign in which PRI corruption was a major issue, this proved

to be an embarrassment: Among the first to jump on his bandwagon

were several former PRI governors who had been forced to resign

because of graft or electoral fraud.73

In the beginning, it was widely assumed that the most

serious challenge would come from the PRD’s Cárdenas. But once

again, the conventional wisdom was mistaken. Cárdenas’ campaign

never got off the ground. Desperately short of funds, it was

undermined from the beginning both by PRI efforts to portray the

candidate as a dangerous radical, who would endanger the

country’s political stability and prosperity, and by some PRD

militants whose penchant for civil disobedience only lent

credence to the charges. On top of this, Cárdenas turned out to

be just as ineffective a campaigner as Zedillo. In mid-May, he

gave a disastrous performance in Mexico’s first nationally

televised presidential debate. Speaking in the same deadpan

manner that he used at campaign rallies, Cárdenas “tranquiliz[ed]

the audience with his characteristic low, monotone drone.”

 Almost overnight, he plunged to third place in the polls, behind

both Zedillo and the PAN’s Diego Fernández de Cevallos.74

Three days later, moreover, Cárdenas traveled to Chiapas,

hoping to gain some favorable publicity by demonstrating

solidarity with the rebels’ cause and basking in Sub-comandante

Marcos’ charisma. Instead, he ran into a buzzsaw: Marcos publicly

humiliated Cárdenas by making him stand in the sweltering heat

for two hours before admitting his delegation into a Zapatista

compound. When he was finally permitted to enter, he was

subjected to a series of on-stage lectures by skeptical guerrilla

commanders who told the dumbstruck candidate that “We are not

going to listen to lies.” Marcos himself questioned whether the

PRD had anything new to offer, accusing the party of following

the same economic policies and undemocratic practices as the PRI

and the PAN. In the end, the “photo opportunity” turned into a

nightmare and reinforced the disastrous impression of the

debate.75

The real surprise of the campaign however, was Diego
28

Fernández. Prior to his televised appearance with Cárdenas and

Zedillo, the PAN candidate had commanded less than 10 percent

support in the polls. But his two wooden opponents provided him

with perfect straight men for his acerbic sound bites. “In

response to Zedillo’s proud claim to have authored the blueprint

for Salinas’ economic program, Fernández quipped that ”As far as

we are concerned, your National Development Plan has produced 40

million poor people." (And again: “We know that you have been a

good boy, with high grades, but in democracy we think that you

don’t make the grade.”) It was a brilliant performance, and led

to a wave of popular support–dubbed “Diego-mania”–that shot him

into the lead in the opinion polls. For weeks thereafter, he and

Zedillo ran neck-and-neck.76

Yet, this was an unlikely candidate. As head of the PAN’s

congressional delegation, Fernández had voted with the PRI on a

wide range of legislation. He had publicly praised Salinas as the

best president in Mexican history, crediting him with having

reduced the public debt, brought inflation under control, and cut

the bureaucracy. Indeed, given that the PAN’s economic program

had largely been co-opted by the PRI, some wondered what

Fernández would do differently from Zedillo if he were elected.

He was, moreover, a quixotic personality, capricious, abrasive

and lacking in diplomatic skills. At a time when government

officials were careful not to personalize their differences with

Subcomandante Marcos, Fernández criticized him as

“psychologically troubled.” To him, most politicians were

“cowards” and “liars.” He was a militant Catholic in a country

with a long history of church-state hostility. In sharp contrast

to so many of the cosmopolitan technocrats around Salinas, he

neither spoke English nor had been to Europe or other Latin

American countries. Even his physical appearance set him apart:

prior to entering the race, he had sported a thick, chest-length

beard which, together with his piercing brown eyes, gave him the

look of an Old Testament prophet.77

Actually, he was more of a magician than anything, and in

July he performed his greatest feat of all: he disappeared. For

weeks, he had limited his public appearances until, in early

July, he virtually stopped campaigning. While his two rivals sped

from rally to rally, Fernández sequestered himself in his office

and hotel rooms, planning strategy with his advisers, giving

interviews, and preparing for the anticipated second debate with
29

his opponents. When the latter failed to materialize–Zedillo

being far too smart to subject himself to that again–Fernández

was deprived of the one trump card he had left. As the weeks

passed and he began slipping in the polls, an air of fatalism and

passivity engulfed his campaign. Disillusioned supporters began

to mutter that he had given up. By early August, the handwriting

was on the wall.78

Meanwhile, political stability and democratization remained

extremely fragile. In May, a top aide to the Mexican attorney

general resigned, charging that the country had become a “narcodemocracy.” In a letter to President Salinas, he told of blocked

investigations, raids not carried out, and traffickers set free.

These claims were lent added weight by U.S. officials, who

complained of a dramatic decline in Mexican antidrug efforts.79 As

if to accentuate the point, in June traffickers set off a car

bomb in Guadalajara, killing five people and wounding others.

About this same time, also, it was learned that the government

was importing millions of dollars of riot-control equipment from

the United States, obviously in anticipation of possible civil

unrest. By early August, journalists counted some two dozen

armored vehicles being unloaded at Veracruz, part of a shipment

of 200 to 300 tons of war material. And another shipment was on

the way.80

In June, too, it seemed that the credibility of the entire

electoral process might be shattered when Salinas’ interior

minister, Jorge Carpizo MacGregor, resigned. During his months in

office, Carpizo had become a symbol of the government’s

commitment to a fair election. He had brokered negotiations that

had produced some of the Salinas administration’s most important

political reforms. Mexican officials had repeatedly invoked his

name to convince foreign governments and investors that Mexico

was serious about democratization. Now, citing the opposition of

“many people in the most diverse sectors” of politics, Carpizo

described himself as “disillusioned” and “indignant.” His calls

for fair elections had been met with “more lies, more calumnies

and more hypocracy.”81 Suddenly, Salinas’ election strategy seemed

terribly vulnerable.

This crisis, at least, was short-lived. After two days of

closed-door talks with the president, Carpizo withdrew his

resignation, and the election campaign continued apace. The same
30

could not be said, however, about the negotiations on Chiapas. On

June 10, the Zapatistas finally responded to the government’s

peace proposal. For 3 months the rebels had been translating the

document and circulating it among the isolated villages in the

Lacandona rain forest. Now they announced that the terms had been

rejected by an unbelievable 97.88 percent of their supporters.

This ended any lingering hope that a settlement might be attained

in time for the August elections. It also finished Camacho Solís

as peace commissioner. In the wake of the rejection, public

bickering broke out between Camacho and Zedillo, with the latter

branding the negotiations a failure and blaming the commissioner

for having raised unrealistic expectations. In turn, Camacho

resigned in a huff, accusing the PRI candidate of undermining his

efforts by, in effect, casting a vote of censure.82 The peace

process was now put on hold, as attention was focused on the

approaching elections.

During these months, the rebels seemed increasingly out of

touch with both their chiapaneco constituents and the Mexican

public. A combination of government socioeconomic programs and

improved public relations and the Zapatistas’ own authoritarian

and insensitive behavior were eroding their popular support.83

They had now virtually abandoned their socioeconomic demands on

behalf of Chiapas’ impoverished Indians in favor of a sweeping

appeal for democracy and liberty on a national basis. Terming the

government’s electoral reforms “incomplete,” the insurgents

renewed their demands for Salinas’ resignation and the

destruction of the one-party system. Urging “civil society” to

play a leading role, they called for a National Democratic

Convention to form a transitional government that would produce a

new constitution and organize honest elections.84

The upshot was a kind of “Woodstock in the Jungle.” In early

August, thousands of supporters from all over Mexico flocked to

Chiapas to attend the Zapatista-organized National Democratic

Convention. Denouncing the PRI as the “common enemy of us all,”

the delegates vowed to engage in massive civil disobedience if

the August 21st vote proved fraudulent. A long list of

resolutions was approved on the peaceful transition to democracy

and related themes. Addressing the audience, Subcomandante Marcos

promised that the guerrillas would not resume the war

unilaterally, but he also said that they would not surrender

their arms and would be ready to use them if that was the will of
31

the Mexican people. “The resumption of war,” he declared, “will

not come from us.... For the EZLN there are no deadlines other

than what peaceful and civil movements determine. We subordinate

ourselves to them”85

The National Democratic Convention enabled the Zapatistas to

momentarily regain the initiative that they had lost over the

preceding months. It upstaged Zedillo and the PRI, injected the

rebels directly into the election campaign, and increased the

pressure on the government to guarantee the integrity of the

balloting. This was, however, a fleeting triumph. Marcos’

attempts to combine an image of reasonableness with scarcely

veiled threats to resume the fighting–and, indeed spread it to

other states–masked the fact that the EZLN was in a desperately

weak position militarily. It had lost the critical advantage of

surprise and was virtually surrounded by the much larger, better

equipped and trained Mexican army. (The only escape route was

over the Guatemalan border.) Nor did it seem likely that the

Zapatistas could be saved by their supporters in the cities or in

other rural areas. Armed groups where they existed (and most

reports were little more than rumor), appeared to be too

inconsequential to be much help.86 Under the circumstances, a

resumption of the offensive would have probably been suicidal.

