The Marxist-Leninist Daily

On October 15, the last machines in operation at the Beaupré paper mill north of Quebec City, owned by forest monopoly AbitibiBowater, were idled indefinitely, leaving 350 workers without the means to a livelihood. Described as "AbitibiBowater's laboratory," the Beaupré mill produced commercial paper using state-of-the-art technology and paper production methods. According to AbitibiBowater management, operations were halted at the plant for 21 weeks this year to maintain paper production at a minimum as a result of "declining North American paper demand."

The Beaupré mill, inaugurated in 1926, was considered for many years ground-breaking for its development of new technologies that would then be introduced in other plants. The plant produced added-value paper for the commercial print sector, such as books, magazines, inserts, companies' annual reports, instruction manuals and flyers.

At the same time AbitibiBowater closed the Donnacona paper mill south of Quebec City in November 2008, management stepped up its praise of the technical efficiency of the Beaupré plant and the fact it was "going green," ostensibly to guarantee future production and maintain a livelihood for the workers. "If we were able to weather the crisis in the pulp and paper industry it was not only because of the direction we had taken. More importantly it was as a result of employee involvement," Beaupré plant general manger Tommy Jones stated at the time. In less than two years however, the mill has laid off around a hundred workers.

In the first few months of 2008, the Beaupré workers set no less than 8 production records. New production processes were installed which reduced the use of wood fibre by 50 percent in certain types of paper through the use of groundwood pulp. Chlorine bleaching was replaced with a "greener" and less expensive hydrogen peroxide process.

The ruling class, their economic experts and the Charest government repeat daily that businesses must be competitive globally and that increased productivity and concessions from workers are the guarantee that industrial production will be maintained. They go so far as to say that forestry workers should not complain and should "retrain" because the sector has become "obsolete." The only security possible for workers is to accept the dictate of monopolies such as AbitibiBowater and never-ending concessions, they say.

AbitibiBowater, with the complicity of the Charest government and the ruling circles, is in the process of completely destroying its production capacity by perpetuating the continued theft of Quebec's social and natural wealth through transfer to the U.S. and the financial oligarchy.

Ever since the forestry monopoly placed itself under bankruptcy protection legislation in Canada and the U.S., its unbridled race to destroy its production capacity to the maximum carries on without any government even bothering to intervene to guarantee a means of survival to workers and communities. Far from it, the Quebec Superior Court is allowing AbitibiBowater to suspend its contributions to the pension plan while under bankruptcy legislation protection. AbitibiBowater's various pension funds are largely underfunded and the decision of Quebec's courts allows AbitibiBowater to continue pilfering workers' pension funds. The action of the Quebec State vis-à-vis the crisis in forestry is to affirm monopoly right, devise all kinds of strategies to pay the rich and rid the monopolies of all their obligations.

Now more than ever the only security for forestry workers lies in the struggle to restrain monopoly right and affirm their own rights as the producers of the wealth. Refusal by the working class to allow the social wealth to be squandered is the only way to put an end to the crisis in forestry. The solutions of the monopolies and the Charest government have only given rise to maximum destruction and chaos in forestry. So it is crucial that the solutions of the working class prevail so as to build a pro-social and sovereign economy.

Fascization, Impunity and
Protection of Big Monopolies

Mexico City, October 14, 2009: Thousands of electrical workers demonstrate against the closure of capital's
state electric enterprise Luz y Fuerza del Centro. (Photos: Infoshop News)

From October 2-24 Mexico's Felipe Calderón government launched an all out offensive aimed at ensuring the transfer of millions of pesos to the big monopolies.

First, the government tabled a series of legislative measures for adoption so that millions of pesos that had been accumulated could be used by 'AFORES' (state bodies that manage the accumulated pensions funds of Mexican workers and people) on the stock market to invest in private companies involved in road infrastructure construction. This measure provides the monopolies with direct access to millions of pesos that are used to guarantee the pensions and benefits of the Mexican people without having to invest in venture capital on stock markets.

