An independent indigenous candidate to mobilize the dispossessed
2017 Febrero México
This year began in Mexico with growing waves of discontent among much of the population with the “gasolinazo”: a huge hike in fuel, electricity...
Peña Nieto’s “imbecility” and the teachers’ ability to keep struggling
2016 Octubre México
The Mexican teachers’ constant and determined struggle, underpinned by their unshakable resistance and convictions, continues in a context in which President...
A history of challenging messages
2016 Mayo México
Insurgent Subcomandantes Marcos and Galeano are the same person yet at the same time are two outstanding personalities in the Zapatista National...
It’s going to be a long struggle
2016 Febrero México
Mexico’s economic, political and social situation has gone from bad to worse. This year opened with aNew York Times editorial criticizing the...
Critical thought versus the capitalist hydra
2015 Agosto México
Despite increased military and paramilitary activities within the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) area, the Zapatistas began organizing an...
Ayotzinapa on the world map of dignity
2015 Marzo México
After the big demonstrations in Mexico and around the world at the end of January demanding the return of the students from Ayotzinapa, the Mexican government...
The Ayotzinapa movement is transforming the country
2015 Febrero México
The tragedy of the still-missing Ayotzinapa teacher training school students who were forcibly disappeared by government security forces in Iguala, Guerrero,...
“The ‘haves’ destroy but we, the ‘have nots,’ rebuild”
2014 Octubre México
Mexico’s politicians and economic elites have introduced economic reforms that are intensifying the plundering neoliberal model. The major parties are...
Subcomandante Marcos: Never more… or forever?
2014 Junio México
Death will go away, fooled by an indigenous man whose nom de guerre was Galeano, and those rocks that have been placed on his tomb will once again walk...
What do you learn at the Zapatista School?
2014 Abril México
In the middle of last year the Zapatistas invited people to participate in what they called “the Zapatista School.” The quota planned for August—1,500...
The energy reform: A great loss and a betrayal
2014 Enero México
On the last day of 2013, a notice of bereavement appeared in a national newspaper signed by writer Elena Poniatowska, among others. Promoted by playwright...
A resounding NO to the PRI's education reform
2013 Agosto México
Most primary and secondary education teachers in Mexico belong to the National Education Workers’ Union (SNTE), which is the largest union not only in...
Zapatismo is back and its messages are hitting a chord
2013 Junio México
The Zapatistas’ first new communiqués were issued at the end of last year in the Third International Seminar called “Planet Earth, anti-systemic movements,”...
The Zapatistas begin another stage and, as usual, make us think
2013 Marzo México
*See the January 2011 issue of envío for Guatemalan anthropologist Ricardo Falla’s analysis of the Mayan steles that refer to the end of a significant...
The revenge against the #IAm132 Movement
2013 Enero México
At the end of 2012 a book came out on the #IAm132 Movement with 97 testimonies, all of which expressed the hope that Mexico can change. As part of the...
#IAm132: A symbol of outrage and resistance
2012 Octubre México
The propaganda coming out of Mexico’s 2012 presidential campaign presented Enrique Peña Nieto, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) candidate,...
Indigenous communities under government siege and repression
2012 Mayo México
Famine, death, repression and eviction hang over Mexico’s indigenous communities. Climate change made last year’s drought worse, causing famine in many...
Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to violence-torn Mexico
2012 Abril México
Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Mexico at the end of March can be divided into three phases: the preparatory stage, the visit itself and the post-visit...
The peace movement and the government’s warlike responses
2012 Enero México
At the end of the fifth year of Calderon’s six-year term in office, the situation in Mexico is deplorable. The Economic Commission for Latin America...
The Comfort Caravan’s achievements
2011 Agosto México
The brother of one of thousands of people disappeared in Mexico said the dead, orphans and widows were infinite. He insisted all were good people, killed...
We’re sick to death!
2011 Junio México
Official figures from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography indicate that 65% of Mexicans perceive insecurity as being worse or much worse...
The Lost War against Drugs And Other Wars
2011 Abril México
According to the 2010 census, Mexico has 112.3 million inhabitants, making it the world’s eleventh most populated country. The population pyramid narrows...
