The Mexican press reports today that leading sectors of the ruling right-wing National Action Party (PAN) are accusing the Peaceful Civil Resistance Movement in Mexico — the movement that has been spearheading the campaign to defend Mexico’s nationalized oil resources against the privatization onslaught promoted by Felipe Calderón and George W. Bush — of being directly linked to the FARC guerrilla forces and the drug traffickers in Colombia.

These statements were made without any substantiation whatsoever, but they were the lead stories in the mainstream press.

Leaders of the National Democratic Convention (CND) immediately denounced this slanderous campaign, explaining that the Resistance movement is totally peaceful, and that the campaign to defeat the “fast tracking” by the Mexican Congress of the 5-point privatization plan of Pemex was carried out successfully “without breaking one single window.” The Resistance movement has stressed at every rally and in every statement the need to remain disciplined and peaceful. This is one of its hallmarks and great strengths.

This campaign of spreading a lie massively in the media against the movement headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador is not new. Prior to the presidential election in July 2006, the U.S.-financed PR/media campaign against López Obrador portrayed him as a supporter of “Al Qaeda and terrorism throughout the Americas.” There was no proof of any such ties. The only shred of “evidence” were statements by López Obrador’s campaign organizers in support of the Chávez government’s decision not to privatize the PDVSA oil corporation in Venezuela — statements that were made by leading politicians around the world from a wide range of political backgrounds.

More recently, the Mexican media ran spots characterizing López Obrador as a madman akin to Hitler, Mussolini, and Mexican traitor Victoriano Huerta.

This defamation campaign is aimed at wresting legitimacy away from the mass Resistance Movement that witnessed a huge turnout this past Sunday in the streets of Mexico City to prepare the Second Stage of the Peaceful Civil Resistance Movement, which will culminate next June 29th with a mass CND assembly of hundreds of thousands of people in the Zócalo of the nation’s capital. More disturbing, the defamation campaign could be wielded by the government to manufacture a provocation that could then be blamed on the Resistance Movement.

Unfortunately, the counter-attack against the National Front in Defense of Mexico’s Oil Resources did not come only from the right wing. On a different level, to be sure, but one also aimed at discrediting the courageous struggle of the Mexican people in defense of their resources and sovereignty, PRD founder and former presidential candidate Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas blasted the deputies and senators of the Broad Progressive Front (FAP) for their 16-day takeover/occupation of the chambers of the Mexican Congress. This action was unwarranted, counterproductive and ultimately harmful, Cárdenas stated yesterday — echoing almost verbatim the statement issued by the usurper Felipe Calderón in New Orleans during the recent Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) summit.

Cárdenas, like Calderón before him, stated that there was no evidence that the PAN intended a “coup de force” in the Congress to ram through the “energy reform” packet.

This statement is, of course, false to the core. The methods employed by the PRI and the PAN for the past two years have involved massive fraud and the imposition of so-called “reforms” without any real discussion or debate. In fact, while the Senate and National Assembly were taken over by the FAP deputies to force a real national discussion of the “Energy Reform” package, the Senate reconvened at another Senate building near the Caballito in downtown Mexico City and proceeded to enact 14 anti-worker “reforms” against healthcare and Social Security. So much for their desire to “dialogue” and “hear everyone’s point of view!”

Without a doubt the pressures will continue to bear down hard on López Obrador and the Resistance Movement in Mexico in the coming weeks and months. Everything will be done to prevent the Mexican people from affirming their sovereign will to stop the privatization of Pemex, to force a “better privatization” plan.

The call by the Resistance Movement to organize 200,000 Brigadistas in the coming weeks, to build Committees in Defense of Mexico’s Oil Resources in workplaces and neighborhoods across the country, to reach the homes of 1 million Mexicans with this message, and to mobilize this movement in the streets of Mexico on June 29 deserves the full and unconditional support of all labor, political and community activists the world over.

Not One Step Backwards! Ni Un Paso Atrás!

To be continued.

from: The Organizer
theorganizer@earthlink.net