Then on October 6, the government, through Lazaro Alarcón, its Minister of the Secretariat of Labour and Social Provision, ordered the firing of all members of the Mexican Electrical Workers' Union (SME) Central Committee and its General Secretary C. Martin Esparaza Flores.

These actions against the democratic and constitutional rights of electrical workers and their defence organization were presented by the government (and massively disseminated in all the monopoly media) as action against corruption, incompetence and the refusal of the workers and the union leaders of the Luz y Fuerza del Centro company, the state enterprise which provides electrical service to the Mexican capital, to collaborate.

In response to this attack on their rights, the Luz y Fuerza del Centro workers called upon Mexican workers and all sections of the population to unite in defence of the constitutional and democratic right to organize and to do so without interference from the state in their internal affairs. They also denounced the propaganda campaign orchestrated in the media against electrical workers as a manoeuvre to divide the workers and, in particular, smash the organization which has been fighting for 95 years without compromise in defence of the workers, against neo-liberal policies and against the privatization of oil.

The attack on the Mexican electrical workers' union is an attack on the rights of all Mexican workers. Marches in the streets of the Federal District were organized on October 7 with the call to create the National Popular Resistance Front.

In the face of pressure from workers, the government formed a negotiating committee responsible for seeking a solution to the crisis it had caused through its interference in the union's internal affairs. Very quickly it became clear to union leaders that the negotiating committee's sole aim was to have them submit entirely to the government's decisions and collaborate with the privatization of the state enterprise. In the face of this finding, the union leaders refused to pursue such "negotiations" and withdrew from the process.

On the evening of October 10, the government sent in federal police and the army to occupy all the Luz y Fuerza del Centro facilities. One hour after the police and army had taken control of all the state enterprise's installations Mexican President Felipe Calderón issued a decree ordering the complete dissolution of the state enterprise and its 43,000 jobs, along with the transfer of its activities to the Federal Electrical Commission (CFE), the state enterprise responsible for electrical service in the rest of the country.

Besides accusing the workers of corruption and incompetence to justify its decree, the government heaped blame on them because the business had not been "profitable." The government claims that since its creation in 1975 the state enterprise has operated at a loss and required government subsidies in order to carry on. Furthermore, the government opined that it would have had to invest 42 million pesos into the company this year, which in a period of crisis it decided against.

The fact is that the Luz y Fuerza del Centro state enterprise was created in 1975 out of government determination to isolate a fighting section of electrical workers. During that period a struggle had broken out nationally against privatization of state electricity production and services. Unable to contain the movement the government divided the state enterprise in two, creating the CFE responsible for the production and servicing of electricity on all Mexican territory and Luz y Fuerza del Centro, charged with electricity distribution and service in the Mexican capital. In that way, the government cut the organizational strength of electrical workers, by isolating the heart of the movement into a sole enterprise on the capital's territory and ensuring that the fighting elements were drowned in a large national corporation while ensuring that elements in the service of government interests were part of the union leadership.

The aim of the manoeuvre was not only to smash the electrical union's militant forces, but also to be able to dissolve the capital's state electric enterprise in the long term. To accomplish this, right from the time of the creation of Luz y Fuerza, the government banned it from ensuring its own energy production by forcing it to purchase from the CFE all the energy it required to ensure its service, and to boot at an even higher price than for the rest of the country, while selling its own electricity in the capital at a price lower than in the rest of the country. This explains why the Luz y Fuerza del Centro enterprise has always been in a deficit position. As a result, the Luz y Fuerza del Centro workers have never been able to maintain or acquire the necessary equipment in sufficient quantity to be able to guarantee their work, which is why the quality of service in the capital was not as good as in the rest of the country. It should also be noted that the federal district groups together 30 percent of Mexico's entire population, or over 30 million people. Furthermore by concentrating all production, maintenance and service in the hands of the CFE, the government is in a position to achieve two of its objectives: first, the elimination of a major obstacle in the realization of its plans to privatize diverse sections of the state enterprise and secondly, to again be able to extract millions of pesos from the state enterprise and place it in the hands of the big monopolies (just like Hydro-Québec).

