[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 66 (Tuesday, May 24, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: May 24, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
ELECTORAL REFORM IN MEXICO
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur] is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, during the debate over NAFTA, important
questions were raised about the relationship between free trade and
issues of democracy and human rights. Congress was told time and time
again that with the promotion of free trade there would be a
corresponding impetus toward true democracy in Mexico. I wish that I
could report that there is a light at the end of a very long and dark
tunnel for the Mexican people.
Mexico's ruling revolutionary institutional party has maintained
power since 1929. It continues to maintain exclusive control over
Mexico's electoral apparatus, including voter registration lists and
processes, vote tabulation systems, and all bodies responsible for
election oversight, review, and certification.
The PRI, as its known in Mexico, has shown little inclination towards
giving up power. They have selected their candidate for the upcoming
presidential elections as they always have. The process was more a
coronation than any pretense towards democracy. Now, the PRi is going
about the business of making sure their annoited candidate wins the
election. Again, as in the past, there is little that the PRI will not
do to make sure that happens.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of
American States has found Mexico in violation of Article 23 of the
American Convention on Human Rights, which requires the holding of
genuine elections that guarantee the free expression of the will of the
voters.
The Salinas government talks of the need for political reform. Yet,
the PRI, the party which Mr. Salinas is the head of, systematically has
used fraud and intimidation in many of the local elections leading up
to the presidential election this August. Electoral irregularities and
fraud were widely reported during elections held in the State of
Yucatan in December 1993, including voter turnout rates that approached
or exceeded 100 percent in at least 20 voting districts and a statewide
electrical power failure as ballots were being counted. Specific
instances of electoral fraud were also widely reported during elections
held in the State of Morelos in March 1994, including massive
manipulation of the electoral registry.
In the course of the current political campaign, the vicious cycle of
political violence and corruption in Mexico has already claimed the
lives in the PRI's first presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio,
and subsequently, the police chief of Tijuana who was investigating the
case. Mr. Colosio, who was a reformist while president of the PRI in
the late 1980's, was considered to be the candidate with the strongest
inclination toward political change.
Police Chief Jose Frederico Benitez Lopez had simply raised doubts
about the Mexican government's account of the political assassination.
While the Mexican government has been making promises for electoral
reform to the United States Government for the past couple of years,
mainly in order to get NAFTA passed, the Mexican people have heard
these same promises for decades. Years and years of broken promises
have piled up. Is it any wonder that the Mexican people doubt their own
leaders when they talk of reform? Is it any wonder that the Mexican
people have begun to take matters in their own hands?
Is it any wonder that there was an uprising in Chiapas? In alarm, the
Mexican government has tried to placate the people in Chiapas with food
and offers of land. Mr. Salinas tried to calm the situation by offering
a pardon to their leader, Subcommandante Marcos. But like Marcos, the
Mexican people have rejected these offers. Like Marcos, the Mexican
people have rejected these offers. Like Marcos, the Mexican people are
no longer interested in more pardons and paternalism.
The Mexican people are a proud nation. Yet, the Mexican Government
acts as if they were bestowing a gift to the people when speaking of
electoral reform. In return for the mere talk of reform, gratitude--and
silence--is expected.
People from all over Mexico, like Marcos, are beginning to ask: what
do the Mexican people have to be grateful for? Of not dying of hunger?
Of living in one of the slums along the border? Of having to fight for
what they believe in? For the basic rights of liberty, justice and
democracy that any free people are entitled to?
And to whom exactly should they be grateful to? To those Mexican
elites who for years and years have kept them down? To the U.S.
corporations who give the Mexican people a couple of dollars for a hard
day's work? To the Mexican Government for promising everything under
the Sun but delivering nothing? To the U.S. Government for signing
NAFTA?
There is a price to pay for ignoring a people's longstanding calls
for true democracy and justice as illustrated by the rebellion in
Mexico's poorest State. Chiapas. The rebellion should serve as a
reminder to those who set policies and priorities in Mexico--and here
in the United States as well--that a people wanting change will be
ignored for only so long.
This year Mexico is facing one of the most pivotal national elections
in its history. Mexico now has before it both the opportunity and the
challenge to achieve desperately needed political and social reforms.
We, in the United States, have a solemn duty to support this process
of reform in Mexico. It is not enough to simply enrich big business and
the Mexican elites through trade agreements like NAFTA. It is our duty
to see that all people, both Mexican and American, are truly free and
prosperous. The way the upcoming elections in Mexico are conducted will
say much about whether that country is on the road to true democracy or
not.
____________________