The Fight Against Corruption

In Mexico, following the current government’ symbolic first 100 days, we are entering the phase of achieving goals, although there seems to be an endless supply of such goals. Various reforms are on show and we needn’t go into them because they have been well publicised. Key issues have been energy and education, as well as tax and treasury policy. These are not lightweight issues, rather each one is loaded with importance for the country’s immediate future.

One of the fundamental issues, which I discussed in my previous article, is that of the new strategy for fighting corruption. Contrary to what is mistakenly said in certain circles, Mexico is not a country full of corrupt individuals, nor do crooks predominate. If that was the case, the country would have gone to the dogs. In our country, despite how widespread antisocial behaviour has been, there is a strong core of honesty and integrity. The country’s small and medium-sized communities show this unceasingly, even though those places have the highest levels of marginalisation and neglect. This shows that a lack of honesty is not bred by poverty but by exploitation and discrimination. The Mexican people who live in these communities, who are in the majority, are honourable and willing to fight against corruption when their leaders and those in government firmly and credibly strike out along that path, setting a strong, efficient example.

An important gap in the aims of the Pact for Mexico is without a doubt this, the fight against malpractice. It is not a case of applying cosmetic remedies to the situation, with simple words or nothing more than intentions, as was the case under previous governments; rather it is time to develop a real strategy which will allow the country to reduce those terrible practices as far as possible, coupled with profound changes in the education system. Many honest efforts from government, which have always been present, are smothered by the scepticism about their existence, particularly when they are not evenly applied but are selective or motivated by a clearly obsessive and unhealthy political persecution that is not applied to businesspeople or politicians.

Democratic and independent unions, including the miners’ union, have been hindered in part due to this negative image projected by other organisations that do not espouse the principles of honesty or dignity. We have been the victims of a kind of malign and perverse complex that applies the same label to different groups, in a fierce attack on the unions and the working class in general, without pausing to study each individual case with the truth and the facts to hand.

A campaign was recently launched against the miners’ union, which attempted to invent a supposed collaboration with the legal defence of a teachers’ union leader against the criminal accusations she is facing. It must be made clear that it is not the miners’ union nor its leader who have embarked upon this collaboration, but simply the lawyer, who defends us efficiently; he has taken on the case because it fits with his professional interests. Thus miners’ fight is not contaminated by other situations.

Anti-corruption efforts at all levels and in all sectors should have a dedicated section in the current government’s programme. How can it be that the miners’ union has been politically pursued for over seven years, and to date there are no signs of change in this demented aggression? Such aggression is promoted by certain unscrupulous individuals who have made their fortune from mining and who attempt to conjure away the accusations of their own corruption by attributing it to the miners. This absolute minority of businessmen, however, do not represent the opinions nor the political will of the huge majority of companies who operate in this sector, which is strategic in the country’s economy.

The current government must urgently turn its back on escapist approaches and face the problems of the mining, metalwork and steelwork sector head on, above all when we see that certain people in this sector will not desist in their new judicial and eternally shameful persecution of the miners’ union and its leaders, and when a biased judge decides to artificially revive an apprehension order which now tens of judges and tribunals have declared unfounded on more than four occasions on the grounds that it is unconstitutional.

Despite this political persecution the miner’s union has repeatedly been highly successful in its reviews of wages and benefits at the companies with which it maintains labour relations. This, along with the recognition its leader enjoys from workers and the great majority of the sector’s companies, should be proof of the union’s honesty and transparency. So far in 2013 there have been 10 wage or contractual revisions, and in all of those the miners’ organisation has obtained increases across the board of an average 14 percent, well above the rate of inflation and a lot higher than the increases obtained by other unions. This continues the trend of the last seven years.

The judge’s latest accusation, surely motivated by interests that are neither legal nor professional, means that corrupt of mining barons, who have got rich through unchecked exploitation, are cynically and defiantly trying to intimidate the current government so that it will not attempt to impose legal order on the situation in the mining sector and bring justice to the miners and their union organisation. This is a new illegitimate pressure that today’s government must resist and not give in to. By doing so they will show that the strategy for the fight against corruption is a firm goal.