The dissolution of Luz y Fuerza del Centro is in violation of no less than 21 clauses of the Mexican Constitution, such as article 27 which defines the electrical enterprise as a "national enterprise" belonging to the Mexican people and whose existence is therefore guaranteed by the Constitution.

On October 15 SME leaders organized yet another march in the streets of the capitol, this time uniting 300,000 workers from all sectors as well as numerous youth and calling for the formalization of the National Popular Resistance Front.

During the week of October 16-24 the government approved new legislative measures for the revision of the law on income tax and on taxation under the pretext of developing a plan to emerge from the present crisis and ensure the future development of the Mexican economy.

Accordingly, by order of the Calderón government through the finance ministry, PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) and PAN (National Action Party) elected members increased the federal sales tax from 15 to 16 cents, raised all telecommunications rates by 3 percent, increased the cost of tobacco by 85 percent, that of beer by 26 percent, alcoholic beverages by 3 pesos per bottle and also voted to increase from 2 to 3 percent the fee for cash deposits of 15,000 pesos. They also increased to 30 percent the rate on income tax on revenue (ISR) for individuals and corporations.

President Calderón of PAN had promised while campaigning not to increase income taxes and not to touch small and medium-size businesses. Similarly PRI swore during the recent election campaign where its members were elected not to increase taxes. Now they are doing the opposite.

Finally, the Calderón government has authorized foreign businesses Monsanto, Pioneer and Dupont to grow genetically modified corn on Mexican territory, another attack on Mexican national agriculture at the hands of foreign monopolies.

On November 5 a rally of the National Popular Resistance Front will be held with the aim of launching the organization of the resistance committees in businesses, education centres and neighbourhoods. The current goal is to work to demand the restitution of the Luz y Fuerza enterprise, the abolition of government polices to use pension funds to invest in the stock markets, the annulment of tax policies and increases as well as the impeachment of Calderón as president. All of this is to be discussed at the November 5 meeting.

The Path to Sovereignty Is the Only Way Forward

When the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into being, it consecrated the "friendship and association" between Canada and the U.S. This treaty led to the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) and to the Plan Mexico or the Merida Initiative, which together signify the economic, political and military integration of Mexico into the United States of North American Monopolies.

The military integration intensified with the participation by Mexico, at the invitation of U.S. President Obama and under U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's directions, in the military manoeuvres of the U.S. Southern Command in Mayport, Florida from April 20 to May 5, 2009, at exactly the same period as the country was paralyzed by a wave of panic -- fomented by the government -- over the swine flu epidemic in Mexico. Participating in the naval manoeuvres was the 4th Fleet, which had operated from 1943 to 1950 in the wake of World War II and in the fight against fascism, keeping an eye on South America. Now, 58 years later this same 4th Fleet has been re-established to patrol Latin America with nuclear submarines facing the anti-imperialist movements like those of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. During Hillary Clinton's visit on March 26, 2009 she and President Felipe Calderón announced the establishment of the Joint Implementation Centre to coordinate the action of the armies and police forces of both countries in Mexico. The following day, Calderón asked the Senate to approve the participation -- for the first time in Mexico's history -- in the U.S. naval manoeuvres, trampling underfoot Article 73 of the Constitution, which prohibits the subordination of the Mexican army to foreign armies. The influenza scandal was used by the media to divert attention from this serious event.

Why is Mexico submitting to the aggressive designs of the Empire? The USA has seized more than half of our national territory and its army attacked and invaded Mexico more than 20 times during the 19th and 20th centuries. Who do we have to defend ourselves against? The pretext is the war against criminal gangs and the drug trade. But who controls these networks? It's in the USA where the drugs are bought, distributed and consumed; it's in the USA where the money is laundered directly in the banks; it's in the USA where the arms are sold then brought into Mexico. Who instigates the drug problem? The intervention of the U.S. army maintains the production of drugs. Colombia continues to be the primary producer of cocaine. Afghanistan is once again the primary producer of opium and when Vietnam was invaded by the Americans it became a major producer of heroin. U.S. military intervention is the problem, not the solution. And now Mexico is being integrated militarily to the USA as a culmination of North American "association and friendship."

