Mexico's independent and radical applause when he stated that the new explaining intelligently that people should use condoms, not share needles, and so on. • What has the Zapatistas' attitude been towards the gay movement?
Extremely positive! They've consistently invited us to join in their initiatives and speak from the stage. They given us a substantial trade unions have agreed to form a new federation, to be called the National Union of Workers (UNT).
Over 300 delegates from 132 unions representing over one million workers met in Mexico City on August 22-23, and agreed to establish the new federation before the end of 1997.
Mexico *
federation will not abide by labour laws which require the state to approve of union officers. "The make up of the new federation should be the free and sovereign decision of the workers, he said. The preamble to the statutes of the new federation proposed at the assembly calls after the exhaustion of political space. I'm going to Chiapas soon, to The new federation grows out of the other methods, for the use of strikes, discuss my role as a Congressperson with the Zapatistas, and see how I can contribute to their struggle from my new position.
Gay issues have been raised in Chiapas: there are groups in three towns in the state?
The Zapatistas talk about it openly. There are prejudices in Chiapas like everywhere else, but the EZLN has a very good position. • How are the links between the feminist and gay movements?
It's been my concern to introduce gay issues into the women's movement. In 1992 we formed a lesbian feminist group called "Sister Juana's Closet". , which organises workshops, political initiatives and parties. I'm also active in the feminist movement.(4) For example I co-organising the Fourth Mexican Feminist Congress in 1996. I'm also a member of the National Women's Convention, which was formed on the Zapatistas' initiative.
The issue of freedom of sexual orientation has been well integrated by the feminist movement. However, we have to admit that things are more difficult going in the other direction, trying to get the gay movement to integrate feminist concerns. My candidacy was also supported by a feminist political impetus, but it was mainly carried forward by the gay movement. * Notes 1. In the previous congressional elections in 1994 Edgard Sanchez from the PRT was elected on the PRD list. 2. These are combinations of drugs (so-called 'protease inhibitors') which in some people with AIDS can drastically reduce the presence of the HIV virus in their systems and restore them to apparent health. But besides the fact that a large minority of people cannot tolerate these drugs' toxic effects, they are extremely expensive, must be taken in large doses on a rigid schedule, and because they never seem to eliminate HIV completely, their effect lasts only as long as the patient keeps taking them. See the dossier in the April issue. 3. Las Margaritas, Tuxla Gutierrez and San Cristóbal de las Casas. 4. Patria was active in OIKABETH, the first lesbian political group in Mexico (1979-86). When the PRT stood Rosario Ibarra as their presidential candidate in 1982, not only was Ibarra the first female presidential candidate in Mexican history, it was also the first time that there were openly gay congressional candidates. A Lesbian and Gav Committee in Support of Rosario Ibarra (CHARI) was formed. Patria was one of several gay PRT candidates for Congress in 1982. In 199] she stood for the Mexico City council. She is a member of the PRT Central Committee and of the editorial board of the journal Cuadernos feministas.
Foro, (Forum: Unions Face the Nation) a group of 26 unions which tor the last two years have tried to develop an alternative to the government's economic policy and promoting a more independent and democratic labour union movement. The Foro involved both unions from the government-ruling-party dominated Congress of Labour (CT) and independent unions such as the Authentic Labour Front (FAT).
This movement for change in the unions was strengthened by the death of Fidel Velazquez Sanchez, general secretary of the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), and the July 6 election defeat for the Institutional Revolutionary Party. The strong showing by the left-of-centre Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), and especially the election of the PRD's Cuauhtemoc Cardenas as mayor of Mexico City, also strengthened the forces for change in A Split in the Foro Unions
Nevertheless, some Foro unions op posed the plan to form a new federation. Nine unions, representing about 2/3 of the Foro group's mass base, withdrew from the planned assembly. They included the SNTE teachers union (1.2 million members), the Mexican Electrical Workers (SME, 46,000 members, mainly in Mexico City), and the Revolutionary Workers Confederation (COR)
The remaining 17 Foro unions, joined by the left-wing May First Inter-Union Group, went ahead and held the Assembly, bringing together 132 unions representing about one million workers. Resolutions and discussion
The first meeting of the new National Union of Workers (UNT) will take place on November 28. Delegates also agreed that the new federation would break off all relations with the existing umbrella organisation, the Congress of Labour (CT), and refuse to participate in CT-led economic pacts with the employers and the government. These new positions would represent a substantial break with traditional Mexican union politics.