Vatican vs. Maciel: The Legionaries Won
2011 Enero México
After poring through newspapers from March 2010 to early January 2011, consulting the official Vatican and Legion web pages, following up the writings...
200 Years of Independence, 100 Years of Revolution
2010 Agosto México
Thanks to the Mexican government’s deep-rooted conservatism, it seems unable to cope with Independence and the Revolution that marked Mexican history....
Crime and No Punishment
2010 Julio México
Mexico is in a deplorable state. The country is unraveling. Nobel Prize winner in economics Joseph Stiglitz calls the current situation an economic...
Pederast Marcel Maciel and His Partners in Crime
2010 Abril México
The Mexican Marcial Maciel was born in the Michoacan town of Cotija, in 1920. Twenty-one years later he founded the Legion of Christ. Its members call...
Acteal Twelve Years On
2010 Marzo México
After a term and a half of National Action Party (PAN) governments, Mexico is a nation in ruins. According to the National Council for the Evaluation...
Fear in the Time of the Virus
2009 Agosto México
In 2009, the world became aware of a new and worrying strain of influenza first dubbed “swine flu” then changed to human influenza A (H1N1). It was...
The Legion of Christ: A Rotten Fruit
2009 Junio México
During the whole of the Catholic Church’s bi-millennial history, organizations have emerged whose intention is to live more profoundly and spread the...
A State Less and Less Willing to Tolerate Social Protest
2009 Abril México
Repression has been on the rise in every corner of Mexico, particularly due to the criminalization of social protest and the surge in violence and insecurity....
Zapatistas Organize the First Global Festival of Dignified Rage
2009 Enero México
Last September, the Zapatistas announced that they were making preparations to hold the First Global Festival of Dignified Rage. Given the intention...
Mezcala: A Mirror and a Heart
2008 Octubre México
The struggles of a great variety of peoples for their autonomy demonstrate a long-term desire that constantly transforms both the group and the reality...
All Powers Against Zapatista Autonomy
2008 Agosto México
Mexico’s oppressing powers want to stop Zapatista autonomy from surviving and propagating. The illegitimate presidential power of the National Action...
The Struggle for a New Media Law: Who Owns the Airwaves?
2008 Junio México
Pablo González Casanova has said that the government is defending its agenda through the “expropriation of reason, rights and words.” He charges that...
A Thousand and One Demonstrations: For Life, Petroleum and Rights...
2008 Abril México
Mexico is polarized, with overlapping conflicts in every aspect of national life. In late 2007, The New York Times noted that a sizeable proportion...
Warning the World that Zapatismo Is in Danger
2008 Enero México
Signs that the Mexican government is gearing up for war have led the Zapatistas to launch a red alert to the world. Increased activity is reported in...
Partiocracy vs. the Media: An Important Battle
2007 Octubre México
Asked what Aristotle would think of most governments in today’s world, Argentine social scientist Atilio Borón replied that he would certainly not describe...
A Government Trapped in Its Dirty War
2007 Agosto México
Mexico’s economic, political, social and cultural situation is marked by serious injustices. In very broad strokes: half the population enjoys over...
A Polarized, Pissed-Off Country
2007 Mayo México
The various struggles against neoliberalism have been increasing in recent years in Mexico, choosing one of two major paths. The first is inspired by...
Oaxaca: Unwavering Grassroots Resistance
2007 Febrero México
Recent political events in Mexico recall Hannah Arendt’s classic text,The Origins of Totalitarianism. And although one of the leading founders of the...
An Unyielding Movement Challenges the Fraud
2006 Octubre México
Ignacio Ramonet, the editor-in-chief of Le Monde Diplomatique, concluded that massive fraud had undeniably occurred in Mexico. His assessment...
Elections 2006: “This Isn’t Democracy”
2006 Agosto México
The elections held in Mexico on July 2 laid bare a democratic disaster. With the elections six years ago, people thought the country had entered a new...
The “Other Campaign” Is Forging a Path for New Ideas
2006 Mayo México
The political moment in Mexico could not be more troubling. Security forces repress striking workers, leaving several dead and wounded. The avoidable...
What are the Zapatistas Seeking With Their “Other Campaign”?
