Mexico honors thugs and murderers
Thirty years before I was born a revolution swept through where I was born. Obviously, I couldn’t participate, neither could my mother or father; but, my great Grandmother was there and was in it.
The 20th Century’s first revolution, The Mexican Revolution, was sparked by Francisco Madero, the former University of California and Mount St. Mary’s College (Maryland) student who campaigned against the three-decadelong dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz in the presidential election of 1911. Diaz had Maderos arrested. Madero bailed out and fled to Texas from where he announced an armed insurrection to start on November 20, 1910.
The keys to success ran through the Mexican border cities of Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana.
San Diegans rode their buggies and cars to the hills on the border and watched the Battle of Tijuana between rebel forces, mostly American, commanded by Ricardo Flores Magon (The Liberal Mexican Party) and federal forces of former President Diaz who were loyal to new President Francisco Madero. Flores Magon directed his troops from the Los Angeles County jail.
After taking Mexicali and Tijuana in January, 1911 Flores Magon’s troops, commanded in Tijuana by an American former Marine, controlled northern
Baja California until federal troops landed in Ensenada’s harbor and marched north to take Tijuana back. At the end, rebel troops scurried across the border, surrendering their weapons. They were detained at San Diego’s Ft. Rosecrans.
President Madero made a horrendous mistake when he appointed General Victoriano Huerta to lead the Army.
My great Grandmother Maria met him during his successful campaign. After Madero was assassinated, Maria couldn’t vote but she could and did raise money to buy arms for Villa’s and Zapata’s new armies.
These two charismatic leaders met on December 4 in Mexico City, they met each other and my great Grandmother, who supervised the meal they shared. Her description of their respective soldiers when they came to our house was simple: Zapata’s peasant farmers asked if there was any food they could have; Pancho Villa’s northern Mexican cowboys and cavalry simply took what they wanted.
This was not a revolution, this was a civil war. With great Grandmother’s help, Villa’s horse soldiers and Zapata’s infantry unleashed a full-fledged war on the anti-democrats. Stepping into the fray were the moderate “Constitutionalists” of Venustiano Carranza and his top general, Alvaro Obregon. They defeated Pancho Villa’s army in the north and Emiliano Zapata’s army in the south.
Carranza was assassinated. Obregon won the presidency in 1920. Maria supported him. President Obregon settled Mexico’s decade of war. Here enters Plutarco Elias Calles, the president my great grandmother labeled a “criminal.” Calles made war on the Catholic Church. Catholics fought back.
Mexico started its road to democracy when General Lazaro Cardenas was handpicked by “criminal” Calles to be President in 1934. Imagine Calles’ surprise one night when Mexican secret police put him on a Ford Tri-motor airplane and exiled him for life to San Diego, California.
Mexicans in 1942 joined the United States in making war on Adolf Hitler and Tojo. An all-Mexican unit of fighter pilots was formed. Innumerable Mexican men walked across the border to join the U.S. Army, Marines, and Navy.
I knew one of those men; George Bujazan. His family owned movie theaters in Tijuana. Shortly after Pearl Harbor was attacked he joined the U.S. Army with friends from the Catholic high school he attended in San Diego. He served in the 101st Airborne Division. He earned a Silver Star for bravery. I was proud to know him, this fighter for freedom, this friend of America.
I can’t say that about the current President who apprenticed as a corrupt “achichincle” (ah-chee-chee-nkleh – gofer for the Soviet-style PRI political party that ran Mexico for 70 years). He lost two runs for the Presidency yet claimed – Trump style – that he won both times. He didn’t.
Since he was elected in 2018, he aligned himself with the worst people in the world.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) hired doctors from Cuba where people earn $20-a-month and paid them more than Mexican doctors earn. On Mexico’s National day – September 15-16, Mexico’s Independence Day, were there Americans with whom Mexicans fought side-by-side with in the military parade? No.
AMLO personally invited Russian, Cuban, and Nicaraguan troops to march.
My great Grandmother helped create modern Mexico. She would be bitter seeing murderers of Ukrainian women and children in the parade, ditto seeing Cuban thugs who attack women on Havana streets every Sunday, and the oppressors of democratic Nicaraguans who are imprisoned by the Nicaraguan government. She would really be bitter.