Collapse of Dignity (5 page)

Before the precandidates officially registered, one of us dropped out—a “little bird” had told candidate Ricardo Canavati Tafich that the dice were loaded in favor of Rizzo. I had my doubts about the simulated “new democratic process of selection,” too, especially when Salinas ordered that Canavati be replaced with Napoleón Cantú Serna, secretary general of government in Nuevo León. Now I had to not only overcome the president's preference for Socrates Rizzo; I also had to distinguish myself as one of two Napoleóns in the race.

I decided to register as a precandidate anyway. I had an excellent campaign team who truly believed that we could get the people of Nuevo León behind our plan for the state's development. Plus, Colosio—who I believe was sincere in his encouragement—convinced me that even if I
wasn't selected, it would help me in the future if I used the campaign as a platform to publicize my ideas about the changes that needed to come not just to Nuevo León but to Mexico. Colosio had always been passionate about bringing equality and justice to his country.

You won't be surprised by who eventually won the PRI's nomination. As our precandidate campaigns continued, the hand of Salinas was felt by all of us. The media strongly favored Rizzo, despite the fact that he'd been absent from Nuevo León for more than twenty years. Many were unquestioning in their support of Rizzo, and the mayor's campaign materials advertised him as “Socrates Rizzo, Friend of Salinas.” It became clear that through a series of privatizations of state-owned companies and banks, Salinas had bought the support of Nuevo León's businessmen for his friend.

About two weeks into the campaign, I told Colosio and a journalist that if they did not change the situation of favoring Rizzo I would renounce my position as a precandidate. I told the journalist about the clear bias toward Rizzo, and he printed it in his interview with me. But the only effect was an immediate call from Colosio, who told me not to pull out and that he'd do everything he could to make sure the PRI's new selection rules were adhered to. I knew his intentions were good, but I also knew that he was restricted by the abundant power wielded by the president. At the end of the campaign, Rizzo was selected as the PRI's nominee, and he went on to become governor of the state of Nuevo León.

If it mattered so much to Salinas that Socrates Rizzo become governor, why didn't he simply use his influence to pressure the PRI to select him, as past presidents did? The answer is that Salinas wanted his will to be imposed but with the appearance of its being the will of the people. The appearance of a democratic election would be maintained even as the president pulled the strings to make sure the PRI did exactly what he and his business partners wanted. It's a type of deception Salinas is no stranger to. After all, this is the man who habitually greeted citizens of Nuevo León with “
Hola, paisano!
” as if he were a man of the people, even though we all knew Salinas—born in the Federal District of Mexico City—was far from a humble peasant from our state.

There's no doubt that Rizzo needed the president's support to win the election, and this was shown further when Rizzo abandoned his governorship in 1996, two years before his term was up, a move that followed the end of President Salinas's term in 1994. Without support from the president's office in Los Pinos, the businessmen of Nuevo León had no faith in Rizzo's ability to serve their interests, and they pressured him to resign.

The experience of this campaign confirmed my suspicions that Salinas pulled the strings and much about how politicians and businessmen behave in Mexico, and this type of collaboration to rack up benefits for the rich and powerful while selling off the property of the Mexican people was something I'd see plenty more of in my career.

Sadly, Luis Donaldo Colosio, the man who'd shown the most support for fairness and transparency in the process of nominating the PRI's gubernatorial candidate, was assassinated on March 23, 1994. He'd been elected as one of the PRI's candidates for president of Mexico, but he was gunned down at point-blank range after a campaign rally in an impoverished neighborhood of Tijuana in the state of Baja California.

I returned to my job at the Mint for the remainder of 1991, but in
1992, I resigned, having completed a twelve-year cycle. The job had been more or less administrative in nature, and I felt I had achieved what I wanted to there. I'd served as president of the World Mint Directors Organization for two years, from 1986 to 1988—I was the only Latin American to have ever been elected to that position—and had helped the Mint transform itself into the best it had been in decades. Upon my departure, I took a job as general director of the Autlán Mining Company, which was still owned by the Mexican government, and its entire group of subsidiary companies. My stay there was short: after a year and a half, the company was privatized, and I resigned so that the new private owners could appoint their own leadership.

I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to do next, but my political passion had been awakened, and I knew I wanted to help Mexican
democracy free itself from the grip of corruption. Toward that end, I began spending more time working with the miners' union my father led. After striking out on my own path into the world of academia and then public administration, I was now moving toward what would become my true vocation.

For years I'd helped my father where I could. He had grown into a widely revered figure in Mexico's labor movement and had served twice as senator and once as congressman in the Mexican government, all while holding the position of general secretary of the Miners' Union. He had also three times served as president of Mexico's Labor Congress, a federation of more than thirty labor unions. Helping my father in his capacity as general secretary of the Miners' Union was a rewarding task, though I was never paid for my services. I translated articles and passed along statistical information about markets, trends in metal prices, inflation projections, and changes in tax policy—information that helped the union negotiate wages and revisions to the workers' collective bargaining agreements. I also wrote, edited, and sometimes delivered speeches and presentations at national and international conferences on behalf of the union. Along with some of my colleagues from UNAM's economics department, I also helped design and publish the union's first official publication:
Minero
magazine, today called
Carta Minera
(Miners' Letter). Beginning with my studies and continuing through my time at the Mint, I acted as a consultant, active but in the background. I did this not just out of loyalty to my father but out of a deep and ever-growing respect for the dangerous work the miners of the union—Los Mineros—did every day, and a desire to fight for justice.