Out-going Foro president Agustin Fuentes Rodriguez won a big round of boycotts and general strikes. Radical demands
The May First Inter-Union Group made its affiliation to the new federation contingent upon complete separation from the Congress of Labour (CT). The May First group also called for the inclusion not only of labour unions, but also of peasant organisations and working class community organisations. The inclusion of non- union groups has been a bone of contention between the Foro and the May First group in recent
The May First group also called for undoing recent social security reforms, and for "a working class economic program as an alternative to capitalism and neo-liberalism." Delegates from May First group unions called on the new federation to oppose privatisation of state firms, to stand for the renationalisation of already privatised firms, and to call for a suspension of the payment of the foreign debt. The birth of a new labour movement?
This decision is one of the most important developments in the Mexican labour movement in decades. It could signal the beginning of the end of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) control over the labour unions. If it can demonstrate genuine independence organisational breadth, mass support, and political appeal, the National Union of Workers may one day become a rival to the state-dominated Congress of Labour (CT) and its most important member, the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM). [DLB/SS
Wages and Prices
Since the devaluation of the peso in December 1994, prices have risen 76.71 percent, while wages have fallen by 35.5% in real terms. Salaries of manufacturing workers fell by 44.8% in US dollar terms, while their productivity increased 20.4 percent. Mexican Labor News and Analysis, 16 September. Contact: 3436 Morrison Place, Cincinnati, OH 45220, USA <103144.2651@compuserve.com>, tel. (+1 513) 961 8722
13
Massive welcome for Zapatistas in Mexico City
"those of us who supported Temer for the the PT
After a week-long, 750-mile trip from Chiapas, 1,111 Zapatistas rebels arrived in Mexico City on September 13. A massive crowd of supporters chanted "You are not alone".
The representatives of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) came to the capitol to demand that the government comply with the San AndresLarrainzar accords, which were signed in 1995. The accords provide the first small steps toward political autonomy for Mexico's Indian peoples.
This march also marked the formal founding of a broad-based, nation-wide civilian organisation in support of the Zapatista army, called the Zapatista Front for National Liberation (FZLN). The FZLN, which defines itself as a political force that is not an electoral party, claims more than 10,000 members in hundreds of local chapters throughout Mexico
EZLN leaders had chosen the arrival in Mexico to coincide with Mexico's national independence day, September 16. While consistently defined itself as a patriotic, nationalist movement. and claimed Mexico's revolutionary tradition for itself. [DLB/JD] * Source: Mexican Labor News and Analysis, 16 September 1997, Contact: 3436 Morrison Place, Cincinnati, OH 45220 <103144.2651@compuserve.com>, tel. (+1 513) 961 8722 EZLN statement:
"Recognise our rights
as Indian peoples"
We have come here to demand that Mister Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon [Mexican President] keep his word. We demand that he fulfil what he signed at the negotiating table in February of 1996 We demand that he pull back his soldiers from the indigenous communities of all of Mexico. [..]
We are not willing to return to our corhope. If Zedillo is a man of his word, let him fulfil it and let the law recognise our rights as Indian peoples. If Zedillo cannot keep his word, let him make war on us and fill with bullets what he cannot fill with reason.
If he is not going to make war, then he should take his soldiers out of our communities. Those soldiers are far from their families, their mothers, their wives, their children.
Why does he keep them here if all they do is bring in prostitutes, alcohol and drugs to our communities?
While the federal soldiers persecute those of us who are Mexican, the great rulers are selling our nation to foreign capital. National armies should defend the people and not help the sale of our national sovereignty.
If Zedillo wants peace, let him keep his word given to the Indian peoples. And let him take his soldiers back into their barracks! * Source: Statement by EZLN Subcomandante Marcos, 12 a Mayan Indian movement, the EZLN has ner of abandonment and misery without
Sept. 1997. Translated by: Cecilia Rodriguez, NCDLJ