How students forced government to retreat

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In November 1986 the student movement at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico's largest university, exploded in reaction to new "reforms" proposed by Jorge Carpizo, the UNAM rector.

The "reforms" included cuts in government subsidies to the university, more restrictive admissions policies, and ever-increasing tuitions and registration fees.

The majority of the 300,000 UNAM students promptly organized to demand the withdrawal of the "Carpizo Plan." Mass assemblies were held on the campus, and a new student leadership— democratically elected by mass meetings in each university department—came forward: the University Student Council (CEU).

Teach-ins featuring debates between student leaders and the rector were broadcast over radio and TV. A student strike which shut down the university was called in mid-January 1987. On Feb. 9, over 350,000 people marched in the capital's downtown square, the Zócalo, in support of the students' demands.

Finally, on Feb. 10, Carpizo and the government were forced to retreat. Carpizo withdrew his reform project. He also agreed to the students' demand to convene a University Congress (Congrèso Universitario) that would be open to delegated representatives of the students (the CEU), the university workers' union (the STUNAM), the faculty, and the administration.

This Congress would decide all questions concerning the programs, character, and future of the UNAM. It was widely understood that the student-worker majority at the university would easily defeat the Carpizo "reform" proposals.

Since February, however, the government and the university administration have launched a major "red-baiting" and "violence-baiting" campaign against the University Student Council (CEU)-and against the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT) in particular.

Carpizo has placed full-page ads in the major dailies denouncing the CEU and PRT for provoking "acts of terrorist violence and vandalism" on the campus and for "manipulating the student The CEU and the PRT have rejected all the charges. They claim that government agents have burned the campus buildings and buses.

The government's attacks are designed to weaken the CEU and to postpone-or even cancel-the University Congress in order to ram through the Carpizo "reforms" some time in the future.-A.B.

The PMT and PSUM rejected the PRT's coalition proposal and insisted that the PRT dissolve into a fused political party.

Test of events clarifies debate By the spring of 1987, a new factor had entered into the debate over regroupment of the Mexican left.

In late 1986 and early 1987, student protests, land occupations by landless peasants, and workers' • strikes broke out throughout the country. This proved to be a better measure of the possibilities of fusion between the PMT/PSUM and the PRT-as these parties were being put to the test of events.

One revealing example of how the different parties responded to these events was the resurgent student movement.

The PRT threw itself into the student movement. It earned great respect among the UNAM students. A large number of delegates to the University Student Council (CEU), the elected leadership of the movement, were PRT members.

But Heberto Castillo, longtime leader of the nationalist PMT and probable presidential candidate of the newly formed PMS, came out publicly against the CEU.

Castillo characterized the CEU as "reactionary" and "unrepresentative of the students." Leading intellectuals in the PSUM also lined up behind the university rector against the student movement.

In its public press, the PRT denounced the PMT/PSUM leaders for their betrayal of the students' interests. The PRT explained that the heinous role played by the PMT and PSUM was motivated by (continued on next page)

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Rosario Ibarra speaks at July 26 PRT rally. de los reso Göran vaco›sseit all the oppressed heard."

Rosario also insisted that any presidential campaign that genuinely seeks to promote the mass struggles be totally independent of all ruling-class parties and personalities.

She sharply criticized the other major left electoral coalition, the Mexican Socialist Party (PMS), for opposing the university students' mobilizations and for directly advocating collaboration with sectors of the PRI, the country's ruling party.

The PMS was formed in April 1987 by a fusion of five political parties, the two most important of which are the Stalinist PSUM and the nationalist PMT.

"Some people are trying to deceive the Mexican workers and peasants when they tell them that the road to power is through the 1988 presidential elections," Rosario continued. She was referring to Heberto Castillo, the probable presidential candidate of the reformist PMS coalition.

The PMS's greetings The PMS sent greetings to the PRT convention. In its statement, the PMS reiterated its request that the PRT join the PMS to form a "single, organically unified political party of the Mexican left."

The PMS statement continued, "The policy of two or more electoral poles does not benefit anyone. It only helps our enemies."

The PRT has consistently rejected this fusion proposal by the PMS, proposing instead that the two major forces on the Mexican left form an electoral coalition that would run a single left candidate in the Edgard Sánchez speaks