From our comrades of the IFICC
Some internationalist communists, Montreal
cim_...@yahoo.com

Terrorist Bombing in Mexico :Repression against the working class and militarization of the country

During the national Independence Day of Mexico, the night of September 15th, two fragmentation grenades were dropped in the multitude which was in the street of the city of Morelia 1. They were 7 dead and more than one hundred wounded. It's true that in Mexico, the social struggles are frequently repressed and that often they end up in murders and slaughters (let's recall the recent cases of Atenco and Oaxaca). It's also true that, these last years, in the context of the so-called "war against drug traffic", there have been in Mexico more and more savage confrontations and murders (tens of deaths, included tortures and bloody murders) against the working population. We don't mention the state of siege which has been imposed in more and more cities (police road blocks, identity checks, soldiers and tanks in the streets...). Nevertheless, a blindly slaughter as the one which has occurred, against workers and their families who didn't but have fun in the streets, is a fact with no precedent in the country. It marks, so to say, Mexico's entrance in the "years of terrorism", it means massacres with no other meaning that the one of terrorizing the working population as we saw these last years in New-York, Madrid, London... or in Iraq.

Nobody claimed this massacre. According to the official version, it would be a response of one of the narcos groups in front of the so-called "fight" led by the government against them. Nevertheless, who ever threw the grenades - if behind the bombing there is not the hand of the State itself -, it is sure that this massacre is only useful to the bourgeoisie and its State. Actually, the next day, President Calderon 2 made a speech calling for "the unity of Mexicans which supposes to support the task of the State against the traitors and the enemies who want to divide the Nation", since "we can have different opinions... but we can't attack the State". It means that the bombing enabled the bourgeoisie to relaunch with more strength its ideological campaigns which require the working class and all the exploited workers to accept the increasing militarization of the country and all the imposed sacrifices, to go on behind the capitalist State without protesting. In the opposite case, they would be considered as being part of the category of the "enemies" and "traitors to the Nation".

Thus the bourgeoisie aims at making accept by the workers not only that some countryside regions or small cities be permanently patrolled by the army, but also that great cities, as it is the case today of Morelia - Capital of the Michoacán State -, be placed under a genuine curfew. So we see the reactivation of the "Plan Mérida" and the offers of the United-States to "help" the Mexican government in the militarization of the country. We also see how all the parties of capital, Right, Center or Left (PAN, PRI and PRD) unite and accept Calderon's proposal - made a few days before the bombing - to increase by 40% the budget for "security" (it means more policemen, more soldiers, more prisons and arms) even though this means "to sacrifice other sectors ",in particular the health one as they've just announced. It is striking that the workers of the public sector of Health in Michoacán who were on strike since September 11th, and whose main demand is the "basification" 3, it means a permanent job (which didn't prevent them to quickly treat the wounded of the bombing), have received the unique response - of the Left local State administration as well as the Right Federal government - the order to return back to work without protestation.

It's clear thus that the "war against the narco-traffic" is only an excuse for the bourgeoisie to increase the militarization of the country and the repression against the working class and other exploited workers. All the supposed "security" measures - from the video cameras of surveillance of the streets, the identity checks in the cities and the road blockage at the cities exits and on the roads, the police searches in the homes, the increase of the number of anti-riot police as the PFP (Federal Police), up to the soldiers patrolling in the streets with heavy guns - are directed against the working class, against any attempt of protesting and of struggle against capitalism and the situation of misery and exploitation.
All this proves that the militarization of the country is directly directed against the working class. On one hand, the Mexican bourgeoisie now imposes to the workers greater economical sacrifices for this militarization thus following the path of the bourgeoise of the whole world aiming at preparing itself to a future generalized imperialist war ; and without mentioning that, at its term, the only perspective capitalism offers us - to carry on existing - is imperialist war and the most incredible massacre.

On the other hand, the militarization is also directed in an immediate and palpable manner in the sense that, in Mexico as well as the rest of the world, the working class isn't defeated. On the contrary, seeing its angriness and its militancy growing, the bourgeoisie is obliged to confront it at the same time by leading its attacks more frontal and harder on the ideological, political, economical and... repression ground.

So, the working class can't accept resignedly all this increasing militarization of society of which it is the main target and, already today, the main victim. Its own fate is in its hands as Humanity's one. To end up with the present capitalist system in decay which can't offer but misery and repression, and a future of imperialist war of generalized barbaria. In front of this situation, and contrary to what the State apparatus and the bourgeoisie's medias deal us out about the resignation and the "unity" with its exploiters, the working class must carry on developing with a redoubled energy its class struggles, spreading them to all sectors, cementing its unity and its organization. Its struggles constitute, already now, the only brake on capitalism's barbaria and the only perspective for transforming radically society through a revolutionary movement of the world proletariat.

Internal Fraction of the ICC, September 19th, 2008.

1. Morelia is the capital of the State of Michoacán in México. It has more than 600 000 inhabitants.
2. Felipe Calderón is the present President of México.
3. The "basification is the permanent and undefined (in times) contract which is increasingly rare in the public sector while the temporary and with no social benefits contracts are rising. The national medias have censured the information about this strike and they have told about just before the bombing.