Mexican Blackshirts

Out of the Mexican hills rode an armed band. It descended on the sleepy town of Miguel Auza last week and scattered a troop of young Mexican conscripts drilling in the square. The bandits occupied the town for several hours until Government troops arrived. The Mayor, his son and several others were killed; many were wounded. During the same afternoon bands attacked the towns of Rio Grande and Nieves in the State of Zacatecas. There was no looting, but many civilians were killed and more were wounded.

The attacks were immediately attributed to the reactionary-Catholic, pro-Fascist Union Nacional Sinarquista, which has consistently fought conscription and urged collaboration with Franco Spain against the U.S. Labor's El Popular called the attacks a "new act of Sinarquista vandalism." Others remembered that less serious attacks last month in Morelos had been carried out under the Sinarquista slogan: "Take Away Your Military Service."

Prodded by square-jawed Fidel Velazquez, Secretary General of the Mexican Workers Confederation, the Chamber of Deputies last month demanded that President Manuel Avila Camacho dissolve the Sinarquista Union, whose blind discipline was all too reminiscent of the Nazis. Under one Salvador Abascal its membership had grown to at least 200,000 trained men before Abascal lost his job for talking too much. How long, the Chamber of Deputies asked, could Mexican democracy tolerate a wellarmed, anti-democratic party which:

>Was organized in 1936 as the Anti-Communist Center by Nazi Agent Oscar Hellmuth Schreiter, and from the outset trained semi-militarized shock troops under Spanish Falangists; >Maintained direct contact with the Fichte Bund in Hamburg until the outbreak of the war;

>Opposed Pan-Americanism, favored Hispanidad--an anti-U.S. union of Latin American countries with Spain under the Nazi-sounding slogan, "One Race, One Language. One Culture, One Religion"; >^Received active financial support from a reactionary right wing of the Catholic Church--arch-enemy of the Mexican Revolution ;

>Was resolved to "restore the social order in Mexico destroyed by liberalism, pseudo democracy and anarchism; ... to destroy the Revolution?"

Middle-of-the-road President Avila Camacho said: "Mexico is a democratic country. All parties are able to exist." Previously he had granted the Sinarquistas permission to colonize Lower California. He had straddled successfully Mexico's widely separated right and left for two difficult years. His major attempts to fight the Sinarquistas had been to spread leaflets and inspire articles telling the Mexican people that the conscript army would not be sent to fight in foreign wars.

But with armed raids crackling around his ears, the time was drawing near when President Avila Camacho might have to take action against the Sinarquistas to protect the democracy he led.

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