It had been for precisely this reason that the Zapatistas

had early on shifted from a military to a political strategy.

Yet, it was by no means clear that they had the means of

attaining their most ambitious political objectives. Their

popular support had eroded. The only presidential candidate that

seemed acceptable to them was Cárdenas, and he was far behind in

the polls. August 21, it appeared, would be a moment of truth.

It was. On election day, the Mexican people voted for

Ernesto Zedillo and the PRI. Zedillo won slightly over 50 percent

of the vote–almost exactly what Salinas had officially received

in 1988–but in contrast to that previous contest no opposition

candidate was close enough to plausibly claim victory. (Fernández

wound up with about 27 percent of the vote and Cárdenas 17

percent.) While there were numerous irregularities, most Mexican

and foreign observers attested that the balloting was fairer than

in the past.87 Though Cárdenas claimed foul–for months he had been

insisting that a gigantic fraud was being planned–he offered no

proof, and relatively few of his followers joined him in the
32

post-election protest. In the end, the massive violence feared by

so many Mexicans never materialized.

Elsewhere, the PRI swept to victory in election after

election, winning solid majorities in both the Chamber of

Deputies and Senate. In Baja California, and Chihuahua, where a

competitive two-party system had seemed to be emerging, the PRI

won the presidential and senatorial races by large margins,

recapturing tens of thousands of voters who had been lost in

previous gubernatorial contests. Though PAN governors remained in

power in both states, that was probably only because there were

no elections to that office. In only one of Mexico’s 31 states

did a gubernatorial race coincide with the presidential contest.

There, in Chiapas, the PRI’s Edwardo Robledo Rincón defeated the

Zapatista-supported PRD candidate, Amado Avendaño Figueroa, in a

campaign marred by fraud and violence. Whether these

irregularities were enough to have altered the outcome was

debatable,88 but the EZLN refused to recognize Robledo’s victory

and threatened to take up arms if he were inaugurated.

In perspective the elections, though seriously flawed, were

probably about as good as could have been expected. They were

fair enough so that the country did not explode in massive

violence, which was not an unimportant accomplishment. They were

also a milestone–one of what were likely to be many–on the long

road to democracy. On the whole, they probably reflected the will

of the Mexican people fairly well. (Though clearly fraud had

determined some congressional races.) In this year of crisis and

insecurity, the public was simply not willing to risk further

instability by turning power over to the opposition. As the

saying goes. “Better the evil you know than the one you have yet

to meet.”

The Year of Living Dangerously (III):

The Transition.

In the months between the August elections and Zedillo’s

inauguration in early December, two developments occurred which

seem destined to cast shadows over Mexico’s future. The first was

the assassination in late September of PRI Secretary General José

Francisco Ruiz Massieu. This was the second major political

assassination in a half year, and it rudely shattered the sense

of relief that Mexicans felt at having avoided a violent
33

election. Clearly, the crisis was not over; the situation

remained volatile. Investigators quickly established that the

killer was a hired assassin and linked him to a larger conspiracy

purportedly involving dissident elements in the PRI and narcotics

traffickers. Salinas’ economic and political reforms, it was

said, had infuriated powerful individuals who had amassed huge

fortunes by using the party’s network of labor and peasant

organizations and big-business connections to extort payoffs,

secure government contracts, and open Mexican territory to drug

cartels. The threat of reform within the PRI, the possibility

that it might be cut loose from the government apparatus, and

that more serious anti-corruption drives might be launched had

been “tantamount to a declaration of war.” Tens of billions of

dollars were at stake annually.89

Ruiz Massieu was to have been the leader of the PRI caucus

in the Chamber of Deputies. As such, he had been expected to play

a crucial role in brokering the reforms planned by Zedillo. At

the time of his assassination, he was already lining up party

delegates behind the president-elect’s program. Thus, his death

appeared to be a message: Zedillo was being warned of what he

could expect should he push ahead with his plans.

But Ruiz Massieu was also the brother of Deputy Attorney 

General Mario Ruiz Massieu, who in recent weeks had presided over

several high-profile drug raids, including the arrest of members

of the Tijuana-based cartel that was accused of having killed

Cardinal Posadas and the powerful Gulf of Mexico cartel that

controlled the cocaine flow along that coast. Mario Ruiz had

publicly vowed to jail the country’s largest drug lords by the

time Salinas left office. Accordingly, government investigators

speculated that the killing was also intended to “send Mario a

message to back off.” In a radio interview in early October, Ruiz

declared that the “most solid hypothesis” was that the

traffickers had “used a group of resentful or archaic politicians

who don’t want change or modernization of political life.” They

had financed the operation and planned the assassination of other

reformers. Among those implicated were a former PRI leader in

Tamaulipas and a current federal legislator from that same state.

Ruiz indicated, however, that this was just the tip of the

iceberg; he had reason to believe that other, higher figures were

also involved.90
34

Ruiz never completed his investigation. In late November, he

resigned, accusing his boss, Attorney General Humberto Benítez

Treviño, PRI President Ignacio Pichardo Pegaza, and the party’s

newly installed secretary general, María de los Angeles Moreno,

of obstructing the investigation. At the same time, he issued a

report identifying 29 people as being involved in the

assassination, almost all of whom had ties to Tamaulipas, where

the Gulf cartel was based. Ruiz announced that he would send all

the evidence he had gathered to an independent notary public to

be safeguarded until Zedillo took office.91

Whether anything would come of the investigation remained to

be seen. Ruiz himself was pessimistic. While he claimed that the

documents he was turning over would enable the new authorities to

pursue the case to its conclusion, he noted that the

investigation was now entering a second phase involving

“political decisions beyond my responsibility.” He had confronted

the PRI, but “the political class” within it “was stronger than

the president’s determination and overruled the president’s call

for justice and truth.” Though he had identified those who had

obstructed his efforts, they “will surely obtain a government

position on December 1.”92

There were, of course, denials. Señora de los Angeles Moreno

accused Ruiz of conducting a “moral lynching”; she and Pichardo

filed slander charges.93 But whatever the truth–and we will return

to this subject presently–there were larger issues at stake. One

could not escape the impression that the struggle for the soul of

Mexico was intensifying and had entered a new and potentially

more violent stage.

During these weeks, too, Colosio’s assassin was sentenced.

While the presiding judge found the defendant solely responsible

for the killing, millions of Mexicans continued to believe that

the candidate had been the victim of a conspiracy and that rival

politicians, drug lords or perhaps even the government itself

had been behind the deed. Nor was this belief lessened by the

fact that, the verdict notwithstanding, three members of

Colosio’s security detail who had been arrested on suspicion of

being part of the hypothesized assassination plot were not

released.94

The second major development during the transition took
35

place on November 8 when the voters of California overwhelmingly

approved Proposition 187, which would deny education, welfare and

non-emergency health care to illegal immigrants. The vote

produced an immediate backlash in Mexico, where President Salinas

denounced it, warning that the “voices of intolerance have

returned.” President-elect Zedillo cautioned that the measure

could have dangerous political consequences if it led to the

violation of the human rights of Mexicans living in the United

States. Others were more blunt. In Mexico City’s fashionable Zona

Rosa, several dozen masked men ransacked a McDonald’s restaurant

in protest. Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the U.S.

embassy shouting anti-American slogans, while others burned the

U.S. flag in the Zócalo.95

This was a foreshadowing of what might be expected should

the anti-immigrant/anti-Mexican fever spread to other states and

to the U.S. Congress. It suggested that the U.S.-Mexican

honeymoon that had accompanied NAFTA might presently give way to

a more conflict-ridden relationship. Certainly, relations between

the two countries would be closer than ever before. But contrary

to the predictions of some NAFTA enthusiasts, closeness would not

necessarily mean harmony.96

A couple of other noteworthy events occurred in November.

Early in the month, the PRI held what it billed as its first

democratically conducted convention, allowing 1,067 delegates to

pick a standard-bearer for the hotly contested governorship of

Jalisco. One of Zedillo’s campaign promises had been to encourage

the democratic selection of the party’s candidates and leaders,

and this provided an initial opportunity to test the seriousness

of that intent. There had been previous efforts along these

lines, including two under Salinas, but they had always been

marred by charges of arm-twisting and vote-rigging.

