* Mexico PRT Conference
The Revolutionary Workers' Party (PRT) held a congress on July 19-2Ist. This was the 8th congress since the party was founded in September 1976. Of 186 delegates, 35% were women, and 50% were peasants, mostly Indians. Only 30% of delegates had been in the PRT for longer than 10 years. Average length of membership was 5 1/2 years.
Mexican guests included the president of the Mexico City PRD, the head of the Workers Party parliamentary group, and representatives of the Socialist Revolutionary Current, the Socialist Alternative and the Socialist Party. Foreign guests included the Cuban Ambassador, Columbia's FARC guerrillas, and the International Secretariat of the Fourth International.
The congress resolved to seek ways to build a new, pluralist force on the Mexican left, and participate in both the left front and the broad front proposed by the EZLN (Zapatistas). Delegates saluted the Zapatistas' fundamental contribution to the new upsurge in mobilisations by indigenous peoples, and popular forces in general. A resolution on the indigenous question was approved. This document commits the PRT to struggle for the autonomy of Mexico's various indigenous peoples.
The conference also resolved to continue its efforts to build a revolutionary party, and the Fourth International. As well as the Zapatista's Intercontinental meeting for Humanity and against Neo-liberalism, the party resolved to continue its activities in the Sao Paulo Forum grouping of Latin American socialist and social democratic parties.
The new Central Committee has 45 members. Only 31% were members of the outgoing leadership (elected in 1992). Fourteen of the CC members are women. One of the first tasks of the new leadership will be to define PRT strategy in the 1997 elections. In 1994 the party supported Cardénas in the presidential election, and presented several parliamentary candidates on the list of Cardénas' Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD). One, Edgar Sanchez of the PRT Political Bureau, was elected to the federal parliament. [ET/JD] * 8 International Viewpoint by José Martinez Cruz OVER 120 PARTIES SENT DELEGATES TO the 6th meeting of the Sao Paulo Forum, a unique gathering of the Latin American left. This year's meeting was held in the Salvadorian capital, San Salvador. As well as the 187 delegates, there were 289 guests, and 44 observers from European, Asian, Oceanic and North American progressive organisations
The Latin American left is in the middle of re-defining itself, and once again the forum was an important breath of fresh air, and an opportunity to redevelop political relations between the various political formations present. Veteran Peruvian peasant leader and internationalist Hugo Blanco at the Intercontinental meeting for humanity, Chiapas.
In the months leading up to the Forum, continental workshops had been organised on specific themes, including migration, women, parliamentary activity, the environment, culture, identity and youth.
It is hardly new to say that we need an open debate on the future of socialism. For the delegates to this Forum, this debate was understood as the search for new models, and a new direction. Many participants stressed the importance of re-founding ourselves in ethical values like transparency of political life, traternity, truth. and solidarity, as we tace a system which perverts these values.
We agreed to organise a campaign in each country on the basis of the final document of the Forum. During 1997 we will deepen the analysis we have begun concerning the role of local and municipal government, the nature of power, and questions of access to that power.
Delegates stressed the importance of joint action by the Latin, Canadian and US left to protest violations of immigrants rights, particularly in the fields of working conditions and access to citizenship. There are plans to create an international network for the defence of migrants' rights, and put pressure on our various legislative bodies in order that they apply the relevant international conventions. A specific all-Americas meeting on this theme is being planned.
We also resolved to support the "Latino march" planned for Washington DC on 12 October. This date is the anniversary of Columbus' "discovery" of the Americas in 1492. Delegates will also try to build participation at the international workers meeting planned for Summer 1997 in Havana, Cuba.
This was the first time a womenonly caucus met within the Sao Paulo Forum. The 49 participants initiated discussion on a wide range of economic and political proposals, sexuality, human rights, and the role of women in the media. They decided to organise a second continent-wide workshop on this theme, so as to make a better contribution to the reflection of the whole
A significant number of parliamentary representatives from the Forum's participating parties attended the preparatory workshop in Cuba earlier this year. Discussion centred on the needs and difficulties of bringing our parliamentary work into phase with the social movements.
This meeting was the first occasion within the Forum process for a meeting of representatives of the participating youth organisations. They resolved to participate together at the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students, which will be held in Cuba next summer.
Many delegates are in favour of creating a permanent secretariat, and some kind of Sao Paulo Foundation. The possibilities will be examined more closely at the next Forum, which will be held in Brazil (either in Porto Alegre or in Brasilia) at the end of July 1997.
