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Re: Ejercito Mexicano y su papel en Chiapas
A CHILDISH LEFTIST ATTITUDE DEBUNKED
The article in La Jornada, May 10, 1995, by Sergio Aguayo Quezada,
"Militares", is a convincing recognition of the validity of some basic
Marxist-Leninist concepts about the repressive instruments of the
capitalist system. Those concepts were not always accepted by Mexican
leftists of the sixties and seventies in opposition to some
orthodx Marxist groups like the Communist Party. After the massacre
of hundreds of demonstrators on October 2, 1968, in Mexico City, a
bitter debate within the left started on the conception of the
relationship between the state and the economic classes in the country,
and the strategy that the left was supposed to follow in order to
confront the authoritarian state. The debate, which eventually was lost
by the Communist Party to other smaller groups within the student
movement, centered on the roll that the army, the police, and the
"granaderos" (riot police), played in an authoritarian state bent on
repressing a popular movement growing at the time in Mexico City and
other cities in the country.
The Communist Party and other groups maintained
the idea that before attempting any reform in a capitalist state,
the repressive apparatus had to become and ally of the people by
severing its loyalty to the authoritarian government and the dominant
class. This strategy only repeated Lenin's theory of the revolution,
that proved successful in October 1917, after the Bolsheviks managed
to infiltrate the Russian army to ensure that it would side with
them, or at least remain neutral during the takeover of the Winter
Palace. The theory is based on the premise that the army, and other
repressive organizations, is composed mainly of people of proletarian
extraction that serve only as puppets of the capitalist class. Once
those proletarians became politically conscientious, they would side
irrevocably with the revolution.
On the other hand, radical groups opposed to the Communist
Party and other orthodox Marxist groups, held the view that the
army had to be seen as an enemy of the people. Their conceptions,
were not only supported by the visible shows of violence
that the riot police and the army applied to demonstrators in the
streets, but also by the fact that during the late sixties and
early seventies all Latin American countries, except Cuba,
Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela and some other
Caribbean countries, were ruled by military juntas. Thus to their eyes
the army had acquired a life of its own as some sort of ruling class.
Eventually the views of these radical groups towards the army took hold
among students and working class, allowing them to displace the
Communist Party from the leadership of the movement. The hatred
of the oppressed was then directed against the soldiers, the police,
and their commanding entities, especially the President, in what
Lenin would have called "a childish leftist attitude."
While it is true that the army holds to this day special social and
economic status in several countries in Latin America, it is difficult
to take that attitude in Mexico by believing that the army is some
sort of malignant force that acts by itself. The article by Sergio
Aguayo Quezada debunks this attitude convincingly when he starts his
article by saying:
>" Que piensan los militares sobre el momento que vive Mexico? Hacia donde
>van a inclinar su indiscutible fuerza? Estas inquietudes se avivaron
>cuando, el 5 de mayo pasado, las fuerzas armadas hicieron una
>impresionante exhibicion de poderio militar seguida de un breve
>discurso que el secretario de la Defensa, general Enrique Cervantes
>Aguirre, pronuncio ante el Presidente de la Republica."
[
[ "What does the army think about the present times in Mexico? Where are
[ they going to sway their unquestionable force to? This questions
[ came to life when the armed forces performed an impressive display
[ of military force on May 5, followed by a short speech by Secretary
[ of Defense, General Enrique Cervantes Aguirre, in presence of the
[ President of the Republic"
[
Aguayo continues with interesting revelations:
> "El Movimiento Estudiantil de 1968 es el parteaguas en
> [la relacion entre gobernantes civles y los militares]. Por
>muchos anos, en algunos circulos militares se manejo la tesis de que la matanza
>del 2 de octubre en Tlatelolco fue el resultado de una ``trampa''. El general
>Marcelino Garcia Barragan (entonces secretario de la Defensa) lo expreso con
>mucha claridad cuando dijo que el ejercito fue recibido con ``nutridas
>descargas de armas de fuego que se hicieron desde distintos puntos de las
>azoteas y partes altas de los edificios'' de Tlatelolco. De acuerdo a esta
>version, cuando el ejercito respondio los estudiantes quedaron en medio del
>fuego cruzado.
> Con los anos se ha podido establecer que, en efecto, la matanza del 2 de
>octubre se inicio con una agresion al ejercito, pero nunca ha quedado
>establecido quienes eran los civiles que empezaron a disparar. La evidencia
>mas reciente es que los pistoleros estaban coordinados desde un centro de
>mando establecido en la Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores y en el cual
>estaba personal de la Direccion Federal de Seguridad (dependiente de
>Gobernacion). De ser esto cierto, los autores de la trampa al ejercito
>estaban en el gobierno.
> Desde otra perspectiva, la verdadera trampa para las fuerzas armadas no
>empezo en Tlatelolco sino mucho antes, cuando los militares aceptaron ser>
>instrumentos de control o eliminacion de las protestas contra el regimen.