But what type of friendship is this? What type of association are we talking about? Because what is really at issue is the treachery of the Wall of Death along the U.S.-Mexican border; the criminalization of Mexicans working in the U.S. without permits, as if working was a crime; their confinement in modern concentration camps; and now Canada has put up another wall by demanding visas from Mexicans: "friends," "associates," "dear Mexican colleagues"... Is this friendship? This past August, in the most disgusting fashion, the Harper government gave Mexicans 48 hours to obtain their visas -- thousands of Mexicans who had already paid their tickets and their accommodation in Canada, and the 280,000 Mexicans who travel to Canada every year, the majority of whom make the trip in August and pay for their flights and their hotels in advance, often for entire families. The demand for a visa forced them to wait for hours outside the embassy for the necessary papers to be provided.

And boy, did they impose conditions on the Mexicans! There has never been such a convoluted process in the history of diplomatic relations. The most ingenious mind cannot imagine the demands made on a tourist who simply wants to visit Canadian friends for a few days. To get a visa a Mexican has to give information on all their bank accounts, the deed for the house, receipt for the car, a letter from the business or the institution where they work, permission from their boss to travel during the given days, hotel bills or all the information about the person they will visit in Canada, number of residents in their home and the income of these people with supporting documents.

They ask Mexicans about all the jobs they have held throughout their life, with the salaries at each place; all the addresses at which they have lived with the warning that they can't leave any period blank; and all the places they studied since they were a child. They demand all the information about the whole family -- father, sons, wife, brothers and sisters -- birth dates, residences, where they work or study -- in a truly fascist interrogation that goes directly to the intelligence services. Oh yes, and the most important -- how much money are they going to spend? Moreover, everybody has to pay hundreds of dollars (depending on whether it is for one visit or multiple entries) with the admonition that this money is to pay for the "service" with no guarantee that they'll get the document.

The racist and class-oriented criteria they are using to give visas to Mexicans show that they don't want us as visitors or friends but as temporary workers without rights and subject to the boss. There are currently 18,000 Mexican temporary workers in Canada and they are now talking about extending this kind of hiring to the dairy industry, cattle farms, milk producers and other branches.

From Mexico, the North American monopolies want cheap manpower. In Canada prisoners are sometimes paid salaries of $5 to $7 per day. Well, that is the minimum daily wage in Mexico. A real bargain for the North American monopolies, no?

Left: Granjeno, Texas, February 4, 2009. A local resident poses with a sign at his home protesting the building of the border wall between Mexico and the U.S. Right: San Diego, February 21, 2009. U.S. Border Patrol agents block the path of a protestor at Border Field State Park as demonstrators protested the Department of Homeland security's plan to limit access to the park and the border fence.

NAFTA has devastated the Mexican economy and destroyed the industrial, agricultural, commercial and service structure in Mexico provoking the migration of 600,000 Mexicans toward the North every year. These millions of migrants have to be criminalized to keep them as cheap labour without rights. After the imposition of the Canadian visa, at the Guadalajara Summit of the three amigos -- sorry, bandidos -- Calderón, Harper and Obama, the latter announced that despite his campaign promises last year, there would be no migratory reform in the USA and that it wasn't a priority for his government. Free transit for capital and merchandise is his priority, not that of the people. Canadian corporations have already taken control of 70 percent of the new mining projects in Mexico and are owners of the gold and silver, while they are destroying and polluting the communities in the zones where they operate.

They want the wealth, the labour and the blood of the Mexicans for their wars of aggression and to negate their rights they stigmatize and demonize a whole people. It appears that after the liberation of the African Americans of the southern states, which, of course, Obama says was non-violent (the Civil War wasn't violent?) they have now found 50 million potential new slaves further south, beyond the Wall in the rich territory of Mexico and tens of millions more in Central America.