Unfortunately, this occasion was not much different. Despite

strict delegate-selection rules designed to minimize fraud, there

were complaints that state party leaders had erased the names of

some members from the delegate-selection lists and pressured

delegates to vote for certain candidates. Two weeks later,

moreover, elections were held in Tabasco. The PRI gubernatorial

candidate won, but the loser cried foul. As usual, the official

party had grossly outspent the opposition and received the lion’s

share of media attention; irregularities had occurred in 7 of the

state’s 17 cities.97
36

More significant was something that did not happen. Despite

the Zapatistas’ threats to resume the war in Chiapas if the PRI

governor-elect were inaugurated, Eduardo Robledo was sworn in on

December 8th without a resurgence of the fighting. Instead,

there was a bit of guerrilla theater. A few hours after Robledo’s

inauguration, a parallel ceremony was held for his opponent,

Amado Avendaño, who promised to form an itinerant government

modelled after Benito Juarez’s government-in-hiding during the

French intervention in Mexico. Wisely, federal and state

authorities refrained from interfering. They seemed likely to

continue tolerating his presence, at least for the near future.

Indeed, both Robeldo and Zedillo adopted conciliatory stances,

with the former offering to resign if the Zapatistas turned in

their weapons. (The new governor also appointed a member of the

PDR secretary of government and an Indian head of the office of

indigenous affairs.) For his part Zedillo, though unwilling to

overturn the election results, pledged to continue honoring the

ceasefire. “The only road to a just and worthy peace,” he

proclaimed, was “the road of negotiation.”98

As of early December, then, the situation in Chiapas

remained fragile, but not hopeless. Tensions were high and there

was some violence–mostly between local landowners and peasants

who had occupied their properties–but the president continued to

extend the olive branch of negotiations, and there was some hope

that the Zapatista leaders, given their obvious reluctance to

resume the war, might eventually grasp it. Meanwhile, the new

government was putting together plans for social and agrarian

reforms designed to help defuse the conflict by co-opting the

guerrillas’ supporters.

The Year of Living Dangerously (Conclusion):

The Zedillo Presidency–a Beginning Both Promising and

Disastrous.

The question, of course, was where would Mexico go from

here. During the campaign, Zedillo had pledged to deepen

democratization by distancing the government from the PRI and

curbing the powers of presidencialismo. The state’s massive

assistance to the party, he said, would be ended; the latter’s

candidate-selection process would be opened up by the

introduction of primary elections; the dedazo would be abandoned;
37

more power would be given to Congress and to state and local

authorities. In his inaugural address, moreover, he went even

further, criticizing the Salinas administration for tolerating

graft, lax law enforcement, and the neglect of the nation’s poor.

He promised “definitive” steps to democracy, including more

efforts on behalf of electoral reform; a new fight against

poverty; and wholesale reform of the corruption-ridden judicial

system. Acknowledging the widespread dissatisfaction with the

government’s investigations of the Colosio and Ruiz Massieu

assassinations, the new president pledged to increase efforts to

solve those cases. Signalling his willingness to cooperate with

the opposition, he brought a member of the PAN into his cabinet

as attorney general, the first time ever that such a move had

been made.99

Zedillo was saying all the right things, and he seemed

poised to move fast. Four days after taking office, he launched

his first major legislative initiative, a constitutional reform

designed to overhaul the Supreme Court, strengthen the

independence of the judiciary to achieve a better balance between

the branches of government, and improve law enforcement by

requiring more coordination between federal and state authorities

and between officials from different states. The Supreme Court

reform, especially, had potentially profound implications, giving

that institution for the first time the power of judicial

review.100

In spite of these hopeful signs doubts remained. Veteran

observers had a sense of dejá vu. Promises had been made before,

only to evaporate in the enervating ambience of Mexican politics.

Salinas too had pledged to promote democratization–and then had

largely forgotten it until the Zapatista revolt, the Colosio

assassination and other pressures of this crisis-ridden election

year forced him to address the issue more seriously.

During the second half of December, moreover, the bottom

dropped out of the peso. For months, Mexico had been leaking hard

currency. Between the end of 1993 and early November 1994,

reserves had fallen from $28 billion to $17 billion.101 When

towards the end of the year the Zapatistas resurrected the

specter of war, stock investors, unsure of Zedillo’s ability to

handle the threat, began exchanging their pesos for dollars. By

mid-December, reserves had fallen as low as $7 billion. On
38

December 19, Subcomandante Marcos announced that the rebels had

broken out of the Mexican army’s cordon and occupied 38

municipalities. The claim soon proved false. (There were some

well-publicized demonstrations outside the Zapatista-controlled

Lacandona, but these turned out to be more guerrilla theater.)

Nevertheless, the economic impact was immediate: investors

panicked. They began dumping their Mexican stocks and bonds en

masse, prompting the government to spend billions more to

maintain the currency’s value. By the following day, it was clear

that the cause was lost. The administration was forced to devalue

and, when that failed to stem the flow, float the peso. But not

even an $18 billion international credit line (half of which came

from the United States) and an Economic Emergency Plan to cut

government spending and generate new revenue could halt the

decline. By mid-January, the value of Mexican currency had

dropped 40 percent, and the stock market had fallen 21 percent.

The collapse exposed the continuing fragility and volatility

of the Mexican economy, with its overpriced peso and dependence

on foreign investment, and raised serious questions about the

future. Investor confidence lay shattered; the country was caught

in another round of inflation and declining real wages; a

recession seemed all but inevitable. The credibility of Mexico’s

leaders and their economic strategy had been badly damaged, and

no one could say how long it would take to mend–if, indeed, it

could be mended at all. When at year’s end Popocatépetl, the

long-dormant volcano southeast of Mexico City, began to spew 

huge clouds of steam and ash, forcing the evacuation of over

70,000 people, it seemed somehow symbolic–a fitting end to a bad

year.

Unfortunately, the crisis did not abate. Instead, it dragged

on throughout the winter, assuming new forms and presenting new

challenges. International efforts to stabilize the Mexican

economy proved slower and less effective than anticipated. As the

peso and stock market continued to fall, along with investor

confidence, the specter of a full-scale panic grew. Some $28

billion in short-term Mexican treasury bills were scheduled to

fall due in the months ahead, and it was clear that most would be

redeemed. If Mexico was forced to default on its obligations, it

would almost certainly plunge into a depression, with ominous

implications for political and social stability. In turn, a

Mexican default could trigger massive capital flight from other
39

Latin American and developing countries and come back to hit the

United States, which depended on those areas for about 40 percent

of its exports.

With this in mind, the Clinton administration and the

international bankers stepped in. When his efforts to win

approval for a $40 billion loan guarantee package ran into heavy

congressional opposition, President Clinton acted on his own

authority to offer Mexico $20 billion in U.S. Government shortterm loans and loan guarantees from the federal Exchange

Stabilization Fund. Along with some $30 billion in commitments

from the International Monetary Fund, the Bank for International

Settlements and other sources, this brought the total global

commitment to Mexico to around $50 billion.

But even this did not halt the slide. Political turmoil

continued, and by early March the peso had fallen to around eight

to the dollar, less than half what it had been worth on December

20th. After weeks of indecision, the Mexican Government on March

8th announced a tough new economic stabilization plan, which

promised even more pain for millions of hard-pressed Mexicans.

This proved too much for business and labor, which declined to

publicly support the program. Already there had been 250,000 layoffs in 1995, and official forecasts suggested there would be at

least half-a-million more in March-April. The government now

raised its estimate of the likely inflation for the year to 42

percent and predicted a 2 percent decline in the GDP. Thousands

more businesses were expected to go bankrupt. Interest rates of

90 percent or higher on mortgages, credit cards and car loans

were rapidly driving many families into insolvency. In addition,

the country seemed headed for a full-scale banking crisis, as

skyrocketing interest rates drove away new customers even as bad

debts from existing customers threatened to bring down the entire

system.102

The upshot was a tidal wave of public anger directed at

those held to be responsible for the disaster–especially Carlos

Salinas. While for the moment Mexicans seemed to accept Zedillo’s

protestations of innocence (he had, after all, inherited the

problem from his predecessor), it seemed only a matter of time

before he too became the target of public frustrations. Already,

he was having to deny charges that the U.S. loan guarantees

contained political conditions. More dangerous yet, for both
40

Zedillo and the United States, was a requirement that Mexican oil

revenues be channelled through the Federal Reserve Bank of New

York in order to guarantee repayment in the event of loan

defaults.103 Petroleum had long been one of the most sacred

symbols of Mexican independence. Now, it appeared, the national

patrimony was being sold to the highest bidder. The danger of a

nationalistic backlash was palpable and seemed likely to haunt

both countries for the foreseeable future.

