The recently premiered (May 17) Netflix Limited Series titled 1994: Power, Rebellion, and Crime in Mexico (2019), directed by Diego Enrique Osorno and produced by VICE Studio Latin America, illustrates — split across the season’s five episodes — the political, social, and financial landscape of Mexico in the wake of 1994. In this tumultuous year, Mexico and its fellow citizens endured the assassinations of political figures from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the uprising of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), and the post-election economic crisis that took place under Ernesto Zedillo’s Administration. In short, the series retells the rise and fall of Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta, an inspiring political figure who was brutally assassinated at his campaign rally in Tijuana, Baja California. For those interested in foreign politics, especially Mexican politics and history, this documentary series offers a historical remembrance of a polarizing Mexico. Even after 25 years the country is still widely divided in politics, civil society, and a lack of upholding the rule of law and justice.
1994: Power, Rebellion, and Crime in Mexico:
What’s great about the documentary series is that it offers plenty of archival videos and testimonies from various individuals, including Mexican political experts, journalists, friends and family members of Colosio, to bring this chapter of Mexican history to life. It is quite remarkable how Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Subcomandante Galeano — two opposing players in the Mexican political system and society — are interviewed within the same series. Interestingly, each episode’s title marks the main theme, which briefly mentions events that transpired from 1988 to 2000. Here are the following names and short summaries of each episode:
*Just to note: there are spoilers of each episode in the subsequent paragraphs*
S1:E1: “The Successor”
Episode one discusses Colosio’s upbringing and his prominence to the political party, the PRI. Colosio — a native from Magdalena de Kino, Sonora — was viewed from his colleagues as an individual with values of humility, integrity, and well-groundedness. As stated by several testimonials, Colosio was conscious of the political party’s undemocratic practices of el dedazo/finger-pointing, where former PRI presidents handpicked their own successors. In the elections of ’88, Mexican news outlets described the PRI of utilizing tactics of corruption, including tampering of campaign elections — stolen ballot boxes, death threats, and bribes (also known as clientelism) — that lead to the victory of Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Under the Salinas Administration, Colosio — who was the presidential campaign manager for Salinas — was selected to serve as a collaborator of the Social Development Secretary program, a multi-billion-dollar anti-poverty program that holistically focused on solidarity between economic transformations and community engagement.
During the Salinas administration (1988–1994), the Mexican government started a series of vital reforms to innovate global trade. Salinas proposed a free-trade project — known as the North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA) — with the strongest economies, the U.S. and Canada. NAFTA’s role would become a geopolitical project that advanced the agenda of globalization, commercial competitiveness, and quality of goods and services in the region. Salinas advocated NAFTA’s benefits to the Mexican consumer — specifically, cheaper prices of goods and services, an increase in job creation and higher wages. In November 1993, the agreement was signed and in the following weeks, Colosio shared his PRI candidacy for the presidency of Mexico.
S1:E2: “Revolution”
Episode two continues to discuss the effects of NAFTA’s implementation. Specifically, the indigenous citizens of Chiapas went up in arms in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Altamirano, Las Margaritas, Chanal, Huixtán, and Ocosingo. This armed group, known as the EZLN, was led by Subcomandante Marcos, a non-indigenous from Tampico, Tamaulipas. Marcos, who is now known as Subcomandante Galeano, expresses his opinion on how the Mexican government underestimated the rise of these indigenous groups, given the racial stereotype Mexican society portrays them as being harmless or weak. Furthermore, he explains the EZLN’s strategic tactics — adopted from the Mexican Revolution — of occupying specific municipalities that were away from their territories. Graphic images exhibit the violent clashes between the federal government and the EZLN. In response, Salinas proposed a cease-fire in the Chiapas region and negotiated with the group in order to restore peace.
In March 1994, Colosio gave a powerful speech to the country that stated his vision about how political power should be wielded. This speech, as stated by many Mexican news outlets, was viewed as a separation of the PRI’s status quo. Colosio ran a presidential campaign with the slogan of “unity and hope” for a change in the Mexican political system. This episode also reveals the emerging tension between PRI members such as Manuel Camacho Solis and Ernesto Zedillo, as they indirectly wanted to replace Colosio as the PRI candidate.
S1:E3: “The Snake”
Episode three details Colosio’s campaign rally held in the Lomas Taurinas neighborhood in Tijuana. As the PRI candidate, along with his bodyguards, were moving forward amongst the crowd of people, an armed gunman approached Colosio and shot him in the head and abdomen. The crowd dispersed in chaos as secret service guards tried to rush the wounded candidate to a hospital, while guards apprehended the gunman. The alleged gunman was identified as Mario Aburto Martínez and was escorted to the Prosecutor’s Office.
This tragic event shook Mexican society as witnesses and news outlets tuned in on the condition of the candidate. Colosio was pronounced dead hours later. Many mourned for the death of Colosio, especially his wife, Diana Laura Riojas — who was dying from cancer and had two small children.
After questionable interrogations done on Aburto, he was convicted of Colosio’s murder and was sentenced to 42 years in prison. However, most Mexicans — depends on who you ask, of course — doubt or outright reject that Aburto was the sole mastermind, or even committed, the murder. Some speculate that it was planned by Salinas and his party.
