“People ee portray the
people along the border as de-
feated, but this isn’t true.”

x Blas Manrique

By Cindy Hawes

They beat the blind-folded man with
the butts of their pistols. “‘That’s what
you get’ for making us lose our busi-
ness,’ he was told.

Another man came into the room.
What contacts do you have with com-
munists in the U.S.?”’ he asked in poor
Spanish with a thick American accent.
Tell me about all the espionage going
on at the Naval base in San Diego. How
are you sending the information to Mos-
cow?”

The blind-folded man told him he
was crazy. *

The next day, a man covered with
blood was found by a U.S. tourist on a
Tijuana beach. He had no shoes, no
jacket, no identification. ~

That man who was left to die on the
beach in Tijuana was, 17 years later, in
1977, a candidate for governor of Baja
California. His name is Blas Manrique
and he’s the general secretary of the
Mexican Communist Party (PCM) in
Baja California.

I met the veteran communist leader
in the border city of Tijuana last De-
cember. He spoke to me about his 48
years in the party and of the tremendous
battles waged by the Mexican people
and the Communists in Baja California
against U.S. domination and corrupt
local politicians.

Baja California was virtually a col-
ony of the U.S. when Manrique arrived
there in 1949. Tijuana had no electricity,
oil or gasoline of its own. They were
purchased in the U.S., along with food,
clothing, furniture, appliances, cars
and medical services.

The border cities at that time lacked
so many services that Mexican federal
officials — the district judge, treasurer,
even the immigration officer.— all lived

Blas Manrique

in Chula Vista, California. ‘‘You only

saw those officials during office hoursin -

Tijuana,’’ Manrique said. “‘If you

needed them for an emergency service

at night, you had to have a passport to

- enter the U.S. to see them.”’

- But the immediate problem was the
region’s lack of water. To begin to
tackle this, Manrique established the
Central Committee for Water. The

‘committee asked an agronomist to.

study the region and suggest a solution.
The agronomist came up with the idea

- of bringing the overflow water from the

Colorado’ River, which was being
dumped into the ocean, into the Mexi-
cali Valley.

‘The committee wrote a letter to:

President Adolfo Lopez Mateos, asking
for his endorsement of the project. Ta-

bles were set up in certain districts of
the city so that people could-sign the
letter.

But a vicious anti-communist cam
paign was initiated, Manrique said, evi-
dently by reactionaries in the U.S. and
in Mexico who feared this would affect

~ their economic interests.

_ Ads were published in the newspa-
pers warning people not to sign the let-
ter. ‘The Communists want to annex us
to Russia,” they said. ‘‘Whoever signs
the letter will lose their local passports
and not be able to enter the U.S.”

These threats were the same ones
used along the border during the height
of the McCarthy period.

The committee, determined not to be
intimidated, immediately sent a letter
to the U.S. consulate in Baja California
asking whether, if by requesting the

, Mexican government to resolve the

water problem, the committee had in
fact violated any U.S. law. The consu-
late was forced to reply no, it was an
internal problem of Mexico: To take
away a person’s passport would have
meant a U.S. law had been violated.

The consulate’s letter was published
in all the newspapers. But, according to
Manrique, an interesting change in the.
people’s consciousness was already
developing. ‘‘They began coming up to
the tables, throwing their passports on
the tables, saying, ‘We exchange our
passports for water.’ ”

‘More than 25,000 people signed the
letter — nearly 50% of Tijuana’s popula-
tion. A water storage plant was eventu-
ally built, bringing the much-needed
water to the towns of Tijuana, Tecate,

* Ensenada and Rosarito.
The struggle to ‘‘decolonize’ Baja —

California had begun. The PCM led
other successful battles to free Baja

from purchasing its energy sources
fom the U.S. As aresult, Baja now has

its own electric terminal and oil de
pository.

“These were the essential ingre-
dients for Baja California to create its
own industry. Having our own energy
sources is also important in case of con-

flict with the U.S.,’’ Manrique said.

“The U.S. could simply cut off our elec-
tricty, oil, food, hospitals — all these
items were Repent on the U.S. bor-
der cities.”

In spite of these moves to ‘‘decol-
onize”’ Baja California, the region is far
from being independent of U:S. influ-
ence and monopoly control. Today the
present governor, Roberto de la Mad-

rid, has virtually opened the state up to ©

foreign capital, restraining even the
Mexican industrialists from investing

in thestate. By giving certain privileges —

to. the maquiladoras (U.S.-owned as-

sembly plants) and tying himself to the

commercial bourgeoisie, de la Madrid
has prevented long-range industrial
development of the region.

One of the governor’s most persis-

_ tent critics has been ABC, the most
popular and .onily, politically indepen--

dent newspaper in Baja California. It
exposed the corruption in the state’s
administration and de la Madrid’s links

; to U.S. multinationals. But last Nov. 2,

the governor shut it down.

Consistent with his other anti-labor
moves, de la Madrid sent 16 busloads of
hired thugs to take over ABC’s offices in
the middle of the night. But the governor

was unprepared for the popular outcry.

Mass demonstrations protested the
takeover, and people refused to buy the
scab paper. As one person told me,
‘“‘Now-they can’t even give it away.” |
As leader of the PCM in-Baja
California, Manrique has also been ac-
tively involved in strengthening worker
solidarity on both sides of the border.
‘‘We have common problems,” he said.
‘‘Workers, intellectuals, minorities,
students in the U.S.— all suffer as we do

here from the same reactionary policies -

of the U.S. monopolies. We don’t believe

that this dividing line should be a reason

for us to be divided.’”
The history of Baja California is rich

in popular struggles, and Manrique
knows them well. ‘‘People often portray —

the people along the border as defeated,
underdogs, malinchistas, but this isn’t

true,” he said. ‘‘They are ErCTHER ORES

nationalistic and patriotic.”

~ He cited the example of. U.S. troop: x

attempts to invade Baja California dur-

_ing World War II. ‘‘They used the pre-
text that it was the only way to defend —_-
the peninsulain the event of aninvasion _

by Japan,” Manrique said.

“But the people of Tijuana went to _

the border saying they would defend
their country with their own blood, and

refused to allow them to cross the line ie ;

he said.

. Mexican patriotism and national
sentiments have deep historical roots,
much of which go back to the year 1848,
when the U.S. took possession of more
than half of Mexico’s territory, includ-
ing land’ that today encompasses
California, Arizona, New Mexico,
Texas, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and
Colorado.

Just open a Mexican history book
and you will find this information. Just
as. you will find the words of Mexican
President Benito Juarez: ‘Peace is the
respect of the rights of others.”

Editor: J.J. Johnson.

World Magazine, 239 West 23 Street, New York, N.Y. 10011

Associate editor: Donna Ristorucci

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 29, 1980—Page 6