Yet, even amid all this turmoil there were occasional rays

of light. In mid-January, the government and the PRI reached an

accord with the three most important opposition parties to

conclude “definitive” reforms of federal and state election laws

and guarantee the integrity of the coming (1995) elections. They

also agreed privately to various other measures, most of which

had been conceded in previous reforms but never or only partially

delivered (e.g., campaign spending limits, equal access to the

media, and the ending of government support for the PRI). Two new

items, however, were especially noteworthy: it was agreed that

(1) an election would be held for mayor or governor of Mexico

City, a key political post that was currently filled by

presidential appointment, and (2) new elections would be held in

Chiapas and Tabasco.104

The agreement held out hope that the crisis might be brought

under control. If the opposition could be drawn into the

democratization process as constructive participants and their

support obtained for the Economic Emergency Plan and the

resolution of the turmoil in Chiapas and Tabasco, then the

political and economic situations might stabilize. But the moment

proved fleeting. In Tabasco, where PRD demonstrators were laying

siege to the oil industry and the new state government, PRI

stalwarts, infuriated by reports of Zedillo’s concessions, took

to the streets. Highways were blocked and hundreds of businesses

shut down. PRD protestors were routed. Only after the government

began to back away from its pledge of new elections did the

situation begin to return to normal. But how long that would last

remained to be seen. The PRD was not inclined to accept any

backtracking, and it had shown itself capable of major

disruption. Increasingly, Zedillo seemed trapped between

irreconcilable forces, with his presidency and the country’s

future in the balance.
41

By early February, Zedillo was under growing pressure to

resolve the crisis in Chiapas one way or another. He had become

convinced that it was a “cancer” on his presidency, and this view

was reinforced by hardliners both within and without the

administration who urged him to use military force to end the

rebellion. At the same time, he was increasingly frustrated by

the Zapatistas’ intransigence. The peace talks had gone nowhere.

(There had been only one meeting.) The rebels had adopted a

strategy of “neither war nor peace” in an effort to drag out the

crisis and enhance their bargaining leverage. Meanwhile, the

economy continued to spiral downward. Elections in the key state

of Jalisco were fast approaching, and polls showed the PAN far in

the lead. To make matters worse, the president was rapidly

acquiring a serious image problem. His ineffectual handling of

the economic crisis smacked of weakness and vacillation. He badly

needed to assert his authority and prove that he was a strong

leader, as Salinas had done in ordering the arrest of the

powerful labor boss Joaquín Hernández Galicia (“La Quina”) a few

weeks after taking office.

And so on February 10th, the president went on the

offensive. In a nationwide address, he complained that the

Zapatistas had repeatedly rebuffed his overtures. Rather than

negotiate seriously, he said, they were preparing to renew and

spread the violence. He claimed that the government had uncovered

the identity of Subcomandante Marcos–allegedly Rafael Sebastián

Guillén Vicente, a Jesuit-trained former college professor from

Tampico–and several other EZLN leaders, and that he had ordered

the military to assist the Attorney General’s office in arresting

them.105 The army immediately moved against the guerrillas,

capturing two of their top leaders (but not Marcos). At the same

time, the Guatemalan military headed towards the Mexican border

to cut off any rebel retreat southward. But the Zapatistas

remained defiant, and they were quickly supported by hundreds of

thousands of people who took to the streets to protest the

offensive. PRD President Porfirio Muñoz Ledo denounced the

government for unilaterally breaking the truce. The previous

month’s accord on democratization, he proclaimed, had been

shattered; demonstrations would continue until the crises in

Chiapas and Tabasco were resolved “in a dignified fashion.”106

If Zedillo had hoped that military action would strengthen

his (and the PRI’s) political position, he was soon disabused of
42

the notion. On February 13th, the PRI suffered its worst

electoral defeat ever, as the PAN won landslide victories in

gubernatorial and mayoral elections in Jalisco and Guadalajara,

respectively. This was the first in a series of important state

elections scheduled for the spring and summer of 1995. To many,

it seemed a foreshadowing of things to come. The only consolation

that the president and his advisors could take was that they

would not have to go through the agony of more disruptive

protests that another close, disputed PRI victory would have

meant.

By now, the offensive in Chiapas was under growing

counterattack from critics, who were convinced that it would lead

to an embarrassing and bloody denouement. As charges of human

rights abuses proliferated, they spread to the United States,

where human rights activists and congressional critics urged the

Clinton administration to intervene with Zedillo to stop the

offensive.107 Moreover, despite the obtainment of some $50 billion

in loan guarantees, the Mexican economy showed few signs of

recovery. With investors still wary and the Mexican stock market

depressed, pressure rapidly mounted on Zedillo to resolve the

Chiapas crisis via negotiations rather than risk the continuing

economic turmoil that more violence might offer.

Thus, on February 14th–the day after the elections in

Jalisco–Zedillo reversed course once more. The military was

ordered to halt all offensive action against the rebels; a new

appeal for dialogue was issued. At the same time, Eduardo

Robeldo, the new governor of Chiapas, stepped down, meeting the

Zapatistas’ most pressing demand. While this concession could not

in itself resolve the crisis, it at least held out the

possibility of a negotiated solution. Unfortunately, it also

reinforced the impression of presidential weakness and

vacillation: “Washington and Wall Street have a clear sense that

there is no leadership in Mexico,” lamented a noted Mexican

economist. “I am totally confused by all of these events,”

remarked a legislator. “Zedillo seems very erratic in his

decisions not just in Chiapas but in everything he’s doing.”108 To

all too many observers, both Mexican and foreign, the president

appeared to be twisting in the wind, swaying this way and that

with every new gust that came his way.

Even so, Zedillo sometimes showed signs of real courage and
43

steadfastness. During these weeks, he spoke candidly to the

Mexican people about the depth of the economic crisis and the

need for sacrifice. He also promised to follow through on his

pledge to weed out corruption and pursue the Colosio, Ruiz

Massieu, and Posadas assassination cases wherever the evidence

might lead. “No one,” he insisted, was “above the law.”109 Indeed,

in late February Attorney General Antonio Lozano announced that

two more suspects had been arrested and charged with involvement

in the Colosio case. New videotape evidence, it was said,

“clearly revealed collusion between several people in the

killing.” There had been a second gunman; evidence had been

tampered with and mishandled. Salinas administration officials

had either bungled the previous investigations or engaged in a

deliberate cover up. In the process, important witnesses had been

ignored and key suspects allowed to go free. About the same time,

moreover, the original prosecutor, Miguel Montes, accused Salinas

himself of having obstructed the investigation by rejecting

Montes’ efforts to broaden the probe by pursuing the possibility

of a conspiracy.110

A few days later, the current prosecutor Pablo Chapa,

disclosed that Salinas’ older brother, Raúl, had been arrested in

connection with the Ruiz Massieu assassination. According to

Chapa, Raúl had been the “intellectual co-author” of the killing

and had facilitated the escape of the renegade legislator, Manuel

Muñoz, who was thought to have done the actual planning.

Subsequently, the prosecutor went even further, suggesting darkly

that both Salinas brothers might have had financial or political

reasons for eliminating Ruiz.111 Still others suggested that the

killing may have been due to personal animosity between Raúl

Salinas and Ruiz Massieu.

 So ended the political career of Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

Only a few weeks earlier, he had been widely popular; indeed,

many had considered him one of Mexico’s greatest presidents. Now

his reputation lay shattered, ravaged first by public disclosure

of his responsibility for the economic crisis, then by these more

ominous hints and revelations. While he tried to go public in his

own defense–denying that had obstructed the Colosio

investigation, attacking Zedillo for mismanaging the economic

crisis, and even engaging in a bizarre, short-lived hunger

strike–it was no use. By now, most Mexicans were thoroughly

disillusioned with him. His former protégé had abandoned him. In
44

truth, Salinas provided the new president with a convenient foil

to deflect popular outrage and establish his own credentials for

leadership and integrity. During these weeks, Zedillo and his

aides wasted few opportunities to remind the public that the

economic crisis was Salinas’ doing. He, Zedillo, had tried to

warn Salinas of the need to devalue, but the latter had been too

busy running for the presidency of the World Trade Organization

to pay heed.112 In the short run, at least, the tactic worked. The

president’s standing in the polls soared.

These episodes also had larger significance: they violated

the unwritten rules of the Mexican political game, whereby expresidents did not criticize sitting presidents and in return

received, along with their relatives, impunity for their own

previous sins. Beyond this, one could not but wonder where all

this was going. Zedillo had now publicly committed himself to

real investigations. If he backed off, he would lose what

credibility he had gained and his presidential image, already

weak, would be damaged even further. On the other hand, if he

followed through it meant threatening some of the most corrupt

and violent elements in the system, and that would be dangerous.

