# Handling protesters.



## lat19n (Aug 19, 2017)

Can anyone point me to some videos/articles in which Mexico has handled protesters in a manner similar to what I am watching on TV from Wash. DC at 6:40 PM ? At times I get upset when a major roadway is blocked by people demanding water delivery etc. BUT at this moment - Mexico seems like the most peaceful country on the globe...

Edit : I have never been more grateful that we live in Mexico. It feels a little like Chile (and I don't have a political bone in my body).


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

Well, one thing is protesters blocking the streets, when indeed the response is passive, and another thing is some tragic historic events (some relatively recent). Two that come to mind are the Iguala 43 in 2014 who were kidnapped by police and turned over to criminal cartels, presumed to have been murdered; and the Tlaltelolco massacre on Oct. 2, 1968 when troops fired into a crowd of demonstrators in Mexico City and killed an unknown number estimated to be in the hundreds.
So, it’s kind of mixed whether it’s more peaceful here. It is, until it isn’t.
Every Oct. 2, there’s a memorial march in Mexico City, and every year it’s co-opted by anarchist thugs who take advantage of the event to destroy commercial property along the route of the march. Another point of similarity with current events in the US.


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## lat19n (Aug 19, 2017)

I'm not sure that 1968 is 'relatively recent'. I am reminded of Iguala (2014) every time we drive to Acapulco. I did not know before this morning that the two incidences were related. Probably no one will ever know what happened in Iguala with the student-teachers, but by all accounts it seems they had stolen buses to travel to Mexico City and participate in the Oct 2 demonstrations. There is speculation that they inadvertently chose buses laden with cartel owned drugs, and might have been mistaken as members of a rival 'gang'. In any event neither event would seem to be racially motivated.

We have never seen a protest 'broken up' by authorities in Mexico. Most times you don't even see police/national guard anywhere around. For me the worst I've seen was last year (?) when there was a women's march down Reforma and many statues/monuments (including the Angel) were defaced. As far as I know no one was ever held accountable.


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

I didn’t mean to imply that the two events I described were related, just that they were both counterexamples to the present day’s passive reactions to demonstrations. 

I also didn’t claim that both events were recent, although I would say “relatively” depends on your perspective and perhaps one’s own age. My contemporaries who were here at the time remember 1968 well.


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## Meritorious-MasoMenos (Apr 17, 2014)

lat19n said:


> I'm not sure that 1968 is 'relatively recent'. I am reminded of Iguala (2014) every time we drive to Acapulco. I did not know before this morning that the two incidences were related. Probably no one will ever know what happened in Iguala with the student-teachers, but by all accounts it seems they had stolen buses to travel to Mexico City and participate in the Oct 2 demonstrations. There is speculation that they inadvertently chose buses laden with cartel owned drugs, and might have been mistaken as members of a rival 'gang'. In any event neither event would seem to be racially motivated.
> 
> We have never seen a protest 'broken up' by authorities in Mexico. Most times you don't even see police/national guard anywhere around. For me the worst I've seen was last year (?) when there was a women's march down Reforma and many statues/monuments (including the Angel) were defaced. As far as I know no one was ever held accountable.


I suggest you read more Mexican history. That 1968 massacre led directly to the revived guerrilla movement in Guerrero state, of which Acapulco is largest city. That went on for decades and I'm sure merged with drug gangs. It also led to the permanent split between wide array of educated Mexicans and the PRI.

I happened to have made my first ever trip outside US and to Mexico in summer of '68, a car trip. I had no idea what was going on, but in every town, we saw surging protests, angry meetings in city or town centers every night. Never anything against we very young Americans.

I drove from Texas (starting in NYC) all the way down to Mexico City, then to Acapulco, then back again. The protests got stronger and stronger as we got closer to Mexico City and were most angry, that I saw, in drive from Mexico City to Acapulco, i.e., precisely in Guerrero where the guerrillas were thereafter revived.

I didn't speak Spanish then, but I did understand how powerful their emotions were. The subsequent Tlatelolco massacre was a watershed event in modern Mexican history.

Again, the incident occurred in Mexico City, but the entire center of the country was in upheaval that summer against the PRI corrupt dictatorship, which bought itself another 30 years in power with the massacre.

People who declaim on Mexican history should not do so without understanding 1968.


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## Meritorious-MasoMenos (Apr 17, 2014)

And I've gotta say, "We have never seen a protest 'broken up' by authorities in Mexico" is the most hilarious comment I've ever read about Mexican authorities and demonstrators. OP should try that comment out with Mexicans and watch their reactions. I'd say 99.9 percent of Mexicans are terrified of police and army, as there is no law that constrains them. None at all.

I remember the army general who shut down a main highway in the north so that his drug cartel bosses could land planes bursting with cocaine. Totally peaceful, that was.

OP should go to Guerrero, Acapulco even, and start a march with people carrying signs saying "Drug Mafia Out!"


