Mexico Robin Hood or Robbing Hood?

By Guy D. Garcia

It was a rude awakening for Joaquin Hernandez Galicia, the strongman behind Mexico's oilworkers union. At about 9 a.m. last Tuesday, scores of federal police officers and troops surrounded Hernandez's heavily guarded house in Ciudad Madero, northeast of Mexico City. Whether authorities first attempted to arrest Hernandez without force is unclear; what is beyond dispute is that the lawmen used a bazooka to blast open the front door. When the battle was over, a federal agent lay dead and Hernandez and about a dozen other union officials and bodyguards were under arrest.

Immediately after the raid, the government announced it had found 200 automatic weapons and 30,000 rounds of ammunition in Hernandez's house. Hernandez and his colleagues were quickly flown to Mexico City, where they were arraigned on charges of illegally possessing weapons, resisting arrest and killing a police officer.

As news of the arrests spread, oil-union workers staged strikes and demonstrations in several parts of the country. Gasoline supplies ran out in Mexico City and other areas as panicky motorists filled their tanks. By week's end, however, strikers had returned to their jobs and gas stations were operating normally.

The raid, coming just over a month after President Carlos Salinas de Gortari took office following a campaign that promised major political and economic reforms, fueled speculation that Hernandez's arrest was the government's opening shot in its efforts to control the country's powerful unions. For much of its 59 years, the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (P.R.I.) has given considerable autonomy to union leaders in exchange for industrial peace and delivering votes at election time.

As the former secretary-general and current strongman of the 200,000-member oilworkers union, Hernandez, nicknamed La Quina, had built up a personal fortune and a large following among those beholden to him for jobs, education and health care. Many of the area's poor people regarded him as something of a Mexican Robin Hood. The enmity between Salinas and Hernandez dates back to the President's tenure as Secretary of Planning and Federal Budget in the administration of Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado. At that time, Salinas accused both the oil union and Pemex, the state oil company, of inefficiency.

By boldly challenging La Quina, Salinas has perhaps signaled his intention to end the cozy relationship between the P.R.I. and corrupt labor unions. The President may have won the opening skirmish, but the war is not over. "They had to do it if they want to continue the restructuring of Mexico's economy," said a private economist. "They seemed to have planned it very well, but things could still go wrong."

With reporting by Andrea Dabrowski/Mexico City