Hoy hace cien años, el legendario revolucionario mexicano, el General Francisco “Pancho” Villa, fue asesinado. Navegando entre los roles de bandido y revolucionario.
El presidente Díaz enfrentó presiones sociales y convulsiones políticas lideradas por Emiliano Zapata en el sur y Villa en el norte del país
Vila era el Robin Hood de México, ya que sus victorias sobre los opresores tiranos del pueblo común de su país se convirtieron en leyendas
ARTICULO COMPLETO AQUI:
One Hundred Years of Attitude
By James Cooper
One hundred years ago today, legendary Mexican revolutionary General Francisco “Pancho” Villa was assassinated. Straddling the lines between bandit and revolutionary, outlaw and military leader, criminal and Governor, Villa blurred the roles of private actor and state official. This is no surprise for at times he was doing all simultaneously. In addition to his leadership and famed military tactics, Villa was the harbinger of the revolving door of public servants joining the private workforce and the embodiment of regulatory capture that so afflicts Mexico, the United States, and many other countries today.
With no formal education, Villa could not read until his first stint in prison, a place with which he became quite familiar. His criminal behavior, however, was often in the name of the underclasses of Mexico, the campesinos who were traditionally marginalized in the agricultural sector. After all, the initial uprising against the authoritarian regime of the aging dictator Porfirio Díaz in 1910 was about land reform. President Díaz faced social pressures and serious political upheavals led by Emiliano Zapata in the south and Villa in the north of the country. These private actors would eventually rise to the level of state actors once their respective rebel activities were coopted into the overall Mexican revolutionary struggle. And like today’s narcotraficantes, the rebels used their links to governing authorities to undertake illegal activities.
As the federales of the Díaz regime were dispatched from Ciudad Juárez, Villa planned for his advance to the south. Soon thereafter he and his troops rode down to the capital. Villa earned a commission of Captain in federal army that new President Francisco Madero had created, and while in Mexico City, he was made Honorary General of the new rurales, completing his transition from bandit to legitimate state agent in the new Republic of Mexico. This was not going to be easy.
When he first entered the Governor’s Palace in the northern State of Chihuahua, he took personal command of the relief work among the residents there, reducing prices so as to permit the poor to obtain the necessary supplies. He was brutal: Any merchant found guilty of price gauging was shot and his property confiscated. And while he may have used the Mexican Revolution as a way to cleanse his image as a bandit, Villa never forgot where he came from.
Governance, Villa would soon learn, was very different than revolution. Indeed, his transition from private actor to State actor was not so easy. A politician is accountable and governs from one place. Villa was rumored to have never slept in the same place twice and rarely even rose in the morning in the same bed in which he had gone to sleep. That makes having cabinet meetings a little difficult. That was no matter because Villa was reputedly not a good delegator.
Moreover, working with different interests, especially in the midst of a revolutionary war, is no simple task. Villa had to manage multiple stakeholders, navigate shifting political alliances, ward off threats to his rule, and manage the people’s expectations. The same rebels who had been allies in fighting the remnants of the oppressive Díaz regime now wanted their share of spoils from the “liberated” ranches and mines. This was a kind of regulatory capture for its time. The best regulations do not result when insiders involved in industries suggest the rules by which they are to be held or the land titles and concessions they are to be granted.
After his stint as Governor, Villa’s old ways beckoned. You can take the revolutionary out of the battle but you can’t take the battle out of the revolutionary. Villa made his way back to his former life. It was probably easier. But this time around, Villa overextended himself and led a cross-border raid into the United States, drawing the ire of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson who ordered thousands of troops into Mexico to capture him. This was a far cry from early on in the revolutionary war, when Villa was viewed in the U.S. as a folk hero.
Villa was Mexico’s Robin Hood, as his victories over the tyrant oppressors of the regular people of his country became the stuff of legend. Like the ballads glorifying the populist criminal bosses of today, corridos were sung to glorify Villa’s victories. It was no surprise though that Villa became a threat to more entrenched interests, both in Mexico and to the north. Like the competing drug trafficking organizations in Mexico today, Villa had his own private army, threatening the monopoly of force, which the state should control.
On July 20, 1923, as the Mexican revolutionary period drew to an end after a decade of mass violence that saw one million people killed, Villa was killed, reportedly on the orders of President Alvaro Obregón who worried that Villa would again raise an army to continue the Revolution. Villa left behind a mixed legacy and much unfinished business that persists today.
James Cooper is professor of law and director of international legal studies at California Western School of Law. He has consulted for both the U.S. and Mexican governments on rule of law matters.
Author: James Cooper
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