Que la esclavitud se proscriba para siempre y lo mismo la distinción de castas, quedando todos iguales, y sólo distinguirá a un americano de otro el vicio y la virtud…Que en la nueva legislación no se admita la tortura.
—José María Morelos, 1813

Entre los individuos como entre las naciones, el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz.
—Benito Juárez, 1867

A big step forward in addressing discrimination

• Congreso de la Unión, abril de 2003
  Ley Federal para Prevenir y Eliminar la Discriminación

Responding to U.S. indifference, Mexico goes own way

• International Herald Tribune, April 2003
  Though France took the heat for its promised veto of the U.S. war resolution on Iraq, it was Latin America that defeated it:
  U.S. neighbors turn away – the wages of indifference

Mexico’s transition: successes and challenges

• Arizona Daily Star, March 2002:
  Mexico’s Cartel Crackdown — Bullish Sign for North America
• Philadelphia Tribune, February 2001:
  Presidents Bush, Fox see world differently
• World Policy Journal, Fall 2000:
  “Everything in This Job Is Money”: Inside the Mexican Police
• Nexos, abril y agosto de 1998:
  Viaje al interior de la policía; El aprendizaje de un policía

The 2000 presidential election and beyond

• National Post (Canada), August 2000:
  Fox’s vision for Mexico — a new Spain
• Sacramento Bee, Miami Herald, July 2000:
  Fall of the Cactus Wall: Fox looks to Spain for a new Mexico
• La Opinión, julio de 2000:
  Fox y su visión de México
• Newsday Viewpoints, June 2000:
  Mexico: 1 Election, 3 Possible Results
• Sacramento Bee Sunday Forum, April 2000:
  Mexico may have electoral revolution
• The Globe and Mail (Canada), September 1999:
  How strongman politics threatens Mexico’s democratic reform

Reforms in Guanajuato foreshadow Mexico’s future—the profile that presaged Vicente Fox’s triumphal presidential bid

• World Policy Journal, Fall 1996:
  The Next Mexican Revolution

Mexico in maps and statistics

• Mexico: A statistical evaluation of government performance (April 2000)
• México: una evaluación estadística del desempeño gubernamental (abril de 2000)
• map: governorships by political party
• map: municipal presidencies by political party
• income distribution by state: table and map

Democracy and human rights

• Resource Information Center, Department of Justice, November 1999:
  Mexico: Update on treatment of homosexuals
• Ottawa Citizen, November 1997:
  Macho Mexico elects a lesbian
• Resource Information Center, Department of Justice, November 1997:
  Mexico: Treatment of Homosexuals
• World Policy Paper, May 1995:
  Democracy and Human Rights in Mexico
• New York Times, April 1992:
  Free Trade, Shackled Labor

The article that exposed the Salinas myth more than five years before his fall from grace

• World Policy Journal, Fall 1989:
  Mexico Under Salinas: A Façade of Reform

The militarization of Mexico

• Los Angeles Times, August 1999:
  Mexico still bucking the Latin American trend: Military Strongmen Just Fading Away
• Los Angeles Times, August 1998:
  The Risk of Using the Army for Too Much
• Washington Post, April 1998:
  Sham Reform—the court martial of an exemplary general
• Los Angeles Times, January 1998:
  By Militarizing, Zedillo Only Increases Instability—the wider meaning of the Acteal massacre
• Los Angeles Times, June 1995:
  Army Shouldn’t Fight War Against Drug Lords
• Christian Science Monitor, July 1994:
  Hold Mexican military accountable for human rights abuses
• Los Angeles Times, January 1994:
  Behind the Chiapas Revolt: An Army Allowed to Operate Outside the Law

How Washington misreads and patronizes Mexico

• Boston Globe, February 1999:
  Presidential visit: Clinton unwisely snubbed forces for reform in Mexico
• Newsday, January 1998:
  Mexico Is Spinning Horrors Into Reforms
• Washington Quarterly, Autumn 1997:
  Facing Political Reality in Mexico
• Journal of Commerce, May 1997:
  Presidential Visit: Patronizing Mexico Again
• New York Times Magazine, April 1995:
  It isn’t the peso; It’s the presidency
• Journal of Commerce, March 1995:
  Salinas: Privilege and Impunity
• Newsday, December 1990:
  Bush Can Embrace Mexico — But Lightly: He’s right to seek open trade, wrong to slough off rights violations by the regime
• Houston Chronicle, April 1990:
  Lithuania, Mexico—a U.S. double standard

The 1997 elections: Mexico’s democratic revolution, part one

• World Policy Journal, Fall 1997:
  Aztec Sun Rising: The Cárdenas Challenge
• Los Angeles Times, October 1997:
  The James Carville of Mexico’s Left Making Political Headway

