Opposition Groups

Beyond the parliamentary spectrum, there are many opposition groups: peasant organisations, a national debtors' movement (El Barzón), industrial workers' groups, womens' organisations and, in several states, small guerrilla groups. The EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation), which launched a rebellion on New Year's Day 1994 in the state of Chiapas, caught the attention of the world with their anti-authoritain style and demands for justice for all. As in other parts of Latin America, liberation theology (radical christian social criticism, including elements of Marxism) has spread in the Catholic Church, to which some 85 percent of Mexicans belong. Evangelical protestant churches have also established themselves among the poor in Mexico.

Like the rest of the world, Mexico is not immune from political pressure from the United States. This comes not only in the form of economic sticks and carrots. The US sells arms to the Mexican government, trains army officers and - through Drug Enforcement Agency Programmes - provides helicopter gunships and other military equipment used against the Mexican people. One common refrain laments ¡Pobre México, tan lejos de Dios, y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos! (Poor Mexico, so far from God and so near to the United States!).

To the Mexico page