2006 Enero México
In January 2006, Mexico’s presidential candidates officially kicked off their campaigns, after spending millions of dollars on their primaries and unofficial...
“The Other Campaign” of “Those at the Bottom”
2005 Noviembre México
In late June 2005, the Zapatistas issued the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Forest, in which they laid out where their movement has come, how they...
The Zapatistas’ New Face: Towards a Social Left
2005 Agosto México
The Mexican anti-neoliberalism movements that focused their efforts on trying to prevent privatization of the electricity and oil industries between...
Andrés Manuel López Obrador: The Year Democracy Lived Dangerously
2005 Junio México
To tarnish the solid popularity consistently polled by Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) presidential aspirant Andrés Manuel López Obrador, currently...
Marcela Lagarde: A Feminist Battles Feminicide
2005 Mayo México
It is groups not individuals that carry out social struggles, and their success depends on the group’s power. Nonetheless, figures arise who imprint...
Disappointed with Electoral Democracy
2005 Febrero México
In July 2000, an electoral convergence finally succeeded in curtailing the monopoly of power held by Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)...
The President and the EZLN Issue Their Reports
2004 Octubre México
owards the end of the summer, two reports showed Mexicans two different ways to address the country’s basic problems and two radically different projects...
Feminicide in Ciudad Juárez: A Multidimensional Challenge
2004 Agosto México
The modern state grew out of a sort of pact in which society, to ensure that its members could live together in peace, conferred upon the state the...
The 1996 Presidential Elections Are Already Tearing the Country Apart
2004 Junio México
The thirteen weeks between the beginning of March and the end of May shook Mexico’s political life to its very core, with the contradictions and conflicts...
Rhetoric Reigned in the European-Latin American Summit
2004 Junio América Latina
The Third Summit of Heads of State of Latin America, the Caribbean and the European Union was held in Guadalajara on May 28-29. The first had taken...
Repoliticizing the Election Institute: A Severe Setback for Mexican Democracy
2004 Abril México
Democracies in Latin America are extremely fragile, and Mexico’s democracy is not only fragile but also very sick. Political theorists have described...
Working for a Different World Amid Threats of Repression
2004 Enero México
Halfway through his term in office, President Fox’s approval ratings have plummeted. According to polls conducted by the country’s leading papers,...
Good-Government Committees: A New Stage for the Zapatistas
2003 Noviembre México
Just when everyone thought the Zapatista movement had run out of
steam, the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) reemerged in July to announce...
Voters Abstain as the Old Regime Regains Force
2003 Agosto México
A lack of proposals, the marketing of empty images and a myriad of conflicts defined the parties’ legislative and gubernatorial election campaigns this...
The Birth of a New Alliance
2003 Junio México
The history of Mexico’s grassroots movements has been characterized by a search for common ground, which has been hard to find and is often short-lived....
Zapatista Chiaroscuro: The Risk of Sectarianism
2003 Abril México
The United States has forced a unilateral, illegal, unjust, genocidal invasion on the world, and countless innocent victims will pay the cost. In response,...
The Zapatistas Break their Silence
2003 Enero México
Ever since the Mexican legislative branch passed an Indigenous Law that failed to honor the San Andrés accords, the Zapatista high command and its spokesperson...
A State Denying Its Roots: Ten Million Indigenous People
2002 Octubre México
When President Fox took office, his government appeared to be interested in resolving the conflict in Chiapas. Within months, it sent Congress a bill...
Atenco: Machetes Challenge Neoliberalism
2002 Agosto México
It has been clear for several years now that Mexico City’s airport can no longer handle air traffic for the city, one of the world’s most populous. And...
Open Files in an Aborted Transition
2002 Junio México
Many cases are still open in Mexico that have yet to be resolved on behalf of the majority of the population. Meanwhile, those in power appear more interested...
The Monterrey "Consensus" in a Sea of Speeches
2002 Abril México
President Vicente Fox’s popularity continues to crumble. He began his term with a 70% approval rating, but this figure had fallen to 47% after 14 months...
The Only Thing That’s Changed Is the Party in Power
2002 Enero México
The first year of Fox’s government has been disappointing, to say the least. The course of events has demonstrated that although the presidential office...
How Wide Will the War on Terrorism Cast its Net?