One could not escape the impression that Zedillo was now placing

his own life in jeopardy.

As if all this were not enough, in early March Mario Ruiz

Massieu was arrested at Newark airport, trying to flee Mexico one

step ahead of the law. Mexican authorities quickly charged the

former prosecutor with having intimidated witnesses and falsified

evidence in his investigation of his brother’s assassination.

Apparently, he had been trying to protect Raúl Salinas.

Subsequently, it was disclosed that some $10 million had been

found in various U.S. bank accounts under Ruiz’s name. Where all

this money had come from was unclear, but the most obvious

hypotheses (aside from kickbacks from federal police commanders

and the numerous other opportunities for graft associated with

his former office) were drug traffickers and/or elements who

wanted to keep Raúl Salinas’ name out of the investigation.113

A few days later, Carlos Salinas left Mexico for the United

States and virtual exile. While both he and Zedillo denied that

the latter had asked the ex-president to leave, various Mexican

officials confirmed that this had indeed been the case. How this

would affect the investigation into the Ruiz Massieu
45

assassination remained to be seen. When he was in office, Mario

Ruiz had repeatedly briefed Salinas, and it seemed unlikely that

the latter had been unaware of his brother’s involvement. While

there had allegedly been no deal made in exchange for Salinas’

departure, several officials noted that, given the extreme

sensitivity of the matter, they would proceed against the former

president only if they were certain of his complicity.114

The fall of the families Salinas and Ruiz Massieu

underscored yet another dilemma facing Mexico and the United

States: how in today’s Mexico could one tell the good guys from

the bad? For years, U.S. policy had been predicated on the

assumption that Carlos Salinas and the técnicos represented the

forces of virtue. Now, it appeared, the “modernizers” were just

as prone to dishonesty as the “dinosaurs.” By the same token,

these developments called into question the integrity and

reliability of any government investigation into the corruption

and violence that were plaguing the country. For the moment, it

was in President Zedillo’s political interest to reopen the

Colosio, Ruiz Massieu and Posadas Ocampo investigations. But

whether truth and justice would ultimately triumph was still very

much in doubt.

It remained unclear how far Zedillo would be willing to go

beyond those relatively limited cases to, in the words of one

scholar, “take on the kingpins of the political mafia. . .and

their associates in the booming drug cartels.” In perspective,

the arrest of Raúl Salinas was of more symbolic significance than

anything. The most important political rule–the taboo against

indicting current and former cabinet members and presidents–

remains intact. Yet, only by going after people like the

notoriously corrupt former minister of agriculture Carlos Hank

González and, yes, Carlos Salinas himself, if the evidence so

dictates, “can impunity be ended and the rule of law made a

reality.”115

CONCLUSION

And so once again we are faced with the question: Whither

Mexico? Obviously, much has changed since the heady days of the

NAFTA debate, when treaty supporters often waxed euphoric over

the prospect of a modern Mexico, vaulting into the 21st century.

The preceding pages tell a tale of dashed hopes and betrayed
46

ideals, of corruption, violence, incompetence and instability. On

the surface, at least, Mexico does not look like a very reliable

partner for the United States as the two countries move hand-inhand toward the next millenium. One cannot but recall the old

dictum of realpolitik that you should never ally with weakness

lest you debilitate your alliance rather than strengthen it. This

has even been tacitly conceded by some U.S. officials who now

admit that Mexico’s economic troubles have played a significant

role in the precipitous decline of the dollar. In the words of

one senior official, it is a “horribly difficult situation, and

there are a lot of reasons to wonder if this [the Mexican

economic recovery program] is going to work.” “At this point,”

however, “we are in so deep that there is no turning back.”116

One recalls similar refrains as the United States trudged

step by step ever deeper into Vietnam. We are already committed.

If we just increase our investment one more time, we will turn

things around. If we quit now, everything that has been done will

have been wasted. The danger, of course, is that if we–and, much

more importantly, the Mexicans–cannot halt the slide we may end

up throwing good money after bad and lose everything.117

“The fundamental problem,” as Jeff Faux has observed, “is

that the Mexican political economy is dominated by an oligarchy

that uses the country’s credit to borrow from foreigners and

enrich itself, and then periodically demands austerity from the

rest of the country on the grounds that it has to pay off the

foreign debt.” The risk is that the “bailout will perpetuate that

system, virtually assuring that we will have another crisis in

the future.”118 Added to this, moreover, are cultural norms that

impede economic and political transformation. Corruption and

inefficiency are deeply engrained in the sociopolitical

structure, as is a tendency to place immediate

gratification/consumption over savings/ investment. The latter

problem became graphically clear this Easter when–economic crisis

notwithstanding –Mexican airlines offered consumers special flynow, pay-later deals strikingly similar to what the banks had

offered prospective credit card holders (approval virtually

guaranteed) last year. Thus, even as hundreds of thousands of

workers were being laid off, many were spending their severance

paychecks on vacations.119

This raises the question of whether anything fundamental has
47

changed. Specifically, what are the prospects for the future? And

what should the United States be doing to protect itself from the

fallout of this and possible future crises? Can we help Mexico

make the transition to more stable political and socioeconomic

arrangements? Or are we in a no-win situation, with only a very

limited ability to promote such change and perhaps an even

greater potential for doing precisely the opposite? Put simply,

could U.S. policy inadvertently foster the further

destabilization of Mexico? If so, with what consequences? And

what are the implications for the U.S. Army? These are among the

issues that will be addressed in the second part of this report.

ENDNOTES

1. Proceso, No. 723, September 10, 1990, p. 53.

2. The literature of Mexico’s “alternative political

futures” is extensive, but see especially Wayne A. Cornelius,

Judith Gentleman and Peter H. Smith, eds., Mexico’s Alternative

Political Futures, San Diego, CA: Center for U.S.-Mexican

Studies, University of California, San Diego, 1989; Riordan

Roett, ed., Political and Economic Liberalization in Mexico: At a

Critical Juncture? Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1993;

Peter H. Smith, “The Political Impact of Free Trade on Mexico,”

Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Vol. 34, No.

1, Spring 1992, pp. 1-25; Dan A. Cothran, Political Stability and

Democracy in Mexico: The “Perfect Dictatorship”? Westport, CT:

Praeger, 1994; and Donald E. Schulz and Edward J. Williams, eds.,

Mexico Faces the 21st Century, Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing

Group, 1995.

3. See especially Juan Molinar Horcasitas, El Tiempo de la

Legitimidad: Elecciones, Autoritarismo y Democracia en México,

Mexico City: Cal y Arena, 1991. It is often assumed that the PRI

is the ruling elite. This is not quite right. The PRI is not the

equivalent of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which

dominated the Soviet government. Rather, it is more of an

appendage of the elite, which is primarily associated with the

government.

4. Elena Poniatowska, La Noche de Tlatelolco, Mexico City:

Ediciones ERA, 1971. On the long-range political significance of
48

these events, see Roderic A. Camp, “Political Modernization in

Mexico: Through a Looking Glass,” in Jaime E. Rodríguez O., ed.,

The Evolution of the Mexican Political System, Wilmington, DE: SR

Books, 1993, pp. 245-262.

5. Miguel Basáñez, El Pulso de los Sexenios: 20 Años de

Crisis en México, Mexico City: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1991.

6. John J. Bailey, Governing Mexico: The Statecraft of

Crisis Management, New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1988, p. 3.

7. Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas, Geografía e

Informática, Estadísticas Históricas de México, Mexico City:

INEGI, 1986, p. 311.

8. International Bank for Reconstruction and Development,

World Tables, 1994, Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University

Press, 1992, pp. 4-5; World of Information, The Americas Review,

1991/92, Edison, NJ: Hunter Publishing, Inc., 1991, p. 75.

9. The J-curve is the sudden gap between expectations and

reality produced by a cyclical economic downturn. The larger the

gap, the greater the loss of confidence in the regime and the

more likely the resort to revolutionary violence. See James C.

Davies, “Toward a Theory of Revolution,” American Sociological

Review, Vol. 27, No. 1, February 1962, pp. 5-19. On “relative

deprivation,” see Ted Robert Gurr, Why Men Rebel, Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 1970.

10. For a more detailed treatment of this phenomenon, see

Joe Foweraker and Ann L. Craig, Popular Movements and Political

Change in Mexico, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1990.

11. See, e.g., Stephanie R. Golob, “‘Making Possible What Is

Necessary’; Pedro Aspe, the Salinas Team, and the Next Mexican

‘Miracle,’” paper presented at the 18th International Congress of

the Latin American Studies Association, March 10-12, 1994.