Participants overwhelmingly voted to maximise the links of solidarity between the Forum and the Intercontinental Meeting for Humanity and against Neoliberalism, which was being held in Chiapas, Mexico at the initiative of the Zapatistas (EZLN). A Forum Commission, led by El Salvador's Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) participated at the Zapatista event, basing their intervention on the Forum's deliberations. * (The author is a leading member of Mexico's Revolutionary Workers' Party (PRT), Mexican supporters of the
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organisations, and urban community groups. It is also supported by some regional deputies of the PRD, particularly in Guerrero state.. The FACMLN has its origins in the "ultra-left" current of the National Democratic
Convention, a now-defunct organisation created by civil supporters of the EZLN. This new front may win significant support in a number of regions and sectors, despite its deep sectarianism towards the other currents of the radical left. And the FACMILN is building itself as an alternative to the Zapatistas FZLN. [E.T] *
New PRD leadership Boost for left IN THE THREE MONTHS LEADING up to July 21st, the opposition Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) has been dominated by an internal election campaign to choose the new party leadership. The left was trying to replace Portirio Munoz Ledo, a party "baron," who had developed a current to the right of party leader Cuauhtémoc Cardénas.
The PRD today is "above all a professional electoral machine, with all the vices and habits of this country's other such machines, all institutionalised by the state, and financed with state' money - i.e. our money" warns Adolfo Gilly, editor of the radical left magazine Viento del Sur.
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"Many people who are attracted by the Zapatistas] are disgusted by this machine and its customs. But don't be fooled. When the The anti-party party?
moment comes to vote, they will choose the
PRD, because they have no other electoral choice. And, despite everything, the party's
Cardénista [left populist] ideology is still alive. The PRD invokes this memory regularly, even if it rarely respects it!"
A large section of the progressive population followed the campaign. Over 400,000 PRD members visited one of the 2,300 voting stations. The result was a clear victory for Lopez Obrador, the candidate most closely associated with the popular movement, and the left in the PRD
Lopez left the ruling PRI in 1987, alongside Cardénas and Munoz Ledo. He led the campaign to challenge the massive electoral fraud of 20 November 1994, which "elected" a PRI candidate as governor of the oil-producing state of Tabasco.
Lopez Obrador also supported the Indian communities of Chintalpa, who challenged the way the PEMEX oil company exploits their natural resources. In 1973-92, PEMEX pumped 8.5 bn. barrels of oil, which were sold for $130 bn. None of this money was invested in the Indian communities of Chintalpa which have been devastated by PEMEX's activities. On the contrary, their living standards have declined.
The fraudulent election provoked an enormous popular reaction, and violent confrontations. Discontent is still high. Especially since Lopez Obrador found proof that the "successful" candidate spent $72m. on his campaign - $250 for every vote, more then double the salary of a typical worker!
Lopez Obrador's success in these internal PRD elections may energise the popular, radical base of the party. During his electoral campaign, he proposed a rapprochement of the PRD with the Zapatistas of the EZLN. * The other front
THE EZLN'S *DISTANCE, WITH REGARD TO political parties, has often been interpreted as an anti-party attitude. Some activists in the
Chiapas solidarity movements continually claim that the Zapatistas reject dialogue with political parties and, therefore, the solidarity movements should do the same!. In fact, Subcomandante Marcos recently explained, this "distance" reflects above all the EZLN critique of those parties which claim [aspire] to have a monopoly on political representation, and whose relationship with the public consists in asking [us] to delegate [our] political participation to them [...]
Unless the political parties realise that we need a non-party space so that society can act, can struggle for its rights, without having to join one or other of the parties, or join the Zapatista National Liberation Front, or some other structure.] then we will reach a point where we will have a political class which has been imposed on us by the government, and parties which follow a rhythm quite different from the wider historical rhythm of the
The EZLN called on its supporters to participate in the August 1994 Presidential election, in the hope that Cauahtémoc Cardénas of the PRD would defeat the incumbent of the PRI. [IV #259, 09/94] Marcos recently argued that "Cardénismo is, naturally, about rather more than the figure of Cauahtémoc Cardénas. For millions of Mexicans, including those in the EZLN, it has signified that a good government is possible, and that [Cardénas in government] would respect us.
You can reproach Cardénismo and señor Cardénas, with everything — except to have sold out or given up [...] Whether you like it or not, the PRD is today the only possible intermediary within the political class. Non of the other parliamentary parties is here, available for discussion."
The EZLN has also proposed to create a an opposition or "broad " front (Frente amplio). According to Marcos, "some people imagine [this front] through electoral glasses, as an arrangement of political parties. Others, like the EZLN, give it a broader horizon, in terms of peace, justice and dignity. But whatever the level and the importance, the creation of this broad front does pose some problems. First of all: who will convoke it, and with what specific
But, one way or another, to the extent that it adopts the transition to democracy as its goal, this broad or opposition front should rely on the participation of Cardénismo as a social movement. And, concretely, with the participation of Cauahtémoc Cardénas."