The 1994 elections: temporary reprieve for PRI

• Mexico Insight, September 1994:
  The elections: Good and bad news for North American relations
• Center for Voting and Democracy, Washington, DC, Autumn 1994:
  The 1994 Elections in Mexico: Still Neither Fully Free Nor Fair

Electoral fraud

• Este País, marzo de 1994:
  Sufragio efectivo: Unas perspectives internacionales
• Sacramento Bee Sunday Forum, October 1991:
  The election fraud I saw in Mexico
• Proceso, septiembre de 1991:
  Denuncia Andrew Reding nuevas modalidades de fraude electoral en México, observadas por él
• New Perspectives Quarterly Winter 1991:
  The Politics of Salinastroika: Institutionalizing Impunity?
• Jack Anderson and Dale Van Atta, October 1991:
  No Viva Zapata
• New York Times, November 1990:
  “Salinastroika,” Si; Democracy, No
• Newsday Viewpoints, August 1990:
  A Brezhnev South of Our Border?
• La Opinión, agosto de 1990:
  La contrareforma salinista
• Mother Jones, November 1988
  Favorite Son: The heir of Mexico’s greatest reformer saw his election stolen and his friend murdered
  sidebar: How to Steal an Election: Mexico, 1988
• Electoral fraud, 1988 federal elections:
  sample burnt ballots, collected from charred piles on a roadside in Guerrero

Ineffectual presidential leadership jeopardizes stability, raises risks for U.S.

• New York Times, March 1997:
  A White Flag in the Drug War
• Newsday, February 1997:
  Weinberger got it half right—Mexico sliding towards lawlessness but not war
• Miami Herald, August 1996:
  It’s the political system, stupid! Why southern Mexico is a cauldron
• Christian Science Monitor, December 1995:
  The Peso and the President: Mexico’s Leadership Crisis

Lack of democratic accountability fosters corruption, drug trafficking, and economic chaos

• Journal of Commerce, November 1997:
  Mexico’s addiction to the narcodollar
• Journal of Commerce, March 1996:
  Certification a polite fiction—neither Mexico nor U.S. can afford a real crackdown on drugs
• Sacramento Bee, January 1996:
  A drug bust that was just for show
• Washington Post Outlook, September 1995:
  The Fall and Rise of the Drug Cartels
• The Nation, July 1995, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee, August 1995:
  Narco-Politics in Mexico
• Los Angeles Times, January 1995:
  To Insulate the Peso, Adopt a Watchdog With Teeth
• Washington Post, June 1993:
  Mexico: Corruption From the Top
• Le Devoir, avril 1992:
  Le Mexique de Salinas ou la fausse réforme des petits copains
• La Opinión, octubre de 1990:
  México: persiste la corrupción
• Texas Observer, September 1990:
  Taking Away City Hall: Reform Brings Reprisal in a Mexican Town

Racism and repression foster marginalization, rebellion among native peoples

• Montreal Gazette, February 1994:
  Healing scars of racism: Rebellion in Mexico has forced widespread injustices into the open
• Washington Post, January 1994:
  Rebellion in Mexico
• Los Angeles Times, January 1994:
  Behind the Chiapas Revolt: An Army Allowed to Operate Outside the Law
• Excelsior, 18 de Diciembre de 1951, primera plana:
  Jugando a la Guerra Tres Niñitos “Fusilaron” a una Sirvienta
  No one even knew the last name of the 12-year-old servant accidentally shot to death by the boys she was taking care of, two of whom (Carlos and Raúl Salinas) would later become prominent; exposure of this 1951 newspaper article during the 1988 presidential campaign may have been the real reason for the imprisonment of Oil Workers’ boss La Quina following Salinas’ inauguration

Decentralization and civic action chip away at authoritarian rule

• Los Angeles Times, November 1995:
  Mexico’s new Experiment: More Power to States and Cities
• Pacific News Service, March 1996:
  Small Town Mayor Gets the Last Word in Guerrero

Historic documents

• Independence leader—and revolutionary Catholic priest—Miguel Hidalgo’s decree abolishing slavery (1810):
  Decreto contra la esclavitud, las gabelas y el papel sellado
• Independence leader—and revolutionary Catholic priest—José María Morelos’ 23 points for a Mexican constitution, including the abolition of slavery, racism, and torture (1813):
  Sentimientos de la Nación
• Liberal president—and full-blooded Zapotec—Benito Juárez’ speech upon his return to Mexico City following the defeat of Emperor Maximilian (1867):
  Manifiesto al volver a la Capital de la República
• Morelos revolutionary Emiliano Zapata’s manifesto for land reform (1911):
  Plan de Ayala
• Former president Lázaro Cárdenas’ scathing denunciation of electoral fraud, government-run unions, foreign borrowing, the unraveling of land reform, and treatment of indigenous peoples (1970):
  Mensaje a los revolucionarios de México