12. Camp, “Political Modernization,” p. 249.

 13. One of the most blatant cases was that of Joaquín

Hernández Galicia, better known as La Quina, who had headed the

oil worker’s union for decades. Hernández was openly sympathetic
49

to Cárdenas and was widely believed to have helped finance his

campaign. Whatever the actual case, Cárdenas received more votes

than Salinas in most oil-producing areas. Philip L. Russell,

Mexico Under Salinas, Austin, TX: Mexico Resource Center, 1994,

p. 10.

14. Only in 1994 was this fraud “officially” acknowledged in

a statement by Arturo Nuñez, the head of the Federal Electoral

Institute, that unidentified officials had deliberately “crashed

the system.” Tod Robberson, “Salinas’ Election Still at Issue as

New Vote Nears,” The Washington Post, July 27, 1994.

15. Andrew Reding, “Mexico: The Crumbling of the ‘Perfect

Dictatorship,’” World Policy Journal, Vol. 8, No. 2, Spring 1991,

p. 258; Peter H. Smith, “The 1988 Presidential Succession in

Historical Perspective,” in Cornelius, Gentleman, and Smith,

eds., Mexico’s Altenative Political Futures, pp. 407-409.

16. Carlos Salinas de Gortari, México, Por un Futuro Mejor:

Discursos de Precampaña, 4 de Octubre - 6 de Noviembre 1987,

Mexico City: Partido Revolucionario Institucional, 1987, p. 144.

17. Ironically, the PRI’s support came largely from among

those sectors of the populace which had received the least

satisfaction of their material needs, while its weakest support

came from those who had benefitted the most from the government’s

development strategy. Tonatiuh Guillén López, “The Social Bases

of the PRI,” in Cornelius, Gentleman and Smith, eds., Mexico’s

Alternative Political Futures, p. 251.

18. Ibid., pp. 255ff.

19. Interview with Tim Padgett, Newsweek, December 3, 1990.

20. Reding, “Mexico: The Crumbling of the ‘Perfect

Dictatorship,’” pp. 259-261; Stephen D. Morris, “Political

Reformism in Mexico: Salinas at the Brink,” Journal of

Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Vol. 34, No. 1, Spring

1992, pp. 36, 43-44.

21. The most important restriction on the president’s power

is that he cannot succeed himself. He can, however, determine his

successor through his ability to designate the PRI’s presidential
50

candidate. For a detailed discussion, see Luis Javier Garrido,

“The Crisis of Presidencialismo,” in Cornelius, Gentleman and

Smith, eds., Mexico’s Alternative Political Futures, pp. 417-434.

22. For a treatment of this growing centralization and its

impact on local elections, including the use of various

techniques of fraud and co-optation, see Jorge Alonso and Silvia

Gómez Tagle, Insurgencia Democrática: las Elecciones Locales,

Mexico City: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1991.

 23. The arrest of Joaquín Hernández Galicia, La Quina, was

the most dramatic case, but whether this was done to fight

corruption or in retaliation for his lack of support during the

election campaign is anybody’s guess. La Quina’s successor also

had a reputation for graft. See Russell, Mexico Under Salinas, p.

11.

24. Reding, “Mexico,” pp. 268-269, 273-274; Morris,

“Political Reformism,” pp. 31-32, 41. On relations between the

government and labor, see María Lorena Cook, “State-Labor

Relations in Mexico: Old Tendencies and New Trends,” in Donald E.

Schulz and Edward J. Williams, eds., Mexico Faces the 21st

Century, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, forthcoming 1995.

25. Al Pérez, “Free Trade with Mexico and U.S. National

Security,” in Ibid.

26. “Mexican Paper Says Member of Colosio’s Security Detail

Held,” The Miami Herald, March 29, 1994; America’s Watch, Mexico,

Vol. 5, No. 10, October 1993; Reding, “Mexico,” pp. 66-68;

Morris, “Political Reformism,” p. 38.

27. Henry Kissinger, “Mexico’s Moment of Truth,” The New

York Times, April 5, 1994.

28. On PRONASOL, see especially the work of Denise Dresser,

Neopopulist Solutions to Neoliberal Problems, San Diego, CA:

University of California, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, 1991;

and “Bringing the Poor Back In: National Solidarity as a Strategy

of Regime Legitimation,” in Wayne A. Cornelius, Ann L. Craig, and

Jonathan Fox, eds, Transforming State-Society Relations in

Mexico: The National Solidarity Strategy, San Diego, CA:

University of California, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, 1994,
51

pp. 143-166. The other essays in the latter are also excellent,

as in Paul Lawrence Haber’s “The Art and Implications of

Political Restructuring in Mexico: The Case of Urban Popular

Movements,” paper presented at the 17th International Congress of

the Latin American Studies Association, September 24-27, 1992.

29. Forecast International/DMS, “Mexico (Data),” DMS Market

Intelligence Reports: Latin America and Australasia, June 1994,

p. 4; International Bank for Reconstruction and Development,

World Tables 1994, Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University

Press, 1993, p. 9; Political Risk Services, “Mexico Update,”

December 1, 1992.

30. Tod Robberson, “For Mexico, A Revolution on the Line,”

The Washington Post, November 11, 1993.

31. A detailed analysis of the “decline of neocardenismo” is

not possible here. Those desiring such an account may wish to

consult Philip Russell, “The Decline of Neocardenismo,” paper

presented at the 17th International Congress of the Latin

American Studies Association, September 24-27, 1992.

32. Morris, “Political Reformism,” p. 40. For a detailed

analysis of the PRI’s electoral recovery, see Silvia Gómez Tagle,

“Mexico 1988-1991: Violence, Negotiation and Elections” and

“Mexico 1991: Democratic Perspectives and Middle-Term Elections,”

papers presented at the 17th International Congress of the Latin

American Studies Association, September 24-27, 1992.

33. Forecast International/DMS, “Mexico (Data),” p. 4;

Christopher Whalen, “False Images of Mexico,” The Washington

Post, April 19, 1994; Andrés Oppenheimer, “Crises Battering

Mexico’s Economy,” The Miami Herald, April 18, 1994.

34. Ejidos are groups of 20 or more peasants who had

received and worked lands redistributed during the agrarian

reform. Until 1992, their right to sell, lease or rent these

properties had been severely restricted.

35. Billie R. DeWalt, Martha N. Rees, and Arthur D. Murphy,

The End of Agrarian Reform in Mexico: Past Lessons, Future

Prospects, San Diego, CA: University of California, Center for

U.S.-Mexican Studies, 1994, pp. 1-2.
52

36. Official government statistics, as reported in El

Proceso, April 11, 1994.

37. Alain de Janvry and Elizabeth Sadoulet, “NAFTA and

Mexico’s Corn Producers,” paper presented at the 18th

International Studies Association, March 10-12, 1994, p. 3.

38. Interview, August 23, 1993.

39. On the practical obstacles to massive, rapid transfers

of ejido lands, see Wayne A. Cornelius, “The Politics and

Economics of Reforming the Ejido Sector in Mexico: An Overview

and Research Agenda,” LASA Forum, Vol. 28, No. 3, Fall 1992, p.

7. Along these same lines, see de Janvry and Sadoulet, “NAFTA and

Mexico’s Corn Producers,” p. 3; DeWalt, Rees and Murphy, “The End

of Agrarian Reform,” p. 54; Lynn Stephen, Viva Zapata!

Generation, Gender, and Historical Consciousness in the Reception

of Ejido Reform in Oaxaca, San Diego, CA: University of

California, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, 1994, p. 34; and

Wayne Cornelius and Philip L. Martin, The Uncertain Connection:

Free Trade and Mexico-U.S. Migration, San Diego, CA: Center for

U.S. Mexican Studies, University of California, 1993.

40. Stephen, Viva Zapata!, p. 34; Neil Harvey, Rebellion in

Chiapas: Rural Reforms, Campesino Radicalism, and the Limits to

Salinismo, San Diego, CA: University of California, Center for

U.S.-Mexican Studies, 1994, pp. 26-27; Helga Baitenmann, “‘Lo Que

No Procede’ The Reforms to Article 27 and the Coffee Sector in

Central Veracruz,” paper presented at the 18th International

Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, March 10-12,

1994, pp. 11-12, 22.

41. Luis Hernández, “The New Mayan War,” NACLA Report on the

Americas, Vol. 27, No. 5, March/April 1994, p. 9. See also

Harvey, Rebellion in Chiapas, pp. 10-11, 18; and Stephen J. Wager

and Donald E. Schulz, “The Awakening: The Zapatista Revolt and

Its Impliations for Civil-Military Relations and the Future of 

Mexico,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs,

forthcoming 1995.