The New Strategy

In deciding to arrest the leader of the National Education Workers’ Union, the current government has shown its determination to change the country, starting by establishing a policy of combating corruption and impunity. This is the clear message of one of the decisions that has most shaken up our country of late. However, this should not be indiscriminately directed at unions, which have faced the brunt of the basest instincts, but also at innumerable politicians, businesspeople, journalists and media, judges, magistrates and ministers, lawyers’ offices, priests, chambers of commerce and others besides.

The President is taking such action because he made a promise to a nation tired of injustices, inequalities and a lack of rights, heading for failure, just as John F. Kennedy and Barack H. Obama have both made promises to the people of the United States at certain critical times. Moreover, Mexico has no other alternative and the worlds of politics, work, finance and culture are watching it. Confidence is gained by raising the moral standards of a society and its government, and by correctly interpreting and applying justice, which must be transparent.

Their ineptitude and corruption have meant that the PAN (National Action Party) governments led by Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón have been condemned to oblivion and mediocrity. This new government has a unique historic opportunity, and by absolutely no means should it follow the path of the persecution and attacks on the working class and their honest, democratic leaders. They need stronger principles and ethical values than those of many of the people who are attacking the teachers’ union. The message must be clear. It is not a question of political vengeance, but rather of a strategy to control runaway ambition and insulting opulence. As well as this, they must develop strategies, in other ways and in other spaces, to correct the irrational exploitation of the nation’s natural resources through concessions and permits, blackmail, privileged information and trading in influence, which are only accessible to those close to the inner circles of power.

Justice must not be selective because then it is not justice. Therein is crux of the case of some corporate groups that have previously been named here, which pay little or no taxes, as exposed by the data published here in La Jornada by the distinguished columnist Carlos Fernández-Vega in January 2010 when he clearly identified a tax debt from 42 companies amounting to 223,707.9 million Pesos. This includes certain companies from the mining sector like Germán Larrea’s Grupo México with a debt of 11,939.1 million, Alberto Bailleres’ Grupo Peñoles with 6,124.14 million pending payment and Alonso Ancira Elizondo’s Altos Hornos de México which to date owes 6,666 million.

It would be very easy for the Treasury Ministry to demand the payment of these debts, which in many cases are confirmed frauds, going even as far as the non-payment of taxes upon the sale of businesses. Furthermore, some of these same consortiums have received hundred of mining concessions and other sinecures, to the extent that more than 25 percent of the national territory has been given away in concessions to Mexican and foreign companies. That is to say, the hypocrisy of some businesspeople and certain media outlets has turned the strategy of media coverage and social attacks into a web of complicity in business and political influence, in both cases founded on the manipulation and confusion of the population. The truth is that very few of these assailants would pass the test of transparency and social scrutiny, because their hands are stained.

Some of these businesspeople are so cynical and high-handed that they talk about the politicians who are in power disdainfully and sarcastically, and they manipulate them to their own ends. They still take the liberty of announcing big investments that benefit them, so as to impress improvised and superficial politicians who when it comes down to it have no notion or feeling of how to identify and resolve social needs because they are only concerned with power and profits and spare no love for Mexico. They are sinister characters who in one article I called bodies without souls. In the political sphere we have seen the cases of barefaced corruption in recent PAN governments, led by Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón, as well as some led by other parties.

As things currently stand, a single sector of society has been demonised: the working class. Many people forget that the unions have in fact, despite their flaws, been a force for balance, stability and social peace for many decades. They conveniently forget that workers have the right to act in accordance with the Constitution, the Federal Labour Law and Agreement 87 of the International Workers’ Organisation, and that union leaders are workers, just as the heads of companies are shareholders.

Mexico hopes that this high-profile case will be the start of a process of real change to eliminate or combat impunity and ensure that the state of law is respected, and not an isolated case. It is the political moment to establish a visionary strategy for the State, one that avoids unleashing persecution and the worst instincts of Mexicans whose frustration and impotence cause them to react in that way, faced with what is perceived as the lack of a better future for our country.