MEXICO: Pistoleros’ Progress

As long as Mexico has had elections it has had pistoleros (“gunmen”). These bravos are sometimes paid, and sometimes just appoint themselves, to “support” respective candidates for office. During political off-seasons they keep in training by provoking purely private, local brawls, but let a close election loom and they emerge in force to strut around bars, clank their spurs haughtily and utter elegant insults at other candidates’ pistoleros. Some pistoleros have strong political ideals. A lot of them get their bravado from tequila.

During the regime of Plutarco Elias Calles (1924-28) the bad men could find jobs as bodyguards for the President. Under mild-mannered Lazaro Cardenas there has been little place for them. But President Cardenas is to retire next November, and now campaigning for July’s Presidential election are two military men with strong backing, plenty of money and no particular revulsion to a little shooting now & then—Generals Manuel Avila Camacho and Juan Andreu Almazan.

General Avila Camacho is the candidate of the P. R. M. (Party of the Mexican Revolution), supports such Cardenas acts as the seizure of foreign-owned oil wells, and, although a dull campaigner, is most likely to win. General Almazan takes a line only slightly to the Right, agrees with his opponents about the oil wells, makes up for his lack of a program with lots of personal charm and chatty campaigning methods. Also likely to enter the race is one-eyed General Joaquin Amaro, a full-blooded Tarascan Indian who still had rings in his ears when he first rode into Mexico City some 25 years ago. General Amaro forthrightly condemns expropriation, wants to exterminate “fascist and communist tendencies characterizing the present regime.” He was Secretary for War under President Calles.

When Candidates Avila Camacho and Andreu Almazán began their serious campaigning a few months ago, the pistoleros also began their shooting. Since then few days have gone by without clashes between camachistas and almazanistas. First, the rival gunmen got tangled up at Tacubaya, with one killed, two wounded. Next, at a Camacho meeting in Mexico City, Almazan men showed up uninvited and the result was one killed, 19 wounded. A few weeks later Almazán supporters riding on a train near Tlatilco were attacked by men shouting Viva Avila Camacho! Two were killed, “several” injured. An Almazán leader’s body was next found floating in Mexico City’s Canal. Then the Almazán campaign committee of Puebla considered it prudent suddenly to depart from the State where General Avila Camacho’s brother is Governor.

Last week things got even hotter and, as knowing Mexicans delicately phrased it, it began to look as “if something might happen to Almazán.” In Zacapu, Michoacan State, the house in which Candidate Almazán was sleeping was attacked in the dead of the night and his personal aide, Lieut. Elias Somoano, was killed. Almazán supporters immediately blamed Avila Camacho’s pistoleros. General Francisco Múgica, Michoacan’s military commander and a onetime Presidential candidate himself, had another version. He blamed it all on an unidentified party of wandering drunks, said Lieut. Somoano was killed by a stray bullet. At any rate, President Cardenas, taking no part in the campaign, assigned to General Almazán a bodyguard of 150 soldiers. Early this week Candidate Almazán halfway threatened a revolt when he declared:. “If the Government attempts to thwart the will of the people by manipulating votes at the election of July I shall know what course to follow.”