42. Harvey, Rebellion in Chiapas, pp. 18-20.
53

43. Anthony DePalma, “In Mexico’s Bitter South, Coffee Now

Blights Lives,” The New York Times, February 2, 1994.

44. Tod Robberson, “Mexican Drug Dealers Cut Pervasive

Path,” The Washington Post, May 31, 1993; also María Celia Toro,

“Are Mexican Drug Control Policies Exacerbating or Addressing the

Country’s Drug Problem?,” paper presented at the 17th

International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association,

September 24-27, 1992, pp. 33, 44-46.

45. Peter Reuter and David Ronfeldt, “Quest for Integrity:

The Mexican-U.S. Drug Issue in the 1980s,” Journal of

Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Vol. 34, No. 3, Fall

1992, p. 91.

46. Tim Weiner and Tim Golden, “Free-Trade Treaty May Widen

Traffic in Drugs, U.S. Says,” The New York Times, May 24, 1993.

47. Toro, “Are Mexican Drug Control Policies Exacerbating or

Addressing the Country’s Drug Problems?,” pp. 48-50; Tod

Robberson, “Drug Crime Spreading in Mexico,” The Washington Post,

May 26, 1993; Jim Silver, “Mexicans Fear Drug Wars Could Put Them

on Colombia’s Path,” The Miami Herald, June 11, 1993. The number

of drug cartels is impossible to calculate with any precision.

Peter Lupsha has estimated that there are 11 to 14 major

organizations and many more minor ones. See “Mexican NarcoTrafficking: The Dark Side of NAFTA,” Encuentros, Vol. 1, No. 1,

Fall 1994, p. 10. Others, however, consider only the Gulf cartel,

the Tijuana cartel, and the Juarez cartel to be “majors.” Douglas

Farah, “Drug Lords’ Influence Pervading Mexico,” The Washington

Post, April 4, 1995.

48. Robberson, “Mexican Drug Dealers.”

49. Andrés Oppenheimer, “Mexico Lacks Credibility to Win

Drug War,” The Miami Herald, August 16, 1993.

50. Andrew Reding, “Chiápas Is Mexico: The Imperative of

Political Reform,” World Policy Journal, Vol. 11, No. 1, Spring

1994, p. 12.

51. Tim Golden, “Mexican Leader Asks Executives to Give

Party $25 Million Each,” The New York Times, March 9, 1993;
54

Andrés Oppenheimer, “Thanks a Million! Mexican Barons Give Big to

Ruling Party,” The Miami Herald, March 4, 1993.

52. For instance, PRI supporters could still spend unlimited

amounts of money on lottery tickets, credit cards, and other fund

raising schemes. On these and other loopholes, see Tim Golden,

“Salinas Endorses Party Gift Limits,” The New York Times, March

10, 1993; and “Salinas Attacked on Election Bills,” Ibid.,

September 14, 1993.

53. See, especially, the Carter Center’s final report on

Electoral Reform in Mexico, November 1993.

54. On human rights violations on both sides, see Human

Rights Watch/Americas, “The New Year’s Rebellion: Violations of

Human Rights and Humanitarian Law During the Armed Revolt in

Chiapas, Mexico,” Mexico, Vol. 6, No. 3, March 1, 1994; and

Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch/Americas,

Waiting for Justice in Chiapas, Boston, MA: Physicians for Human

Rights, December 1994. In recent months, several useful studies

have appeared on the origins and development of the Zapatista

revolt. See, especially, George A. Collier with Elizabeth Lowery

Quaratiello, Basta! Land and the Zapatista Rebellion in Chiapas,

Oakland, CA: The Institute for Food and Development Policy, 1994;

John Ross, Rebellion from the Roots: Indian Uprising in Chiapas,

Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1995; Alma Guillermoprieto,

“The Shadow War,” New York Review of Books, Vol. 42, No. 4, March

2, 1995, pp. 34-43; and Ana Carrigan, “Chiapas: The First PostModern Revolution,” Fletcher Forum, Vol. 19 No. 1, Winter/Spring

1995, pp. 71-98. In addition, Wager and Schulz, “The Awakening,”

and a book by Philip L. Russell are forthcoming.

55. This last in accordance with rebel demands. Many in the

Chiapas power elite considered Ruiz a zapatista.

56. See, e.g., Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS),

Daily Report: Latin America, February 10, 1994.

57. Tod Robberson, “Rebellion Spurs Mexico to Plan Major

Reforms,” The Washington Post, February 28, 1994; Andrés

Oppenheimer, “Mexico May Let Foreign Observers Monitor

Presidential Vote,” The Miami Herald, March 2, 1994; and Tim

Golden, “Mexico Invites U.N. to Attend Election to Observe the
55

Observers,” The New York Times, May 13, 1994.

58. Andrés Oppenheimer, “Colosio Had Vowed to Make Mexico

More Democratic,” The Miami Herald, March 25, 1994; FBIS, Daily

Report: Latin America, March 8 and 14, 1994.

59. FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America, March 9, 1994.

60. They were not, however, unusual. Proceso calculated that

more than 2,000 kidnappings had occurred since Salinas had been

in office. Jane Bussey, “From Kidnappings to Car Thefts, Mexican

Crime on Rise,” The Miami Herald, May 11, 1994.

61. According to Montes. See Tod Robberson, “Salinas Fell

Out of Favor Well Before Brother’s Arrest,” The Washington Post,

March 1, 1995; Tim Golden, “Nervous and Skeptical, Mexicans See

Dark Plots,” The New York Times, March 27, 1994.

62. Tod Robberson, “Elite’s Role Is Recurrent Issue in

Mexican Crimes, Crises,” The Washington Post, March 12, 1995.

63. Tod Robberson, “New Murder in Mexico Deepens

Assassination Mystery,” The Washington Post, May 1, 1994; and

“Mexico’s Probes Consuming Attorneys General,” Ibid., June 1,

1994. The most recent theory/speculation is that the killing of

the Tijuana police chief, José Benítez, was unrelated to the

Colosio assassination. The prime suspects now seem to be

narcotraffickers.

64. FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America, April 19, 1994;

Anthony DePalma, “A Seesaw for Mexican Stocks,” The New York

Times, March 26, 1994.

65. FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America, March 16, 1994; Tim

Golden, “Mexico Mediator Hints at Renegade Bid for President,”

The New York Times, March 12, 1994.

66. FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America, March 16, 21 and 23,

1994.

67. Ibid., March 25, 1994; Tod Robberson, “Mexicans Seek New

Candidates,” The Washington Post, March 25, 1994.
56

68. Guy Gugliotta, “At Crucial Turn, Mexican Party Proves

Indecisive,” The Washington Post, March 28, 1994; Tim Golden,

“Mexican Old Guard Fights Salinas on a New Candidate,” The New

York Times, March 28, 1994.

69. Andrés Oppenheimer, “In Mexico, Anatomy of a Done Deal,”

The Miami Herald, April 4, 1994.

70. FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America, March 1 and 4, 1994;

“In Pact with Rebels, Mexico Promises Reforms and Aid for Its

Poorest State,” The Miami Herald, March 3, 1994; Tim Golden,

“Salinas’s Chosen Path: Peace and Progress Too,” The New York

Times, March 4, 1994;; and Golden, “Rebels in Mexico Spurn Peace

Plan from Government,” Ibid., June 13, 1994.

71. FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America, March 1, 14 and 18,

1994.

72. Zedillo’s acceptance speech, for instance, was notable

mainly for the fact that he invoked the fallen Colosio’s name no

less than 38 times. See FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America, March

30, 1994.

73. Douglas Farah and Ted Bardacke, “Mexico’s Preeminent

Party Looks Uneasy as New Candidate Learns on the Job,” The

Washington Post, April 18, 1994.

74. Tod Robberson, “Mexican Candidate’s Support of Rebels

Gets Him Little in Return,” Ibid., May 20, 1994.

75. Ibid.

76. Robberson, “Hard-Running Conservative Turns Mexico Vote

Into a Race,” Ibid., July 19, 1994; Anthony DePalma, “Mexico

Holds First National Debate on TV,” The New York Times, May 14,

1994; Tim Golden, “Mexican Party’s Long Rule Threatened by

Conservative,” Ibid., May 29, 1994.

77. Andrés Oppenheimer, “Mexico’s Opposition Candidate

Poised for the Unthinkable: A Win,” The Miami Herald, July 15,

1994; Todd Robberson, “Hard-Running Conservative Turns Mexico

Vote into a Race,” The Washington Post, July 19, 1994.
57

 78. Tim Golden, “Mexican Challenger: Bold Words, Pale

Presence,” The New York Times, July 27, 1994.