2001 Octubre México
While the world massively repudiated the barbaric terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, a desire for revenge followed shock and pain among the...
The Puebla-Panama Plan and the Indigenous Law: Cut from the Same Cloth
2001 Agosto México
Mexico is bumbling forward without a clear course. As internal divisions and wounds deepen, President Vicente Fox appears less concerned about reality...
Peace in Chiapas: The Curse of Sisyphus?
2001 Junio México
Sisyphus was condemned to push a huge boulder to the top of a hill. When, after enormous effort, he was finally on the verge of completing his task,...
The Indigenous Law: A Mocking Step Backwards
2001 Mayo México
At the end of April, the Mexican Senate and House of Representatives passed a law on indigenous rights and culture. Around the world, people sympathizing...
The Zapatista Triumph: the Strength of Weakness
2001 Abril México
When the leadership of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) left its confinement in the mountains of southeast Mexico, a new political scenario...
Fox and the Zapatistas: Clearing the Path to Peace
2001 Enero México
Between his victory in Mexico’s July 2000 elections and his inauguration on December 1, President-elect Vicente Fox was wont to define his incoming administration...
Espinosa Villareal: The Tip of an Iceberg
2001 Enero México
The Mexican media have helped us learn something about the career of Oscar Espinosa Villareal, a high- ranking official in the regime of Mexico’s Institutional...
Fox’s First Moves in a Tough Transition
2000 Octubre México
Since July 2, a feeling has been growing among the Mexican people that democracy is finally here. In June 1999, according to a survey carried out by...
Beginning of the End for the PRI? Will Fox Deliver?
2000 Agosto México
On July 2, 2000, the first step was taken towards dismantling one the longest-ruling state parties in world history. The Institutional Revolutionary...
On the Eve of the Elections: A Vote of Fear or a Vote for Change?
2000 Junio México
In these last weeks leading up to the July 2 presidential and congressional elections, the situation in Mexico has become very dangerous. The population...
The PRI’s Agenda: Manipulation, Corruption and Violence
2000 Abril México
Speaking in Paris in mid-March, the governor of Mexico City, Rosario Rosales, said that the upcoming elections, the university conflict and the situation...
University Resists Neoliberal Violence
2000 Enero México
The civic rebellion against the World Trade Organization in Seattle at the end of 1999 and the civic uprising of the indigenous people of Ecuador in...
A Natural Disaster Reveals a Social One
1999 Noviembre México
The equivalent of a whole year's worth of rain fell in only three days on some areas during the first week of October. But that was only the beginning....
Alliances, Students And Chiapas: All Talks Aborted
1999 Octubre México
During the summer of 1999, Mexicans bore witness to the similar fates of three proposed talks that never came about, as the country's pressing need for...
Government’s Armor, People’s Awakening
1999 Agosto México
Several important and interconnected processes took place in Mexico in June and July. First, the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) continued...
Society and Parties on Diverging Paths
1999 Junio México
May 1999 made it patently clear that Mexico's political parties and a large part of Mexican society have very different agendas. While the parties are...
The Student Struggle Bursts onto the Stage
1999 Mayo México
The vigorous student movement of Spring 1999 is one example among many of the new social movements that are developing in a country trying to adapt to...
Zapatista Consultation of Universal Value
1999 Abril México
March 21, 1999 will be inscribed in Mexican history as the date the Zapatistas consulted Mexican society. It is worth setting the immediate context of...
The Pope, Poverty and Chiapas
1999 Enero México
The main motive of Pope John Paul II's trip to Mexico in January 1999 was to present the conclusions of the Synod of the Americas, held in Rome at the...
The Hurricanes of a Model in Crisis
1998 Diciembre México
Zedillo's solicitousness, people's solidarity Governments around the world sent aid to the disaster victims in Central America. Mexico's President...
FOBAPROA: Another State Party Crime
1998 Octubre México
Paraphrasing President Clinton's confession in the Lewinsky case, US professor George Grayson described the Mexican Bank Fund to Protect Savings (FOBAPROA)...
Fighting Poverty With Democracy
1998 Septiembre México
The new stage of capitalism has increased poverty by geometric proportions. They tell us it is the result of a natural process. We know it is the consequence...