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## lat19n (Aug 19, 2017)

Friend - or if I am the OP does that make you the LP ? - when it is open we are in Acapulco two or three times a year. It is our beach getaway. From the chair I am sitting in I can see a good ways towards Guerrero. It is a lot closer then Thailand. We have several friends from Guerrero. Just about every other car that comes to the house has Guerrero plates.

You talk about 1968 - when you were an English speaking tourist. We were all at Woodstock in 1969. That wasn't recent either.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

As far back as yesterday there were plenty of nasty protest and nasty police in Ixtlahuacan near Chapala. My godson who commutes back and forth to Guadalajara on a second class busbecause the first ones were cancelled for thevirus , had to spend the night in a workshop were the bus was stopped by the police and demonstrators.. Like in the US the police killed a young man without much of an excuse.. They did a stronghold on him as his brother was filming and took him to the station , then they called the family at 10 am the next day to tell them the man was taken to the hospital.He was DOA...with signs of torture so now people in Guadaljaara and Ixtlahuacan are protesting like crazy and my god son was stuck in the middle of it as he was too afraid to leave the bus and afraid to walk to a hotel.Some artisans friends of his from that town came to get him out and took him out of the danger zone.. We had the same scene as in the US.. Police hee or police there, both are violent and bad when they can get away with it.


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## lat19n (Aug 19, 2017)

I'm sorry for the man's fate - but has AMLO shown up on the scene with a few generals, his attorney general, his secretary of defense, his family for that matter - and beaten down the protesters firing tear gas at them - only to walk across the street and hold up a bible ?? That is what I was watching when I made my initial post - AND there is nothing political in what I just wrote.


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

Right now a group of anarchists and associated bullies have finished rampaging through my neighborhood smashing store windows and god knows what else. Now they have gathered in front of the US Embasssy, which is a few blocks from my apartment, to demonstrate against the murder of George Floyd and a 30-year-old Mexican worker killed by the police in Jalisco. The mayor of the city has reassured the population that no one's right to demonstrate will be infringed upon, that the police present are there to protect the rights of the rioters (my word, not hers), not to keep things under control. As an afterthought she mentions that the demonstrations should be peaceful.


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## lat19n (Aug 19, 2017)

Good grief - it used to be hard to get into the embassy with a US passport in hand and an appointment ! The situation you describe can't improve that.

Might be a great time for the ambassador to grab a bull horn and calm the crowd.

Don't ask me what party she belongs to, but the little I have followed her I'm ok with Claudia Sheinbaum. 

Nothing political in this post either.


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

lat19n said:


> Don't ask me what party she belongs to, but the little I have followed her I'm ok with Claudia Sheinbaum.
> 
> Nothing political in this post either.



Dr. Sheinbaum was elected mayor in part because she's a loyal member of Morena and thus was given AMLO's seal of approval. Maybe because, like me, she's an intelligent, highly-educated Jewish woman, I had high hopes for her. Now I see that I was wrong, that she's just a politician like all the rest, doing what she can to stay in power. This post is political, by the way.


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## lat19n (Aug 19, 2017)

Isla Verde said:


> Dr. Sheinbaum was elected mayor in part because she's a loyal member of Morena and thus was given AMLO's seal of approval. Maybe because, like me, she's an intelligent, highly-educated Jewish woman, I had high hopes for her. Now I see that I was wrong, that she's just a politician like all the rest, doing what she can to stay in power. This post is political, by the way.


If there were to be an election tomorrow I would hope I could get the chance to vote for Claudia Ruiz Massieu - which drives my intelligent Catholic Mexican friends crazy. She is dangerous, stay away from her, they say. Didn't I read recently that AMLO was going to ask for a referendum in 2022 and if the people were no longer behind him he would step down ? 

To be honest - in the US I am independent - which is the way I see myself in Mexico as well. And as for religion - I am also an independent. Yes I am religious but it is my own.

Anyway - no tear gas on Reforma this afternoon ?


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## lat19n (Aug 19, 2017)

Well the story was posted a couple hours ago - but El Universal says there are/were 30 protesters in front of the US Embassy...


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## Meritorious-MasoMenos (Apr 17, 2014)

lat19n said:


> Friend - or if I am the OP does that make you the LP ? - when it is open we are in Acapulco two or three times a year. It is our beach getaway. From the chair I am sitting in I can see a good ways towards Guerrero. It is a lot closer then Thailand. We have several friends from Guerrero. Just about every other car that comes to the house has Guerrero plates.
> 
> You talk about 1968 - when you were an English speaking tourist. We were all at Woodstock in 1969. That wasn't recent either.


Oh, I lived and worked in Mexico for ten years and spent another ten years in an international business that took me frequently to Mexico. In all those I talked, besides every day Mexicans, top business folks and politicians, including three sitting presidents.

I was even a guest on an official presidential trip to a few inland cities, standing on red carpet a few folks down from the president, as the local dignitaries went down the line bowing and shaking our hands.

[cut]


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