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| Antorcha blockade at Chicoloapan (Anima Politica: http://www.animalpolitico.com/2012/09/miembros-de-antorcha-campesina-bloquean-transporte-publico-en-edomex/ |
According to several different news sources “rumors”
that Movimiento Antorcha Campesina has been attacking businesses and
homes in Nezahualcóyotl, just inside the State of Mexico are just that,
and are being denied by the state authorities (who claim nothing is
happening)-
However, media is starting to report on Antorchista blockades of metro stations (the
Mexico City Metro extends into Neza) and on social media, people are
saying masked Antorchistas cut telephone lines and were shooting at
people.
At least the blockades are confirmed, and various reports on Antorcha websites
report on confrontations between their own taxi-driver’s union and
members of a PRD-connected bicycle-taxi union which has left at least
two people dead.
Movimiento Antorcha Campesina is a PRI “popular sector”, and its
militants have been known to resort to violence before. Nezahualcóyotl
has been a PRD stronghold within the State of Mexico, which makes it
appear that a fight between two unions (basically over access to prime
pick-up locations outside Metro stations) is in reprisal for the local
voters’ continual support of the “wrong” party, with the violence said
to be targeted at businesses owned by PRD supporters and individual PRD
party members, whether connected to the bicycle-taxi union or not.
I know there were many in the “observer community” who expected some
kind of trouble following the “problematic” Peña Nieto victory, but most
were assuming the left would be blocking streets and annoying commuters
and maybe… maybe… breaking a few windows here and there. They tend to
forget that PRI violence against the left in the wake of seriously
contested elections has happened before. Following Carlos Salinas’
“victory” over Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas in 1988, there was a series of
assassinations, unexplained auto accidents and and other violent deaths
of PRD loyalists which, thankfully, did not escalate (as it easily could
have) into … politics by other means (“power comes from the barrel of a
gun”, as Mao Zedong put it).
While I have always said that Mexican politics is a blood-sport, and
have no illusions that politicians here “play nice”, I have to add that
the major violence hasn’t been coming from the Left… who tend to still
bring their library books (ok, and maybe their blackberries and cell
phone cameras, too) to what could be a gun fight.
Damn well better hope the pen is mightier than the sword (or whatever the cyber variation of that might be).
Source: The Mex Files
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