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﻿<title﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, Mexico Students Celebrate 100 Days of Strike - Article﻿</title>﻿
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﻿<b﻿>﻿Mexico Students Celebrate 100 Days of Strike
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by Paul Jenkins ﻿<br﻿>﻿
﻿<i﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, September - October 1999﻿</i>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
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More than 80 000 striking students marched 26 July through central Mexico City to celebrate 100 days of their strike against the imposition of student fees. Students were joined on the march by delegations from electricity workers fighting privatization, telephone workers, social security workers, university workers and left-wing organizations like the Frente Zapatista and the Frente Popular Francisco Villa. The strike at UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) has closed down all the faculties at Latin America's largest educational establishment, which has 250,000 students. Since UNAM is also responsible for the pre-university high schools ('preparatorias'), up to 400,000 students have been affected by the strike which has already lasted more than a whole semester.
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
Free education is one of the most symbolic gains of the 1910-20 Mexican revolution, and one which has been maintained during the now 17-year long assault of Mexican neo-liberalism. The students and their supporters, like the university workers union STUNAM and Zapatista leader Suncommandante Marcos, point out that the imposition of fees is likely to be the first step towards privatisation. 
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
The strike has been an amazing feat of self-organisation. Hundreds of thousands have participated in demonstrations and while the strike is directed by a general strike committee (CGH) which has hundreds of delegates, the faculties and schools regularly hold their own assemblies to debate the next steps. Holding out for 100 days against the ferocious barrage of anti-student propaganda put out by the press and pro-government TV stations Televisa and TV Azteca has also been an amazing achievement. But now the strike faces severe problems of perspective and victory is looking more difficult. Since the onset of the strike the ruling class, the governing PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) and university rector Francisco Barnes have realised that this is no ordinary student struggle and the stakes are very high. 
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
Student protests against the fees started seven months ago, way before the strike, and coincided with mass mobilisations of electricity workers against privatisation and a renewed political offensive by the EZLN, which culminated in April's EZLN-organised referendum on the rights of indigenous people, in which 3 million people voted. The prospect was opened up of a broad national struggle alliance against neo-liberalism, a goal consciously promoted by Subcommandante Marcos. This potential alliance was symbolised by the huge May Day march, in which students and electricity workers were joined by a symbolic delegation from the EZLN base communities in Chiapas. During the campaign for the EZLN referendum, Zapatista delegations were warmly received by striking students and the executive of the SME electricity workers union.
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To combat the strike the authorities have used a combination of the carrot and the stick. After a few weeks of the strike the university council voted to lower the proposed fees; after six weeks rector Francisco Barnes suddenly announced that the fees would be retitled 'registration charges', and would be voluntary. While the mass media announced that the authorities had met the student demands, the students unanimously rejected this offer, for obvious reasons. They CGH pointed out that once the principle of student fees (by any other name) had been introduced, the principle of free education would have been breeched and the charges could be made compulsory at any time. Equally, if the fees were not made compulsory, it could lead to a two-tier system where those who paid the 'voluntary' registration charge would get preferential treatment. Finally the students pointed out that the new proposal also included increased charges for examinations and other services, effectively clawing back some of the money lost by making the fees voluntary.
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
From the point of the rejection of Barnes new offer, the lynch-mob style media campaign became concentrated on the 'extremism' of the students, and the allegation that the strike was being manipulated by a small group of 'ultras' from the Political Science Faculty. This campaign was led credence by the fact that the left-liberal daily La Jornada and the similarly-inclined weekly Proceso effectively joined in the campaign against the 'ultras'. Both these journals are sympathetic to the main opposition party, Cuahthemoc Cardenas's Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), and expressed the PRD's desire for a quick resolution of the dispute. One year from presidential elections, the PRD was happy to see the PRI government embarrassed by the start of the strike, but is worried that a prolonged strike could be used against the political opposition. When striking students effectively blockaded the high school UNAM entrance examinations, the media redoubled its campaign against the 'violence' of the students.
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In fact, the striking students have been the victims; several strike leaders have been kidnapped by 'unknown persons' and savagely beaten, one woman student has been kidnapped and raped, and two students have died in traffic accidents during the demonstrations. With disgusting hypocrisy the press and TV tried to use the rape against the strikers; only La Jornada carried the rebuttal of the victim herself, who denied that the perpetrators had been striking students and expressed her determination to continue the struggle. Threats against the students have now reached fever pitch. The Mexican lawyers' federation has produced a long charge sheet against the students and insisted they be prosecuted, and two retired UNAM law professors have laid formal charges with the national prosecution service (PGR). Several senators of the ruling PRI have demanded the intervention of the security forces to recapture the faculties and re-open the university.
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
A direct intervention by the police and army is at this stage unlikely because of the nearness of the year 2000 presidential elections; even a small-scale repeat of the 1968 student massacre would be politically disastrous. But even discounting this threat as an immediate one, the obstacles to a student victory are now formidable. While the thousands of activists remain totally intransigent, in this strike they are leading a section of the masses, who are bound to consider the personal stakes involved in continuing the strike. Many students are now inevitably feeling the pressure of having lost a whole semester and are wondering what will happen to their university education and degree prospects if they lose another. In a country like Mexico, where most people are poor and where only 4% have higher education, this means a lot. In addition, some of the tactical decisions of the CGH are open to legitimate question. In rejecting Barnes' offer of voluntary fees, the CGH laid down a series of demands, including the creation of a 'permanent space' involving student representatives for discussing the running of the university. This demand, amounting to a restructuring of the government of the campus, has tended to distract from the central question of fees. The additional demands are probably n﻿ot seen as central by the student majority, but their inclusion by the CGH in the 'minimum' conditions for ending the strike can tend to undermine student unity. 
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
In a brilliant press article strongly defending the students and slamming the media campaign against them, Adolpho Gilly - former Trotskyist, author of the best Marxist account of the Mexican Revolution and now a central Cardenas advisor - gently warned the students: a strike cannot go on forever and total victory on every point may not be possible. Many observers from a socialist perspective argue that the 'maximalist' approach to the strike is in fact being pushed by ultra-left Maoist and post-Maoist currents from the Political Science Faculty. The influence of these grouping among the most politicised students is in part the result of the debacle and collapse of the largest Trotskyist organisation in Mexico, the PRT (Revolutionary Workers Party) in the early 1990s. 
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
Leftist tactics may create subsidiary problems, but they are not the heart of the strike's strategic difficulties, and have not caused a wavering of support among the university workers' unions or the mass of popular organisations. Much more important is that the wave of mass struggle around electricity privatisation in the first half of the year has tended to die down; and that the Zapatistas are coming under renewed military pressure in Chiapas. For the moment the students are carrying the brunt of the anti-neoliberal struggle. And of course a student strike does not have the power to inflict economic damage on the bourgeoisie in the same way as a workers' strike. The eventual outcome cannot be predicted at this stage. 
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
However the strike ends, the struggle has resulted in permanent gains for the left and popular movements. Tens of thousands of young people have pursued for months a classically self-organised struggle, with incredible energy and determination - and defied everything that Mexico's corrupt state apparatus and rabid mass media have thrown against them. As one journalist put it: "Thank you Francisco Barnes, thank you (Mexican President) Ernesto Zedillo - thank you for creating the next generation of leaders of the Mexican radical social movements."
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