August 20, 2007
Debt, Development and Discord in Sonora, Mexico
Frontera NorteSur
Notwithstanding world financial jitters, the Mexican state of Sonora's unicameral legislature
approved a controversial debt package last week. Passed by an 18-13 vote, the plan allows Sonora to contract new debts
exceeding $1 billion to pay for development projects. Pushed by Governor Eduardo Bours, of the Institutional Revolutionary
Party (PRI), the new debt ceiling is in addition to the estimated $500 million currently owed by Sonora.
The center-right
National Action Party (PAN), which earlier proposed limiting the amount of the new debt, criticized the legislative action.
Florencio Diaz Armenta, leader of the PAN fraction in the state legislature, lamented that his party's amendments were not
approved. Arguing that the new debt creates a 30 year-burden, Diaz said Gov. Bours' Plan Sonora "puts the future of the state
at risk, and will force the new generations to pay for projects that will not even later function."
On the other side
of the political aisle, Gov. Bours received support from the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). While two
elected PRD representatives were conveniently absent for the vote, fellow legislator Juan Manuel Sauceda Morales voted in
favor of the debt bill. Sauceda's vote flew in the face of a directive from the PRD's national committee instructing its Sonora
legislators to vote against the debt plan.
PRD President Leonel Cota warned that legislators voting for the Bours
plan would be expelled from the party. Cota charged that Gov. Bours was plunging Sonora deeper into debt so he could purchase
the Calmex tuna canning firm from the federal government for a $60 million price tag.
PRD legislator Sauceda
countered that he voted for Plan Sonora because it was in the best interests of Sonora's population. "I didn't sell out,"
Sauceda maintained. "It was a reasoned decision, with technical bases. I know there is a political cost to pay in the next
election, but I assume it."
Prior to the legislative vote, Gov. Bours toured three Catholic churches undergoing restoration
in the state capital of Hermosillo. The state's chief executive declared that he prayed every day for passage of his Plan
Sonora, a project he contended is "for the good of the entire population."
While Gov. Bours was praying for political
blessing, violence erupted in a renewed labor conflict between workers and the powerful Grupo Mexico corporation. On the evening
of Saturday, August 11, a group of about 90 dismissed workers of the La Caridad copper mine in northern Sonora was headed
for a protest at the mine when a clash broke out with an opposing group.
Followers of National Mineworkers Union
President Napoleon Gomez, the workers claimed that Grupo Mexico’s “white guards,” who allegedly attacked
workers and burned cars, ambushed them. Protestor Reynaldo Hernandez was killed in the melee. Carlos Pavon Campos, political
affairs secretary for the union, charged that more than 20 workers were injured and 15 detained and tortured by Sonora state
policemen. Pavon accused the state police of trying to pin the blame for Hernandez's death on union supporters.
Gov.
Bours challenged the union's version of the incident, saying that only six persons were arrested in connection with Hernandez’s
death. Denying that a national union represents La Caridad's miners, Gov. Bours blamed the incident on promises made by the
mineworkers' union to reinstall former workers.
The La Caridad confrontation came while union miners pressed forward
a strike against Grupo Mexico's nearby Cananea copper mine. The Cananea work action began late last month over contract issues
but now includes pay grievances as well.
Union spokesman Pavon charged that Grupo Mexico, with the connivance of state
and federal authorities, was turning mining districts into hostile territories for labor and human rights. Hundreds of copper
workers are laboring 12-hour shifts without benefits or contracts, he contended. "The ministries of Interior and Labor don't
exist," Pavon said, adding that the union will request the intervention of the National Human Rights Commission.
The
Sonora copper strike is drawing increased national and international attention. Mexico's influential National Workers Union
and the Authentic Union of Nuclear Industry Workers have expressed solidarity with the Sonora strikers.
In a letter to Mexican President Felipe Calderon, the United Steelworkers of America pledged
to lobby against economic and security aid to Mexico in the U.S. Congress unless there is justice for dead Mexican miners.
In
Sonora, meanwhile, Gov. Bours dispatched 80 additional state policemen for strike duty. He rejected the notion that a state
of siege exists in Sonora's copper country. Grupo Mexico did not immediately issue any statements about the latest events
in the labor conflict.
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Sources: La Jornada, August 15 and 16, 2007. Articles by Ulises Gutierrez R. El Universal, August
14, 2007. Article by Marcelo Beyliss. Proceso/Apro, August 13, 2007. Associated Press, August 14, 2007. Article by Paul
Kiernan.
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Frontera
NorteSur (FNS)
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico
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(Reprinted with authorization
from Frontera NorteSur, a free, on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news source. FNS can be found at http://frontera.nmsu.edu/)
Translation FNS
