If Nixon could come back, could Carlos Salinas?
Lex Luthor’s eviller twin, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, has been making the rounds lately, promoting his latest tome, “How Zedillo and Fox Fucked Up My Plans” “The Lost Decade” (La década perdida), in which he presents an alternative view of recent Mexican history.
Salinas blamed former presidents Ernesto Zedillo and Vicente Fox for allowing Mexico to wallow in economic stagnation between 1995 and 2005. Massive migration was the consequence, Salinas contended.
“Five million compatriots left the country in search of a future in order to respond to their own expectations and those of their families,” Salinas said. “It’s difficult to encounter a country in times of peace that has a migratory phenomenon of this magnitude.”
As is customary, Salinas accepted no responsibility for the peso devaluation and financial crash of 1994-95 that immediately followed his term in office and ushered in Mexico’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Alluding to his successors’ responsibility for the current public safety crisis and “moral tragedy” of the times, Salinas did not mention the consolidation of the Juarez, Tijuana or Gulf cartels during his presidency. Nor did he delve into the explosive events of the last year of his administration, including the slaying of Guadalajara Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas OCampo; the murder of Salinas’s likely successor, Luis Donaldo Colosio; the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas; and the Mexico City gangland-style killing of Salinas’ former brother-in-law and PRI leader Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu.
Although Salinas supposedly received a respectable hearing from the PRI leadership in Chihuahua, it’s hard to see him making any sort of come-back. While I agree that the PRI will do well in the 2010 Congressional elections, I think it has more to do with the PRI’s recovery from a very bad Presidential campaign, and the failure of the leftist coalition led by the PRD to form a viable center-left alternative to the neo-liberal and conservative PAN.
Where PRI — up until Salinas — was the party of everybody except for the reaction and the Catholic Church, it has been a party of about 30 to 35 percent of the electorate since 1998. Nominally a Socialist Party, by the time Salinas came to the Presidency, PRI didn’t seem to have any particular economic or social core, instead following prescriptions drafted by foreign think-tanks. Salinas himself was a Harvard-trained economist. While Ernesto Zedillo, another Ivy-League trained economist, did manage to stem the disaster Salinas left at the end of his term, he could not stop the democratic reforms that were, at least in large part, the price Salinas and the PRI had to pay for even coming to the Presidency after stealing the election from Cuauhtemoc Cardenas in 1988. Salinas proteges, like Elba Esther Gordillo, made common cause with the ascendant PAN to maintain the trappings of power, while the party made a disasterous decision in 2005 to run the widely despised party leader, Roberto Madrazo, for the Presidency.
The united leftist fusion ticket, under Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, may have won the election (we’ll never know for sure), but the PRI did much worse than expected. Madrazo received only 17 percent of the vote, compared to about a third each for Caleron and Lopez Obrador. Salinas protege Gordillo’s party (mostly formed from the Teachers’ Union after she was purged from the PRI Central Committee) was the party’s worst showing ever.
Party leader Beatriz Paredes (who I think is a strong contender to be Mexico’s next president) has stopped the slide into irrelevance by giving the PRI a stronger image as a center-left alternative to PAN, and — especially in parts of the country where PRD is a stronger opponent than PAN — an image as an historically pragmatic socialist party. Salinas may have support in some northern states, where PAN is the stronger opponent, but if the party is going to regain it’s dominance, it will probably be through alliances with the left.
The latest polls show the three main parties at about the strength they were before the presidential election: PRI 35%, PAN 33% and PRD 13%. The Greens, which so far have been PRI loyalists, more than balance out Gordilla’s PANAL when it comes to maintaining PRI as the largest single political force. PRD and it’s allies, the Workers’ Party and Convergence, together with the Social Democrats hold the other 19 percent. This means that various leftist and labor parties have the loyalties of about two-thirds of the electorate. Add in the Zapatistas, who are a political force, but a non-voting one (by their own choice) and it’s probably even a higher percentage.
Unless Salinas can somehow perform a mass lobotomy on a nation that remembers its history… and re-invent his neo-liberalismo and failed NAFTA plan as nationalist and leftist, I honestly don’t see him returning to any major political role. If he does re-enter politics, it will be more as a Ralph Nadar figure than as a Richard Nixon.
WWJVF? (Who would Jesus vote for?)
The Democratic Party “virtual candidate” (as he is called in the Mexican press) might be visiting Mexico City around Independence Day (16 September). With his opponent (the Republican “virtual candidate”) running ads that compare Obama to Paris Hilton, Moses and Charleton Heston, but apparently are meant to suggest he’s the anti-Christ. I suppose it is fair to ask
Who would Jesus would vote for?
