Mexico

1987Even when the 1987’s favorable trade balance and reserves accumulation were in full swing, industrial employment dipped 7% during the first quarter, while inflation –that had previously reached 106% in 1986- was peaking 134% on August 1987.

1986Internal situation for the PRI was getting tougher. The party was charged with fraud during the 1986 municipal elections. From the workers’ standpoint, the creation of an independent trade union coordinating body put up a challenge to the PRI’s guile, a traditionally hegemonic sector inside the Labor Congress, Mexico’s largest coordinator of labor federations).

1985Direct foreign investment jacked up to $1,5 billion with a 66% of U.S. cashflow. But remittances also increased with liabilities for up to $344 million during the years’ three first quarters. A foreign debt estimated in $96 billion went on to be the country’s main problem since interest rates soared to an average $12 billion a year.

1985The earthquake buried more than 20,000 people, thus adding insult to injury. A new cutdown on the oil quota to the United States forced alternative income sources. Tourism was one those new ways. Support for sweatshops –tax-exempt foreign industries along the U.S.-Mexican border- was just another alternative. Sweatshops are allowed to sell their output in the domestic market and aren’t subject to social legislation.

1982Miguel de la Madrid took over the Mexican presidency in 1982 and forwarded adjusting policies recommended by the IMF. The cutdown on subsidies and public spending, overhaul of the public investment system and the establishment of a dual exchange rate generated popular discontent and the first defeat for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) since its foundation.The government could not impose their own candidates in two big cities and in the federal district during the June 1983 elections. Under the pressure exerted by the foreign debt, the 1983’s situation flared up: growing inflation, real-wage loss, curtailment of public spending, production decrease and increasing unemployment.

1976During José López Portillo’s term in office (1976-1982) major oil reserves so making the nation more dependent on the U.S. The country soon became the United States’ top oil purveyor.

1968Within the framework of the 1968 Olympic Games held in Mexico, the student’s movement organized protests to denounce the country’s social situation. One of those demonstrations carried out in the Square of the Three Cultures, also known as Tlatelolco Plaza, was cracked down by the Army with live-fire bullets. Soldiers had previously taken strategic shooting positions around the square and had been briefed to shoot to kill. Hundreds of dead and wounded people immortalized the notoriously sad “Tlatelolco Massacre.”

1957Between 1821 and 1850, the country underwent 50 different governments. The Mexican bourgeoisie split in two parties: liberals and conservatives. The former won the 1857, thus implementing individual rights and conducting the expropriation of clergy’s assets. But the conservatives, backed up by the Church, went up in arms and the country was dragged into the so-called Reform War.