Popular sovereignty is at risk. Actions of the political class show an increasingly strong detachment from the constitutional requirement embodied in Article 39, that the public power serves the people and not foreign interests or groups. In response, it is urgent to multiply and consolidate independent spaces for exchange, analysis, thoroughness and citizen mobilization throughout the Republic. If we do not exercise our constitutional rights today, tomorrow they will vanish completely along with national sovereignty.
The national debate has already been privatized. From the beginning of this administration, public discussions in Congress have been replaced by high-level meetings between politicians inside the so-called Pact for Mexico without popular representation. But apparently this mantle of darkness is now not enough for the politicians. Now they want to free themselves entirely from any responsibility to the citizenry.
PAN Deputy Rubén Caramillo has publicly confessed that there is a "group of negotiators" who meet in secret to discuss details of the next energy reform. César Camacho, who presides over both the PRI [Party of the Institutional Revolution] and the Governing Council of the Pact for Mexico, has clarified that these negotiations are not occurring "within the context of the pact".
We do not know, then, who makes up this small committee, or what is said there. We have only been informed that from the point of view of the PAN [National Action Party], "there no masks" or "false nationalism". In other words, totally excluded would be any representative of the nearly 16 million citizens who in the last presidential election expressed their strong rejection of any privatization of Pemex by their vote for the only candidate who defended this principle during the campaign, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
What remains of the political class is no longer interested in organizing media spectacles to simulate taking the citizenry into account. They have decided to entrench themselves in the darkest caverns of corruption in order to agree on sharing the oil pie directly with the national oligarchy and international finance capital.
Everything seems to indicate that the new "anti-terrorism" reform presented by Enrique Peña Nieto last week emerged from the same catacombs. It is not the Mexican citizenry, but U.S. authorities who demand that the federal government toughen penalties for terrorism, as well as expand its definition to include attacks on anyone associated with a foreign government. As happened with the reforms to Article 27 of the Constitution to permit the sale of coastal properties to foreigners and with the authorization of one hundred percent foreign investment in telecommunications, once again the politicians are favoring the interests of a foreign nation above those of the Mexican people.
Cynically, this "anti-terrorism" reform is presented as a measure to prevent the criminalization of social protest when in reality the opposite is true. The relevance of the new section of Article 139 of the Federal Criminal Code (CPF) is not a superfluous reiteration of the necessary protection of human rights already protected by the Constitution, but the inclusion of a grave exception to this rule. Specifically, the reform formally authorizes the government to accuse as terrorists and imprison for up to 40 years members of any "social group" that in their mobilization process "threatens the legal rights of individuals". It is clear that this is aimed at the CNTE teachers and the young people of the UNAM [National Autonomous University of Mexico; #YoSoy132], and the intention is to strengthen the strategy of sending violent agitators [provocateurs] to peaceful protests.
Cynically, this "anti-terrorism" reform is presented as a measure to prevent the criminalization of social protest when in reality the opposite is true. The relevance of the new section of Article 139 of the Federal Criminal Code (CPF) is not a superfluous reiteration of the necessary protection of human rights already protected by the Constitution, but the inclusion of a grave exception to this rule. Specifically, the reform formally authorizes the government to accuse as terrorists and imprison for up to 40 years members of any "social group" that in their mobilization process "threatens the legal rights of individuals". It is clear that this is aimed at the CNTE teachers and the young people of the UNAM [National Autonomous University of Mexico; #YoSoy132], and the intention is to strengthen the strategy of sending violent agitators [provocateurs] to peaceful protests.
If lawmakers really wanted to protect citizens' movements, they would not seek to include a dangerous and misleading new section ... of Article 139 of the Criminal Penal Code (CPC). They would simply abolish the reference to "pressure the authorities to make a decision" as part of the definition of a terrorist act included in the first paragraph of that same article. And if it is about redefining relations with U.S. government agents, the first step must be the disarmament of all foreign agents operating in Mexico and the expulsion of those who have violated national sovereignty by improper meddling in law enforcement.
The Mexican government should also immediately initiate a broad investigation of spying on citizens, businesses and Mexican officials by the U.S. government. A few days ago, the British newspaper The Guardian announced practices of indiscriminate and widespread infiltration by the U.S. government in nearly all electronic communications that occur in the world by companies like Google, YouTube, Apple and Skype. In the United States, it is debated whether the activities discovered would be illegal when they include communications by U.S. citizens, but no one denies the massive interception of communications in other countries, including Mexico.
If the federal government and the Congress do not act immediately on the matter, suspicion will be generated that the governments of Calderón and Peña Nieto might be complicit in this invasion of the privacy of Mexicans by using the information collected in their "wars" against drugs and social movements.
Article 39 of the Constitution states that the "people at all times have the inalienable right to alter or modify their form of government". The time has come to reject unequivocally the current authoritarianism in order to demand a true democracy in which the politicians are accountable to the citizens and not to the powers that be or to foreigners. Spanish original
*John M. Ackerman, U.S. born and trained scholar (Ph.D. in political sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz), is also a Mexican citizen. He is a researcher in the Institute of Judicial Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico [UNAM] and editorial director of the Mexican Law Review. A columnist for La Jornada newspaper and Proceso magazine, Dr. Ackerman maintains a blog of his articles in Spanish, as well as some in English. Twitter: @JohnMAckerman
*John M. Ackerman, U.S. born and trained scholar (Ph.D. in political sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz), is also a Mexican citizen. He is a researcher in the Institute of Judicial Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico [UNAM] and editorial director of the Mexican Law Review. A columnist for La Jornada newspaper and Proceso magazine, Dr. Ackerman maintains a blog of his articles in Spanish, as well as some in English. Twitter: @JohnMAckerman