79. Though this was at least partially due to the fact that

the Mexican military’s efforts in this area had been diverted by

the Zapatista threat. Tim Golden, “Mexico’s Drug Fight Lagging,

With Graft Given as a Cause,” Ibid., August 7, 1994.

80. FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America, June 13, 1994; Tod

Robberson, “Car Bomb Blasts Hotel in Guadalajara, Kills 5,” The

Washington Post, June 12, 1994; and “Arms Arrive in Mexican

Port,” Ibid., August 7, 1994.

81. FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America, June 27, 1994.

82. Ibid., June 20, 1994.

83. Tod Robberson, “Mexico Takes the Initiative from

Rebels,” The Washington Post, July 6, 1994.

84. See the “Second Declaration of the Lacandona Jungle,” in

FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America, June 14, 1994.

85. Text in Crónica y Documentos de la Convención Nacional

Democrática, Aguascalientes, Chiapas, August 1994; Anthony

DePalma, “Mexican Rebels Warn of Retaliation if Vote Is Fixed,”

The New York Times, August 11, 1994.

86. See, e.g., Andrés Oppenheimer, “Mexico Rebel Leader: I’m

a Poet, Not a Politician,” The Miami Herald, July 28, 1994; and

Tod Robberson, “Mexicans Talk of Post-Election Clashes,” The

Washington Post, August 19, 1994.

87. Andrés Oppenheimer, “Irregularities Reported on Eve of

Mexico Vote,” The Miami Herald, August 21, 1994. For a critical

appraisal of the elections, see especially Jonathan Fox and Luis

Hernández, “Lessons from the Mexican Elections,” Dissent, Vol.

42, No. 1, Winter 1994, pp. 29-33.

88. The violence included a possible attempt on Avendaño’s

life. In the midst of the campaign, he had been injured in a

serious automobile accident, which many of his supporters

suspected was not an accident at all. As for the fraud, vote-
58

monitoring groups reported that Chiapas had the highest rate of

irregularities in the country. Relatively few observers, however,

supported the EZLN’s claim that this had made a critical

difference. (Robeldo had won 50.4 percent of the official vote to

Avendaños 34.9 percent.) The truth is that there is no way of

knowing who would have won a clean race. Tim Golden, “Insurgents

in Mexico Threaten to Fight if Governor Is Installed,” The New

York Times, October 18, 1994; Fox and Hernández, “Lessons,” pp.

30-32.

89. Tod Robberson, “Probe Underlines Split in Mexico’s LongRuling Party,” The Washington Post, November 20, 1994.

 90. Ibid.; Ted Bardacke, “Mexico Probes Assassination; Drug

Cartel Link Suggested,” Ibid., September 30, 1994; and Sallie

Hughes, “Politicians and Drug Lords Said to Have Plotted Mexican

Assassination,” Ibid., October 7, 1994; Anthony DePalma, “A

Leader of Mexican Party Is Slain, 2nd in Year,” The New York

Times, September 9, 1994.

91. Robberson, “Probe Underlines Split”; Robberson, “Mexican

Officials Accused of Coverup,” Ibid., November 24, 1994; Anthony

DePalma, “Mexican Lawman Accuses Ruling Party in His Brother’s

Death,” The New York Times, November 24, 1994.

92. FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America, November 25, 1994.

93. Ibid., November 25 and 30, 1994; Robberson, “Mexican

Officials.”

94. Tim Golden, “Mexican Candidate’s Assassin Is Sentenced

to 42 Years,” The New York Times, November 1, 1994.

95. Tod Robberson, “Angry Mexicans Criticize, Fear

California Anti-Immigration Vote,” The Washington Post, November

10, 1994; John M. Goshko, “Mexican Leader Assails Anti-Immigrant

Law,” Ibid., November 24, 1994.

96. It should be noted that the constitutionality of

Proposition 187 is in question. Nevertheless, the rising tide of

anti-illegal immigrant–and by association anti-immigrant and

anti-Mexican–sentiment is likely to poison U.S.-Mexican relations

for many years to come.
59

97. Sallie Hughes, “Mexico’s Ruling Party Tries Internal

Reform,” The Washington Post, November 6, 1994; George W.

Grayson, “Tabasco and Mexico’s Future,” Journal of Commerce,

December 1, 1994.

98. Anthony DePalma, “Mexican’s Offer to Rebels: Turn In

Guns and He’ll Quit,” The New York Times, December 8, 1994; and

DePalma, “Mexican State Gets 2 Chiefs: One Official, One

Itinerant,” Ibid., December 9, 1994.

99. FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America, August 5 and December

2, 1994; Andrés Oppenheimer, “Mexico’s President-elect Willing to

Reform System, But Many Doubt He’s Able,” The Miami Herald,

August 25, 1994.

100. FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America, December 7, 1994.

101. According to Salinas in his State of the Nation

Address. FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America, November 3, 1994.

102. Anthony DePalma, “Mexico Outlines an Economic Plan of

Extended Pain,” The New York Times, March 10, 1995, and “Mexicans

Ask How Far Social Fabric Can Stretch,” Ibid.; Tod Robberson,

“Mexico Faces Full-Blown Bank Crisis,” The Washington Post, March

16, 1995.

103. George Graham, Leslie Crawford, and Stephen Fidler,

“20bn U.S. Aid Deal for Mexico,” Financial Times, February 22,

1995; John M. Berry and Jonathan D. Glater, “Mexico Lifts Key

Rates to 50 Percent,” The Washington Post, March 21, 1995.

104. Tim Golden, “Mexican Parties Sign Accord on Shift to

Full Democracy,” The New York Times, January 18, 1994; Tod

Robberson, “4 Mexican Parties Agree on Quest for Key Reform,” The

Washington Post, January 18, 1995.

105. FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America, February 10, 1995.

Whether the government has correctly identified Marcos and his

alleged accomplices remains very much in question.

106. Ibid., February 13, 1995.
60

107. I am unaware of any evidence of U.S. Government

armtwisting on this issue, though there was a perception of this

in some Mexican circles. Anthony DePalma, “Mexican Chief Orders

Army to Halt Offensive on Rebels,” The New York Times, February

15, 1995. On human rights violations, see Tim Golden, “Mexican

Rights Monitor Says Some Guerrillas Were Tortured,” Ibid.,

February 21, 1995; and Tod Robberson, “Human Rights Abuses Cited

in Mexico’s Drive on Rebels,” The Washington Post, February 23,

1995.

108. Tod Robberson, “Zedillo Halts Army’s Pursuit of Rebels

in Southern Mexico,” The Washington Post, February 15, 1995.

109. FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America, March 1, 1995.

110. Tod Robberson, “Salinas Fell Out of Favor Well Before

Brother’s Arrest,” Ibid., March 1, 1995; Robberson, “Probe in

Mexico Raises New Round of Questions,” Ibid., February 26, 1995;

Tim Golden, “Mexico Party Aide Arrested in Killing of Candidate

in ‘94,” The New York Times, February 26, 1995.

111. FBIS, Daily Report: Latin America, March 1 and 13,

1995; Tod Robberson, “Mexico’s Ex-Leader Withdraws His Bid for

Top Trade Post,” The Washington Post, March 2, 1995; Robberson,

“Salinas’s Brother Held for Murder,” Ibid., March 1, 1995.

112. Robberson, “Salinas Fell Out of Favor.”

113. See Tim Golden, “Mexican Corruption Investigation

Widens,” The New York Times, March 11, 1995.

114. Tim Golden, “Salinas, at Successor’s Request, Leaves

for Virtual Exile in U.S.,” Ibid., March 13, 1995; FBIS, Daily

Report: Latin America, March 13 and 14, 1995.

115. Andrew A. Reding, “It Isn’t the Peso,” The New York

Times Magazine, April 9, 1985, p. 55.

116. David E. Sanger, “Dollar Dips as the Peso Falls Again,”

Ibid., March 10, 1995.

117. On Mexico as Clinton’s Vietnam, see Jeff Faux, “Mexico

and Vietnam,” Dissent, Vol. 42, No. 2, Spring 1995, pp. 169-174.
61

118. Ibid., p. 171.

119. Tod Robberson, “Mexico Finds Pesos for Holiday,” The

Washington Post, April 15, 1995.
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General Richard A. Chilcoat

Commandant

*****

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

Acting Director

Colonel William W. Allen

Director of Research

Dr. Earl H. Tilford, Jr.

Author

Dr. Donald E. Schulz

Editor

Mrs. Marianne P. Cowling

Secretary

Mrs. Deloris A. Hutchinson

*****

Composition

Mr. Daniel B. Barnett

Cover Artist

Mr. James E. Kistler