Infighting among Mexican miners: Dissident miners union turns one year

A week ago, the national metal miners union, Sindicato Nacional Minero Metalúrgico "Napoleón Gómez Sada" turned one year. The union, led by Carlos Pavón, was formed by miners opposed to the leadership of Napoleón Gómez Urrutia (the son of Gómez Sada), who lives in self-imposed exile in Canada accused of embezzlement and is the nominal head of  Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores Mineros, Metalurgicos y Similares de la Republica Mexicana (yes, that is the full name!), or SNTMMSRM for short. 

Napoleón Gómez Urrutia has been hailed as a hero standing up for miners right by his backers, which include Andrés Manuel López Obrador, though the reason for his exile is an arrest order for having misappropriated about 55 million dollars from a trust fund for the miners, following the privatization of the historic Cananea mine in 1989. Carlos Pavón as recently as Sunday accused him of fomenting destabilization and violence in Mexico through shock groups, and held  Gómez Urrutia responsible for the Pasta de Conchos mine disaster of February 2006.

Gómez Urrutia, unlike his father (whom the new dissident union is named after), has notably never worked a day as a miner but has lived his entire life in extraordinary luxury, to the chagrin of dissident workers. Yet he is also reviled by the infamous Grupo México, which also owns the Pasta de Conchos mine, where 65 workers died in a 2006 explosion. Grupo México has yet to find it worthwhile to retrieve their bodies, most of them still buried there, although they are the largest mining company in Mexico and the third largest in the world.

Carlos Pavón, formerly the union's secretary for political affairs, therefore set up a dissident union last year, and argues that the new union, now with 6,500 members, is to reach 10,000 shortly.

However, another dissident miner group, Alianza Minera Nacional (AMN), was already in existence, claiming 14,000 members, and AMN has in turn accused Carlos Pavón of betrayal and dividing the opposition to Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, whom the Mexican government has sought for years to be extradited to face charges.

As for Napito, or "Napo the Second" as Gómez Urrutia is often referred to, his days as leader of the Mexican miners may be coming to an end. The union leader certainly won't go quietly; nor should one expect the infighting among his dissidents to end anytime soon.