S1:E4: “Eagle Knight”
Episode four focuses on the seemingly comprehensive investigation of the murder of Colosio. As requested by Diana Laura, Salinas gave the murder case to Miguel Montes, the first of five special prosecutors who worked on the case. Out of the suspects mentioned by Montes, three individuals were arrested: Vicente Mayoral, Rodolfo Mayoral, and Mario Aburto. These men were held at the maximum-security prison in Almoloya, in the State of Mexico.
While the investigation was undergoing, the PRI needed a new candidate. Possible PRI members included Zedillo, Ortiz Aranas, Gutiérrez Barrios, and Camacho. Among them, Zedillo was the only one who was politically viable. Six days after the death of Colosio, the PRI nominated Zedillo. Abruptly, we found ourselves in an aggrieved Mexico where it had killed the plans and politics Colosio stood for.
More and more developments of the investigation muddied the story and drove the public to believe that the murder was part of a conspiracy. The cased closed once Aburto openly stated that his motives to kill the candidate was mentioned in his book titled The Book of Records. In August 1994, running presidential candidates were Ernesto Zedillo (PRI), Diego Fernández de Cevallos (of the National Action Party or PAN) and Cuauhtémeco Cárdenas (of the Party of the Democratic Revolution or PRD). That year the voter turnout was 78 percent and Zedillo won. Just six months after the death of Colosio, the death of José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, who was the Secretary General of the PRI, was shot and killed boarding his vehicle in Mexico City. The murder of Massieu only reinforced the feeling of uncertainty and violence in the country.
S1:R5: “Round Earth”
The last episode focuses on the post-election economic crisis. Archival footage presents how President-elect Zedilla proposed an emergency economic program that causing exchange & interest rates to skyrocket. This provoked foreign investors to pull their capital out of Mexican stocks and banks. In response, the Mexican government began spending its U.S. dollars reserves to buy pesos to keep their currency value high. Consequently the government ran out of reserves and the peso and stock market crashed. This impact hurt the Mexican people as the currency’s devaluation had lost more than half their purchasing power on goods and services.
* President Bill Clinton coordinated — without the act of Congress — a new bailout package in order to stabilize the Mexican peso. With the additional assistance of the IMF, $50 billion was given to the Mexican economy. *
In the months that proceeded into the Zedillo’s Administration, erupted the scandal of the Salinas family. The Attorney General’s Office detained Raúl Salinas de Gortari, the former president’s brother, and accused him of being involved in the murder of Massieu. This event became the first time Mexican authorities had gone after a high-level politician. The Swizz Prosecutor’s Office began legal proceedings against Salinas on suspicion of money laundering for drug trafficking organizations. Carlos Salinas also began to lose his reputation and was seen as a former president who brought even more corruption and authoritarianism, rather than modernization to Mexico.
Overall, the Zedillo administration had a moral duty to conduct an objective investigation, and it failed to do so in the first two years. Many Mexican experts, including Salinas, agree that the Administration should have stopped once the fabrications of conspiracy theories were seen as believable truths to the Mexican public. Colosio’s aspiration of democratic transition finally occurred in the 2000 election, once PAN candidate, Vicente Fox, took office.
So, What? Why is this All Important?
“Veo un México con hambre y con sed de justicia/I see a Mexico hungry and thirst for justice,” is one of Colosio’s most quotable and rather haunting political statements that described the Mexican landscape when the priista was alive. Colosio, who was viewed as a sociopolitical reformist, had a vision that was going to lead a new stage of change in the PRI and Mexico. Although many Mexicans believe that all went away when he died, it wasn’t until the PAN became the first political party in 71 years to defeat the PRI. However, the country continued to allow corruption to be both normalized and institutionalized despite the transitions of political power. That said, this contagion of decades-long of corruption disrupts the basic functionalities of a “democratic” Mexico, including its ability to uphold the rule of law and justice. The Mexican history of corruption and impunity is nothing new, but what can we learn from this series?
Political Abuse and Power:
What resonated the most among the interviews in the series is what Galeano stated — in episode two — that Colosio was viewed as the PRI’s Boy Scout and that the political class wasn’t going to let a boy scout rule its dictatorship. He adds how a Mexican President needs to be “a bastard or even a son of a bitch, in order to maintain presidential power.” Historically, the PRI had controlled the mass media content in Mexico through various forms of subtle government business deals, privileges, subsidies, concessions, and bribes that retained the positive image of the party. Maintaining control over the Mexican fourth estate was achieved primarily through co-optation, selective repression, and coverage of the selective electoral competition, which ensured the political domination of the authoritative regime for more than seven decades. In the 1980s and 1990s, more political scandals and corruption of political figures were linked with drug-related organizations. The documentary also shines a light on how notorious Mexican news mediums “muddy the waters.” In other words, in its lack of ability of not getting the answers to solving cases relating to political violence and censorship. And if they do, they are eventually discredited by “new information” or “alternative developments.”
In Mexico, we are made to believe it is a democracy, but it’s not. What many call the “perfect dictatorship,” the PRI abused its power and eliminates those that are dissent to their interest. In the decades-long history of state violence and repression under the Mexican military and the ruling PRI, exacerbated the urgent need for the Mexican people to revolt against their institutions. Under the timeline of Mexico’s Dirty War (1960s-1970s), the earliest backlash of the government against the student activists was in the Tlatelolco massacre in 1968. In those years, the Mexican army kidnapped, tortured, and killed hundreds of rebel suspects; in particular, in the countryside of Mexico.
Colosio death was due to a diseased Mexico — filled with state-related violence, terror and greed for power. Yet, despite the decaying nature of the country, he strived for a cure — political change.
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