The Mexican Left hits the Wal-Mart in Mexico City

I got a few emails asking me for the protest at the Mexican units of Wal-Mart. I am writing this brief description of the actions. I am also attaching 3 news articles, the first in English the other two in Spanish for you information. I am attaching the link for a google video so you know what it looked like the protest. As far as I know this is the first time Wal-Mart gets hit by the progressive movement.

http://video.google.es/videoplay?docid=4385664292386961314

I was in one of the protest. They hit the 22 Wal-Mart in Mexico City and also most of the stores in the State of Mexico. The left claims they did the protest nationwide. There is no way to know if this was true.There were about 80 protesters in the one I was. I was told that in some areas they were more than 200 protesters in every store. The ones I saw in TV news and blogs were well attended.

People were informed of the location of the action just the night before and that location was always a phone company building near Wal-Mart. Just when people arrived at 10 AM they were told that the action was at the Wal-Mart. The action consisted at going inside the store get a shopping cart, fill the shopping cart and then right at eleven head to the register. Then at eleven the leader started thechanting and people abandoned the shopping carts and spend a few minutes reading aspeech that was given to the leaders by email just that morning. The leaders and the protesters were very disciplined.

The speech accused Wal-Mart of getting involved in the presidential election (July 2, 2006) and of being part of a right wing conspiracy to privatize the oil and the electrical generation industries. (This week there were news of a meeting of several CEO, to discuss their agenda for the new president, Eduardo Solorzano, Wal-Mex CEO was there). They alsomentioned the destruction of local economies, workers treatment, small business and the destruction of the historic towns and villages in all Mexico. The speech asked people not to buy at Wal-Mart.

During the election there were reports that meetings were conducted between management and employees at many Wal-Mart. The employees were asked to support the right wing candidate. There were other reports of right wing flyers being stuffed in the shopping bags. The one report I read with substance was the amounts of money Miguel Arango, major Wal-Mex shareholder gave to the right party. Under Mexican law, it is illegal for corporations to support candidates or any political party. The final decision of the TRIFE (the judicialcommittee that decide the claims of fraud in last election) mentioned the illegal contributions but declare itself unable to call for a new election.

There were chants for about 20 minutes called for a boycott and left the store.

If you have any question just email me. A good source of information in Mexico are the blogs. Just like in the US, they are becoming the source of information. They have videos and many pictures. If you have any interest I could direct you to them