Most of the union members had known me since I was a child, first meeting me as I listened on the outskirts of the union meetings that would frequently take place in our home. Even before my father had been elected to lead Local 64 of the Miners' Union, he had organized a political group within local sector, and his comrades would often meet in our living room in the evenings, enjoying a beer or two and discussing how to create confidence and solidarity among the union's members. As
I continued doing unofficial consulting for the union in my adulthood, the members got to know me even better than they had when I was a child eavesdropping on the conversation of adults. As my respect for them increased, they came to trust me. My father tracked all of my work for the union with a vigilant and often critical eye. I know he was proud of the work I did, though he tended to keep his feelings to himself in our personal relationship. It was from others that I heard he was proud of me; he once told Oralia and his colleagues that I would do great things, and not just for Los Mineros. I would have preferred to hear it directly from him, of course, but he showed his respect in other ways—he consulted with me on nearly every important decision he made, even when it came time to look for his replacement as head of the union.

I didn't officially become a union member until 1995, when Grupo Peñoles, the second-largest mining company in Mexico, offered me a position with the administration, accounting, and operations of a project in a new mine opened in Santiago Papasquiaro, a town set in the valley below the Sierra Madre in the state of Durango. It was a post I could hold while maintaining my residence in Mexico City. The mine was called La Ciénega, and I took the job with the condition that all the workers at the mine be unionized—including me. The company agreed, and I began my official career as an active member of the Miners' Union. After a few months of work, the union named me Special Delegate to the National Executive Committee in Section 120 of La Cienega de Nuestra Señora.

The more involved I became in the Miners' Union, the more I felt as
if I'd found my calling. Not only was I supporting and learning from my father, but I was putting my passion for economics to use to benefit the workers I respected so much. I had become more and more actively involved in the union's operations; I was now helping negotiate the workers' collective bargaining agreements, always looking for ways to protect the workers' dignity and maintain equilibrium between their rights and the goals of the company.

In 2000, my father's health began to decline. He was now eighty-six, and after a bout with pneumonia, doctors discovered that he was suffering from lung cancer. Though he had never been a smoker, he had spent years at the lead and zinc smelter. As his condition worsened, it became clear that the union would soon require a new general secretary. He began meeting with the individuals who hoped to take his place, among them Elías Morales, a member of the union's executive committee who would later earn the distinction of being one of the worst traitors to the labor cause in Mexico.

Morales was, like me, from the city of Monterrey, and he had earned a reputation among the workers as an opportunist who was driven by insatiable ambition. Using any means possible, including taking on a servile, sycophantic persona and accusing his fellow workers of crimes they didn't commit, he was bent on climbing the ladder and gaining more and more power. It was obvious to everyone that he wanted to take my father's place at the head of the union. Some workers even reported that, during one of my father's last workplace visits, to a steel facility in Lázaro Cárdenas in the state of Michoacán, Morales gave him a shove at the top of a steep staircase, hoping to disguise the fall as an accident. My father didn't fall, but Morales continued his efforts. Knowing my father was a diabetic, he continually offered him candy, rich desserts, and fatty foods. He even took on some of my father's mannerisms in an attempt to gain trust from the workers through mere imitation.

As he lay sick in bed, weakening by the day, my father met with members of the national executive committee of the union, and in those conversations, he detected the scent of betrayal. In private, my father confided to a few of his closest members of the executive committee that there were men in the union who'd grown inappropriately close to the companies. He was worried, and rightly so, that upon his death these men, Morales being foremost among them, would negotiate with the mining companies to their own benefit, and to the detriment of the workers. These colleagues shared my father's concerns with the union's leaders, and concern about who would serve as a trustworthy
replacement spread. These concerns turned out to be well founded, as events years down the road would confirm.

At the time, no one had considered the possibility of me stepping in for my father—especially not me. I was excited about my family's plans. Oralia and I were already dreaming about our next adventure, hoping to take our sons abroad once again. We missed the rich culture of Europe, and hoped to educate our boys there. But as my father's time grew short, the executive committee began to view me as the safest option and proposed that I be appointed alternate general secretary under my father. They knew I would never betray the union or the workers. I was already their colleague, their brother, their friend. This was not the case with some union leaders at that time who aspired to replace him.

Though most of the workers seemed to like and respect me, my father insisted from the beginning that I not set my sights on taking his place permanently. From the time the subject first came up, he voiced his strong opposition. To me and to his colleagues he repeatedly said that it was inappropriate; that my serving as his successor would give the enemies of the union fuel for their attacks. He also told me what a difficult world it was—a world of treachery, with many powerful people and organizations fighting for their own interests. Being directly involved with union leadership would be a strain on my family, and he encouraged me to follow my own path.

At the time I completely agreed with him. I expected that before his term was up, a suitable replacement for my father would appear. I saw the position of alternate general secretary as temporary, an opportunity to help my father protect the union as he transitioned out of leadership and to protect it from those who might try to grab power for their own benefit. My plan was to serve in that capacity and then move on.

In early March of 2000, the executive committee of the union held a
pleno
, or formal meeting, in my father's office in the Mexico City headquarters of the Miners' Union. The majority of the thirteen assembled committee members wanted to name me as alternate general secretary, and I was ready to take on that responsibility. But also in attendance at the
pleno
were several traitors, including Elías
Morales, who was intent on securing his position as general secretary when my father died. The tension in the room was palpable. Over the course of the meeting, the committee members proposed that I be selected as alternate general secretary. As soon as the words were spoken, all eyes turned to Morales; everyone knew of his ambitions, and that he would see this as a huge blow to his chances. Seated directly under a deer's head that was mounted on the wall, Morales sat silently but turned a deep shade of red.