This year marks the hundredth anniversary of one of the great events in modern history. On November 20th of 1910 Francisco I. Madero denounced the electoral fraud perpetrated by President Díaz and called for a national insurrection. This marked the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. Today, the conditions have matured for another revolution, this time with a mighty proletariat at its head.

We republish here the appeal from the Mexican CLEP-CEDEP students that are facing a campaign of legal harassment and threats from the authorities. Five of them, all leading student activists, are facing jail sentences for the only crime of having defended free education. The authorities are accusing them on trumped up charges as a result of the students' strike to defend free education on June 4th. The legal costs involved in this campaign have already run up to 825 euros (16,000 Mexican pesos). We make an appeal to all IDOM readers to sign the protest letter, raise this issue in your organisation and donate generously to the Legal Defence Fund.

“Poor Mexico! So far from God, so near to the United States.” The famous words of Porfirio Díaz are truer today than at any time in the tempestuous history of this country. The crisis of world capitalism has hit Mexico hard. And its extreme dependence on the USA, which previously was presented as something beneficial to the Mexican economy, has turned out to be a colossal problem.

The struggle of Mexican workers in defense of the Mexican Electricians Union (SME) has become one where at stake is not just this single union, but the position of the entire Mexican labor movement. It poses questions that go well beyond the realms of the Electricians’ Union. Here Ruben Rivera explains what is required to fight back and push the whole movement forward.

Up to half a million people turned out in Mexico City to demonstrate their support for the Mexican Electricians Union (SME) on October 15. In spite of all the government and media campaign, the workers were not intimidated. On the contrary, they came out with even greater force. This marks a major turning point in the situation in Mexico.

For Mexico, the world economic crisis has provoked a severe fall in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of -10.3% in the second quarter alone - the worst on record since 1981. 36,000 companies have gone bankrupt and 735,000 workers have lost their jobs. Massive government spending cuts are further aggravating the situation.