AMLO Is Calling for Peace in Ukraine, but More Military in Mexico
Unlike most world leaders, Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has boldly called for peace commission in Ukraine, foregrounding the need for open negotiations to end the war. At home, however, he has increased the power of the military.
Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (C), Mexico’s secretary of defense, Cresencio Sandoval (L), and Mexico’s secretary of the Navy, Rafael Ojeda (R), at an annual military parade in Mexico City, Mexico on September 16, 2022. (Daniel Cardenas / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
On the night of September 15, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) presided over the traditional independence ceremony from the balcony of the National Palace in Mexico City. After two years of COVID restrictions that had left the central square, or Zócalo, eerily desolate for the previous two editions, this year’s grito — the shout that reenacts the call to independence of revolutionary priest Miguel Hidalgo from the bell tower of the town of Dolores Hidalgo in 1810 — was full to bursting with a capacity crowd of one hundred forty thousand enjoying a concert of the iconic, multiple-Grammy-award-winning band Los Tigres del Norte. In addition to the standard list of ¡Vivas! (“Long live . . . ”) for the pantheon of national heroes, the president pointedly went off script to add three ¡Mueras! to the list of proclamations: “Death to corruption! Death to classism! Death to racism!”
A Conflict Brought to You by the Arms Industry
The following day, on the occasion of the annual civic-military parade, AMLO devoted his entire speech to foreign affairs. Before a remarkable assemblage of guests — which included the former presidents of Uruguay and Bolivia, José Mujica and Evo Morales, respectively; the father and brother of Julian Assange; the daughter of Che Guevara; and the family of labor organizer and farmworker advocate César Chavez (the family of Martin Luther King III had attended the previous night’s ceremony) — the president laid out a plan for an international peace commission to intervene immediately in the Ukraine conflict in an effort to bring everyone to the negotiating table.
While condemning the invasion itself, he was unsparing in his criticism of those whose action, and inaction, have allowed the situation to reach its present state.
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