Chapter 20

By 9:00 the next morning, about five thousand people had gathered at the Alameda Park in Mexico City, with dozens more arriving every minute. The atmosphere was festive, but there was an undercurrent of tension which was also present.

By 10:00, the crowd had increased to about thirty thousand, with scores more arriving every minute. As noon approached, the crowd continued to swell. By noon, over one and a half million people had converged there, with hundreds more continuing to arrive by the moment.

By 12:20, Jorge Guerrillero was finally able to make his way through the hordes of people to the soundtruck that had been donated by a sympathetic merchant. He was met there by Maria Velazquez, who had herself only just managed to wend her way through the throng to the truck. It had taken each of them nearly an hour to get through the crowd to the rendezvous point.

"Jorge, you made it!" Maria greeted him with a hug. "Isn't this amazing! There must be at least two or three million people out there! And more are arriving every minute!"

"I don't believe it! If the government doesn't agree to our demands, they're going to have a revolution on their hands! Let's get started."

Jorge then climbed onto the back of the truck, helped Maria up beside him, and grasped the microphone.

"My fellow Mexicans. We have been able to gather here, in just a few hours, more people than have ever gathered together in Mexico to demonstrate against the blatantly corrupt actions of the government, which, as you know acquitted Pedro Cohecho of bribery, corruption, and of illegally removing $160 million from our country. This despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt. One hundred sixty million dollars! That is sixty four billion pesos! That is more than enough money to feed more than a million of our poorest, starving people for a year!"

A very loud roar rose from the throng, whose mood was turning more and more ugly. Jorge waited until the din had eased a bit before continuing.

"And do you know where all of that money that he had stolen from our hungriest people and our starving babies went? Most of it was deposited in the same foreign banks that the Mexican government owes over $200 billion to! So, while the foreign banks are causing more and more of our people to live in extreme poverty and destitution so that we can continue to pay the outrageous usurious interest rates that they charge us, they reward the biggest thief that we have been able to uncover so far! And they expect to get away with it!"

The crowd roared as their anger further intensified at the actions of the corrupt men who were running the government.

"The greedy foreign bankers are taking food out of the mouths of our children and are condemning them to lives of no hope except extreme poverty, malnutrition and disease, while they get fatter and richer! Then, they reward their puppets in our government for making our lives even more wretched than they had previously been!"

"I think, and I feel that every one of you feel the same way, that we have had it! We will not take any more! We refuse to condemn our children and our poor to needless suffering just so some greedy bastards can line their pockets! We have had it with their corruption! We can stand no more! We demand Justice! On to the Zocalo!"

Jorge jumped off of the back of the truck into the swarming crowds of people that he had just aroused to a fever pitch, helped Maria down and together they began to lead the march to the central square of Mexico City. As the multitudes marched down the Avenida Juarez, they were joined by thousands of others who had just caught up with them.

Jorge had originally been hopeful that the demonstration would be peaceful, but with a mass of this size, anything could happen. All that was needed was one incident to turn a peaceful demonstration into a massive, bloody riot. No one knew what was going to happen. As the march began, Jorge was becoming more pessimistic about the demonstration remaining peaceful. His pessimism was warranted.

As the protesters began entering the Zocalo from all sides, Jorge, Maria and the others couldn't help but notice the police and the soldiers that had been deployed around the government buildings. An involuntary shudder and an inaudible gasp escaped from him when he looked at the roofs of the buildings surrounding the square. Heavily armed troops were stationed on top of all of the buildings surrounding the square, including the cathedral, which Jorge considered blasphemous.

Still the swarms of people continued to surge into the square.

The commanding general of the assembled troops approached Jorge and Maria. "What do you want?" he demanded.

"We demand justice!" proclaimed Jorge. "We protest the outrageous exoneration, despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt, of Finance Minister Cohecho, who has stolen food from the mouths of our babies and has taken his stolen money out of the country to enrich himself and his greedy cohorts! We demand food for the poor! We demand jobs! We demand decent medical care! We demand decent drinking water! We demand an end to the corruption that pervades our government! We demand an end to the unconscionable payments to the foreign banks that are ruining our economy and have condemned more and more of our people to lives of misery and squalor, while those same banks reward our most corrupt officials by paying them interest on the stolen money that they had deposited in those same banks! If the current administration refuses, or is unable to deal with these issues, we demand a government that will!"

"If you will tell your people to disperse and go home," replied the general, "we can sit down and negotiate these things."

"Our demands are not negotiable! We demand the conviction and imprisonment of Cohecho and the freezing of all of the money that he has stolen! We demand that the money be returned to Mexico so that it can be used to feed the children and toward creating jobs for the poor! And we demand that the government stop paying the extortion payments to the foreign banks until our people are no longer starving and living in squalor! Our people have suffered enough! We refuse to put up with this situation any longer! We will not disburse until our demands are met!"

"This is blackmail! How can we sit down and calmly discuss your suggestions when you have these screaming hordes here?"

"We will not leave until our demands are met! We have been told too many times before that if we just go home and be quiet, that everything will be taken care of. Well, things have not been taken care of! The situation has gotten even worse! Many of our people are desperate! We demand action! And we demand it now!"

While this exchange was occurring, a group of protesters were trying to persuade some of the enlisted men to join them in their efforts to see that justice was done. This had been going on for about five minutes when an arrogant captain came by and began pushing the protesters away from the troops shouting, "You are soldiers! You are not to mingle with the peasants!"