WASHINGTON (CNN) — A new poll released Thursday shows overwhelming support from Latinos for Sen. Barack Obama over Sen. John McCain.
Obama’s approval rating with registered Latino voters, the nationwide Pew Hispanic Center poll found, is at 66 percent versus 23 percent favoring McCain.
Death in Texas
Second update: The Supremes did not grant the say, and Medellin was executed at 21:57 Houston Time (about an hour after I wrote the “update” below).
UPDATE: as of an hour ago (I’m writing this at 19:48 Mazaltan time) the U.S. Supreme Court was a stay of execution until the legal arguments over treaty obligations can be considered. This is an unusual situation, with Geroge W. Bush, the U.S. State Department, most foreign diplomats and experts on international law all requesting a review. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City is warning that they expect major (and possibly violent) protests if the execution is carried out.
What’s always bothered me about any discussion of the death penalty in Texas is that it isn’t so much defended against he charges that it is seen as barbaric by the rest of the planet as that those being executed are criminals. Fair enough. Nobody is saying Jose Medellin didn’t commit some horrific crimes, or even so much that his continued existence is in any way desirable. However, the rule of law — and international treaty (equal under the law to the United States Constitution) should trump local custom.
And, Texas’ refusal to providing consular assistance has had a devastating effect on its economy. In August, 2002, President Vicente Fox was scheduled to meet with President George W. Bush and Texas Governor Rick Perry to discuss bilateral agreements, including water rights along the Rio Grande and immigration agreements. Fox was expected to ease up on Mexican water demands in return for some cosmetic changes in U.S. immigration policy. However, because Texas would not halt Javier Suarez Medina’s execution, Fox went on national television even before Suarez’ body was cold, and announced he was canceling the trip and the negotiations. I don’t know if there is any way of calculating the economic loss to Texas farmers due to the delay in implementing regulatory changes in the way water is allocated, nor the drain on taxpayers because immigration reforms were scotched in 2002. Relations between the Fox Administration and the United States went in the dumper after that.
Bush apparently learned his lesson, but Perry did not. Although the present administration in Mexico is also conservative, and from a party somewhat analogous to Bush and Perry’s Republican Party, the social conservatives in PAN are Roman Catholics. They tend to accept Church teachings on the death penalty (Mexican military courts can still give death sentences, but Fox commuted all death-row inmates in military prisons and supported changing the code). From the other two-thirds of the electorate, there is also opposition to the death penalty. All political factions will perceive this as “gringo arrogance”. It will be very difficult for those who support legislation or changing regulations that favor the U.S. in some way (for example, the various PEMEX reform proposals) to sell their ideas as modern and progressive. This will also be a convenient excuse for Mexican authorities to NOT heed other U.S. proposals and propositions for the next few months, if not years.
Reagan, Bush (I) and Clinton Ambassador Jeffrey Davidow on tonight’s execution in Huntsville, Texas, sees a broader diplomatic problem:
… we now find ourselves on the brink of an irrevocable violation of the most important treaty governing consular assistance for our citizens detained in other countries. A failure to comply with this most basic of treaty commitments would significantly impair the ability of our diplomats and leaders to protect the interests — individual and collective — of Americans abroad. Were the tables turned — American citizens arrested abroad and denied consular access, with an ICJ judgment requiring review of those cases for prejudice, and another nation refusing to comply — our leaders would rightly demand that compliance be forthcoming.
La Opinion (Los Angeles) summarizes the issue nicely:
The execution in Texas of Mexican national José Medellín scheduled for today violates international treaties.
At issue here is not whether Medellín is guilty of a horrific murder, or even whether Texas has the right to apply capital punishment. We have opposed the death penalty for many different reasons, but that’s the law in Texas.
The core issue is the violation of a treaty that has been in effect for decades, under which, when a foreigner is arrested, the authorities are obligated to notify the consul of that person’s country. The idea behind this process is to prevent local authorities from committing procedural abuses against a detainee.
Texas failed to comply in Medellín’s case and then refused to abide by an International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision —accepted by the Bush Administration— to review the case. Later, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Texas, stating that there was no norm obligating the states to abide by an ICJ decision.
The Supreme Court decision was surprising, because, first of all, ratification of any and all international treaties by the Senate guarantees that they will be upheld by the states. Secondly, this decision calls into question the validity of other agreements whose implementation would require a level of specificity as demanded in this case.
