Thousands protest Fox’s address

A daylong strike and demonstration marred President Vicente Fox’s state of the union speech in which he defended democratic gains in Mexico.

BY SUSANA HAYWARD

Knight Ridder News Service

MEXICO CITY - President Vicente Fox defended his government’s democratic gains Wednesday in his fourth state of the union address, but thousands of protesters staged a one-day strike and nearly paralyzed this metropolis, symptomatic of public anger over rising crime, corruption and poverty.

’’When I became president of Mexico, I included society’s democratic aspirations in my government’s projects,’’ Fox said. The mandate citizens gave me was clear: to advance building a government guided by the independence of government branches and the strengthening of the legal order.'' Fox won office in 2000 as the first president in more than 70 years not to belong to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, and many hailed him then as Mexico's first democratically elected president. Since then, his reform efforts have met with a growing sense of dissatisfaction. On Wednesday, tens of thousands of demonstrators brought this capital of 20 million nearly to a halt. It was the largest protest aimed at a state of the union address in recent memory. Electrical and telephone union members, farming organizations, students and human rights groups began moving toward congress at noon, blocking major intersections and jamming traffic. More than 7,000 police officers and presidential guards blocked the protesters from reaching congress. Barricades stretched for three miles, closing off 300 city blocks. Demonstrators threw garbage and eggs and set off firecrackers. They carried banners reading, ''Liar'' andYou fooled us!’’

Radio and television reports urged people to stay home. Several subway stations were closed.

The demonstrators were led by workers from the vast Mexican Social Security Institute, which provides government-paid healthcare, who were protesting a change in pension rules that require workers to pay into the pension system.

Union leaders see the change as part of a larger plan to privatize pensions and renegotiate labor contracts at state-owned enterprises.

Fox has said the changes are necessary because the pension program was consuming too much money meant for medical care. He defended the move in his speech.

’’This is the first step in guaranteeing the financial viability and raising the quality of its services,’’ Fox said.

In other issues, Fox:

• Promised to double the budget for fighting crime by 2005.

• Promised that his government will push federal courts to hear cases involving political crimes committed during Mexico’s dirty war 30 years ago.

• Defended his opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, saying it proves we are a nation firmly committed to peace and multilateralism.'' ''Today our political life is more open, more plural and intense than ever,'' he said.Democracy is not the absence of conflict; it is the freedom to debate problems.’’

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