>Leon, Chilpancingo, Morelos, San Luis Potosi, Morelia, Chiapas son puntos del
>mapa que registra los momentos en que los gobernantes echaron mano de los
>militares para acabar, por la fuerza, con movimientos independientes, muchos
>de los cuales eran legitimos y actuaban en la legalidad.
> Vistas asi las cosas, el 68 fue el momento mas tragico, pero no el unico,
>de una relacion de sometimiento y manipulacion que perjudico a la institucion
>militar. A partir del 68 se inicia al interior de las fuerzas armadas una
>revolucion silenciosa que tiene varias vertientes."
[
[
[ The student movement in 1968 is the dividing line in [the
[ relationship between the civilian government and the army]. For many
[ years, some military circles maintained the thesis that the
[ massacre on October 2 in Tlatelolco was the result of a frame up.
[ General Marcelino Garcia Barragan (then Secretary of Defense) put it
[ very clearly when he said that the army was received with intense
[ fire from different points on the roofs of buildings in Tlatelolco.
[ According to this version, the students were caught in the crossfire.
[ With the passage of time, it has been established that, indeed, the
[ massacre of October 2, started with an attack on the army, but it has
[ never been established who were the civilians who started the fire.
[ The most recent evidence is that the gunmen were coordinated from a
[ command center in the building of the Secretary of Foreign Affairs,
[ manned by staff from the Federal Agency of Security (controlled
[ by the Secretary of Interior). If this is true, the authors of the
[ frame up against the army were inside the government.
[ From a different perspective, the true frame up against the armed
[ forces did not start in Tlatelolco, but much before, when the army
[ accepted being an instrument of control or elimination of protests
[ against the government. Leon, Chilpancingo, Morelos, San Luis
[ Potosi, Morelia, Chiapas are points in the map that register
[ moments when the government used the army to end forcefully
[ independent movements, many of them legitimate and legal.
[ From this point of view, the 68 movement was the most tragic moment,
[ but not the only one, of a relationship of subjugation and
[ manipulation in detriment of the army. After 1968, a silent
[ revolution within the armed forces was started.
We may note here that Chiapas was not the center of political
turmoil in 1968. Aguayo obviously refers to more recent times. After
noticing how the armed forces have being transformed since the
tragic year of 1968, the article concludes:
> "Una consecuencia de todo lo anterior fue un cambio fundamental
> en las relaciones con los gobernantes civiles. Lo esencial de la
> transformacion fue que las fuerzas armadas dejaron de ser los
> obedientes represores que resolvian por la fuerza los enredos creados
> por gobernantes civiles...
> ... A nuestras fuerzas armadas les
> preocupa el pais y la preservacion de la institucion, y lo peor que podria
> pasarle a Mexico y al ejercito seria una guerra en Chiapas o un endurecimiento
> autoritario. A ningun ejercito honra el andar cazando indigenas por la selva
>(como lo hizo el ejercito porfirista con los mayas y los yaquis) o persiguiendo
> periodistas o lideres opositores. No solo eso, sino que seria una guerra que
> desentona con los aires que soplan en el mundo y la region, y tal vez mas
> importante, con el estado de la economia.
> La mejor salida para el ejercito, y ese es el mensaje de fondo, esta=
> en que la paz en Chiapas sea con honor; es decir, que el ejercito no pague
> la cuenta, como paso en Tlatelolco. Los zapatistas quieren lo mismo y
> algo mas justicia.
[
[ "A consequence is a fundamental change in the relationship with
[ the civilian governments. The esence of the transformation was that
[ the armed forces stopped being the obedient repressors that solved
[ the mess created by civilian governments...
[ Our armed forces are worried about the country, and the survival of
[ their institution, and the worst it can happen to Mexico and to the
[ army is a war in Chiapas, or an authoritarian turn. No army is glorified
[ by running after indians in the jungle (as the Porfirista army did with
[ mayas and yaquis) or chasing news reporters or opposition leaders. Not
[ only that, but that would be a war out of touch with the winds blowing
[ around the world and in the region, and most importantly with the
[ present state of the economy.
[ The best way out for the army, and this is the bottom line,
[ is a peace with honor in Chiapas, that is, that the army does not pay
[ the broken glass, as in Tlatelolco. The Zapatistas want the same,
[ and some more justice.
[
If the analysis of Sergio Aguayo is correct, then we must accept
that those old communists of the sixties were, after all, right, and
that the students should not have thrown Molotov cocktails against the
soldiers and riot police, but against government officials who were
responsible for pitting the army against the people with the obvious
hope that the army will never side with the people. Today demonstrators
in Chiapas could use the experience to their advantage. It seems
that the historical experience has made the Mexican army conscientious
of its role in the capitalist state as a repressive force, and has
resigned that role, depriving the government of an important card
to play, a possibility that the Bolsheviks had already put to the test
78 years ago. Amazing.
Vladimir Escalante Ramirez.
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