Federalism is important, but international treaties ratified cannot be ignored. Other states of the Union have respected the ICJ’s decision. Texas should do likewise and cease acting as if it were independent. Its refusal to review the case is an aberration and affects the credibility of the United States as a country.
Daniel Hernandez, Intersections:
“A global AIDS conference that opens in Mexico City on Sunday is meant for people infected with HIV, but transsexual sex worker Elma Delea cannot get inside,” begins this Reuters dispatch from the streets of D.F. (More good info and updates at AIDS2008.) For an event as large, international, and glittering as the XVII AIDS Conference this week, the chasms that exist between those forming policies and opinions and those affected still remain large. Especially, it seems, here in Mexico.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think excluding the commercial sex workers from the conference was more than oversight. Of course, the scientists and policy-makers SHOULD be talking to people like Elma Delea, but the “golden rule” (“thems that gots the gold makes the rules”) and “celebrities” like Bill Clinton and Annie Lennox have a place in these conferences. Unfortunately, it’s the Bill Clintons and Annie Lennoxes, and not the scientists, or the sex workers who are being heard by the outside world. Thanks to Daniel, and to Reuters for giving them a voice.
Find the illegal alien…
Vlasil and Maria emigrated to the United States with their baby son, and changed their names– and their son’s name — from their native language to something more understandable in English. Mykael, raised in Pennsyvlania under the name Michael, like many an immigrant, joined the Marine Corps after graduating from High School and working for eighteen months on a road crew.
Your “typical” illegal alien story, but ..
Critical assistance for AIDS baby needed in PV
Dear Friends,
We’ve got a situation and we need some help. A 1-year-old baby, born with HIV infection, needs someone immediately to care for him. Both parents are HIV+, living in extreme poverty at the dump, and cannot care for the baby at this time. The parents have advanced HIV/AIDS, and have now contracted a highly contagious secondary infection that we do not want the baby to get.
The baby was taken by DIF of Puerto Vallarta (Desarollo Integral de la Familia), where they have a shelter for children in crisis. But they claim they have “no space” for him. The do say they can provide help (money) to cover care expenses.
The baby needs a home, and loving care. He will need to be taken for his appointments at the CAPASITS HIV clinic. He will need to be given his medications as prescribed. Considering the condition of the parents, we cannot say for how long care will have to be provided. We hope they will improve and be able to take care of the baby within a month or two, but this is not at all certain.
If you can assist, please contact me at paulcrist@vallartaenfrentasida.com or my cell phone 322-294-1820 as soon as possible.
(I’ve sent an e-mail to Paul asking for a Mexican bank account number for those outside the PV area).
Cyber-ian exile?
Something odd is going on in cyber-space today. Other websites have mentioned problems the last few days with Internet Explorer and their tracking software (which I don’t use much, so hasn’t affected me). If things are wackier than usual, my apologies for whatever it is that is that’s making your computer act strangely.
What we had here, was a failure to communicate…
I’m sure the English-only crowd will have a heyday with this, but it goes to show that managers have been NOT learning to communicate with their employees for a very long time.
The Mary Rose, pride of Henry VIII’s fleet, may have sunk because of poor communication between its English officers and foreign crew members, researchers said yesterday. Examination of skulls, which were found near the 16th-century wreck, has revealed the ship was mainly crewed by foreign sailors, either mercenaries or Spanish prisoners of war. Historians have always believed the warship, pictured, sank when it performed a sharp turn during a battle with the French in July, 1545, and heeled so steeply that water flooded through its open gun ports. But the new theory suggests the gun ports may have been open because the crew spoke little English and did not understand orders to close them as the ship’s commander took evasive action.
Attention must be paid
Claudia Beltrán, in Sunday’s Noroeste reports on the reporters who’ve weighed in on Sinaloa lately. She focuses on the recent Washington Post article by Manuel Roig-Franzia (whom I sent an e-mail to, suggesting he check his sources — there was no hostage taking at a shopping mall in Mazatlan, though some early media reports did say this) and Chilean television’s Santiago Pavlovic who reported on Sinaloa’s “narcowar” for Informe Especial. Recent coverage by Spanish, German and by Al Jazeera’s English language news service were also mentioned.
In Saturday’s El Debate de Mazatlán Irene González interviewed Der Spiegel’s Latin American correspondent, Jens Glussing. The tenor of the piece was that narco-violence is the only thing German readers know about Sinaloa.