But Mexico has traditionally been a nation difficult to suppress while, at the same time, it is today a territory that the Empire wants to control at all costs, considering it within its security perimeter. So they can't find a solution other than militarization, violence and terror to paralyze this brave population that won't meekly accept foreign domination, so that the people cannot peacefully choose the direction they want for their country.

These measures are required to sustain a government that lost the elections in 2006 but took power through fraud, which lost the elections for Congress, municipalities and 5 states on July 5, 2009. Using the pretext of the war against the drug trade, 40,000 soldiers are in the streets and violence has already led to 12,000 assassinations in less than 3 years of the Felipe Calderón government. Following the dictate of Washington, the Calderón government is eliminating civil rights and individual guarantees and through presidential decree the police and army are acting at his whim to the point where they are even holding mayors captive, entering the Michoacan state legislature or taking captive everyone attending a religious ceremony in Apatzingan, all without warrants for search or arrest and with no respect for the Constitution or the laws emanating from it. Following the example of the U.S. Patriot Act they have passed laws permitting interception of phone calls, e-mail, etc. This is precisely the model imposed by Washington that is being applied, for which Obama congratulated Calderón, qualifying him as a valiant Eliot Ness.

But since the electoral defeat of PAN (National Action Party, Calderón's party) in July, they are falling over themselves to criticize the violation of human rights by the army. The fact is that in the 2009 election, the population demonstrated overwhelmingly against militarism. To recover from the election he lost in 2006, Calderón wanted to turn the recent election for Congress into a referendum to show that, finally he has a majority! In the propaganda of the governing party, PAN repeated incessantly "Support the President in his fight against crime ... vote for PAN ... vote for such and such deputies!"

But what happened? PAN received the worst defeat in its history. It obtained only 12 percent of all the registered voters, lost the majority in Congress and ended up crushed in states and municipalities that PAN had controlled for years. With this resounding defeat of Calderón's militarization and war, within 2 days of the election Washington started its "preoccupation" with the violation of human rights by the army. It was all simply a pretext to weaken the Mexican government and to intervene to "help" these "savage Mexicans."

The situation is reaching its limits. The economy is going to shrink 7 percent this year, a million more workers will end up unemployed in 2009, prices are skyrocketing, all the promises they made to promote the Free Trade Treaty, talking about the inclusion of Mexico in the First World have turned out to be lies. Everything has become clear, they promised more employment, better salaries, improved productivity and it has been a fiasco because dependence gives rise to nothing but misery.

Only one path remains: the battle for sovereignty. In 1810 the Revolution for Independence began; in 1910 the Mexican Revolution broke out; 2010 will be fundamental in the struggle for rights, independence and democracy.

The people of Mexico do not accept subjugation. We don't want to be modern slaves of the 21st century. We will not be cannon fodder for the Imperial project for Mexico. Our vocation, clear throughout history is the battle to win sovereignty and build relations of true friendship and association with the peoples of Canada, the United States and all of Latin America and the Caribbean. For this we must destroy the walls and barriers that they are using to try to separate and divide us.

México Tekizetiliztli is name of the Labour Union of Mexico in the Nahúatl language. (Translated from the original Spanish by TML Daily.)

AbitibiBowater Monopoly Bent on Continued Destruction of Production Capacity

AbitibiBowater Monopoly Bent on Continued Destruction of Production Capacity

Fascization, Impunity and
Protection of Big Monopolies

The Path to Sovereignty Is the Only Way Forward

AbitibiBowater Monopoly Bent on Continued Destruction of Production Capacity

AbitibiBowater Monopoly Bent on Continued Destruction of Production Capacity

Fascization, Impunity and Protection of Big Monopolies

The Path to Sovereignty Is the Only Way Forward

Fascization, Impunity and
Protection of Big Monopolies