Mexicans in general, and the Mexican media in particular, are obsessed with what the outside world says about them (some of the national papers and TV news programs regulary report on foriegn reports about Mexico). But what strikes me about the foreign reporters is they look at Sinaloa’s “narco-war” as a problem to be resolved… using their own prescriptions. What I mean by this is that while the Washington Post looks at Sinaloa as a military/police “problem” … and worries that the foces of law-n-order are losing the hearts and minds of the locals (they never had them), Glussing is recommending Sinaloa resolve the problem the way the Europeans did… legalizing narcotics.
All that is fine, but it ignores a simple fact. The “solutions” are coming from the experience of USER countries, not EXPORTER countries. Of course criminals are going to act pretty much the same in any country, and there is a strong argument to be made (and I make it myself) that the “problem” is that criminal enterprises follow the same laws of supply and demand as any other enterprise (but without the social and legal controls that keep MOST businesses from resorting to violence to resolve disputes) — but still, I wonder whether the solutions proposed by consumers are necessarily relevent to the seller.
In the Sunday New York Times, there is an article by Larry Rohter on how rising shipping costs are changing the way some businesses operate. It’s sometimes more cost-effective to build cars, say, in a high labor country like the United States, rather than assemble them in different low-cost locations (Thailand and China) and ship them to the United States for sale. That kind of change. Decriminalizing narcotics USE in European countries probably did reduce violence in those countries, but I don’t see it did anything for the suppliers. The military/police model seeks to make the shipping costs too high.
Maybe that will work, but it hasn’t so far. And — as Roig-Franzia and many others have reported — the there is concern in the United States about “Mexican drug violence” spilling over into the U.S. Well, duh… Isn’t the whole premise of “Plan Merida” to force the cartels out of Mexico. As long as there is a demand, the suppliers are going to set up business somewhere. Making the “shipping and labor costs” too high in Mexico just means the producers closer to the consumer.
I’ve pointed out before that the United States needs to reduce its own exports of weapons and money if anything is to be done about the violence in Sinaloa. Or Mexico could crack down on those imports — maybe they should loan money to the United States to monitor gun runners and financiers. Or, hire Blackwater death squads (as some have suggested the U.S. do in Mexico to deal with narcotics dealers) to go after the offenders. Of course, then the danger is that gun dealers and money launderers set up in Mexico. But, if the narcotics suppliers have moved to the United States, then…
So far, the military/police model isn’t working. And hasn’t worked anywhere it’s tried. Legalizing drug use has worked for consumers. But, what suppliers and manufacturers need to do may be radically different. It’s nice the foreign press is paying attention, but SInaloa’s healthy legitimate economy — cattle, vegetables, fisheries, timber, mining, tourism, manufacturing are not mentioned, and voluntarily ending a profitable business sector is going to require more than prescriptions designed for other purposes.
Convinces me…
Blinded by science north of the border
Don’t they teach anything about science in the United States?
From El Universal, translated by “World Meets US”
Enrique Sánchez Cruz, director of the National Farm Food Quality Service, said that the FDA investigators into Mexican Jalapeño peppers “lacked any scientific evidence.”
He made it clear that the tests were “inconsistent,” since the water samples were taken from a water tank in Tamaulipas: “The tank water could have gotten contaminated by roaming cattle or any number of things.”
He also assured people that the border, “has not been closed to Mexican exports of jalapeno peppers, which totals 12,000 tons annually.”
Director General, Nuevo Leon Agriculture & Livestock Development Corporation, Fermín Montes Cavazos, dismissed the idea that the outbreak could be traced back to his organization, since it last produced this type of pepper in April, whereas the contaminated pepper was picked in the beginning of June.
He also stressed that the contaminated pepper was collected from a plot of land that had already been replanted, although harvested fruit spends several days out of the ground during which it may easily become contaminated.
He added that the sampling was not objective: “The water sample and the serrano pepper were not from Nuevo Leon, but from another state.”
UPI manages to get the news exactly backwards:
Tijuana, located 20 miles south of San Diego, has an HIV infection rate that’s nearly triple the national average and it has been rising steadily for more than a decade.
About one in 125 adults in the city is infected with the virus that causes AIDS.
And as a border city, serving as a funnel for workers and goods in both countries, Tijuana’s AIDS crisis poses a direct threat to the United States, the Post said.
They seem to be referring to the unremarkable finding that Mexicans with AIDS are move likely to contract the disease in the United States than at home.
Chutzpah on the Amazon
Quotation of the week:
“We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this—companies that have made big investments around the world.”
An unnamed Chevron lobbyist, regarding the 16 billion dollar fines levied by Ecuadorian courts against Chevron for polluting the Amazon River. Chevron wants the Bush administration to “punish” Ecuador for the court ruling.
mexfiles.net 