Manuel Pérez Rocha and Sarah Anderson:

President George W. Bush will soon host what has become an annual “Three Amigos Summit.” The leaders of Mexico, the United States, and Canada will be gathering in New Orleans on April 21 and 22. What do you suppose is on the agenda? A rational response to immigration, perhaps? A thoughtful renegotiation of the unpopular North American Free Trade Agreement? Lessons from Canada’s affordable medicines program?

No. No. And no. Rather than putting their heads together around pressing issues such as these, the three leaders will be advancing a so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). And while that may sound well and good, this initiative, begun in 2005, is unlikely to produce either security or prosperity. That’s because the partnership is only with big business.

The chief executives of Wal-Mart, Chevron, and 28 other large corporations are in on the closed-door negotiations, while members of Congress, journalists, and ordinary citizens are excluded. And the secrecy is not just around the presidential summits, but also the meetings of about 20 SPP working groups that carry on negotiations over the course of the year.

What’s on the table? Not much is public, but we do know that the executive powers of the three countries are hammering out regulatory changes that they claim do not require legislative approval. And given who’s in the room, it’s a safe bet that these changes will favor narrow corporate interests over the public good…

(Full article at Foreign Policy in Focus)

Fidel Castro (remember him?) says the “trumpets of war” have sounded in the Americas, as the result of the Colombian incursion into Ecuador.

As may not be clearly reported in the U.S. press, there has been a low-level civil war in Colombia since the 1950s. FARC, the largest of the guerrilla insurgent groups, is supposedly under the leadership of Secretary General Manuel Marulanda.

According to Colombian official sources, the “#2 man”, public spokesman “Raul Reyes” and several others was located just over the Ecuadorian border and killed in a raid – along with several others.

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa immediately broke off diplomatic relations with the aggressor nation and Venezuela has called up its troops to the Venezuelan-Colombian border in anticipation of possible incursions into their country.

The U.S. media talks about “Hugo Chavez threatening Colombia”, but Venezuela is discussing protecting its own sovereignty… and as a functioning democracy, there is opposition to the military build-up.

Here’s where it gets interesting. The Colombians are claiming a laptop recovered from Reyes tells of FARC drug deals involving President Correa, Mexican narcos and possible military assistance to Hugo Chavez in case of an attack by the United States. The laptop also supposedly contains a message from Secretary General Maralanda. That latter fact in itself is suspicious. As far as I can tell, Maralanda hasn’t been seen since about 2002, and – if he’s even alive – he’d be in his late 80s. Correa, and the Ecuadorian government, labeled the supposed documents fakes. President Bachelet of Chile – who was not named in the documents – has also questioned the validity of the charges, and may break relations with Colombiaover their aggression against a fellow Andean Pact state.

And, to make things even more complicated, Reyes was acting as a go-between with the French and Venezuelan governments in their efforts to free Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French-Colombian national (and one time Colombian presidential candidate) taken hostage by FARC several years ago. One reason for the recent breakdown in Colombian-Venezuelan relations has been the Colombian governments’ interference in the Franco-Venezuelan-FARC negotiations.

The United States denies any involvement in the matter, though the Colombians admit receiving assistance from U.S. intelligence operatives. Even if the latter is still denied in Washington, there’s no getting over the fact that the U.S.had offered a Five Million Dollar reward for killing Reyes — which means they definitely interested in this outcome.

A couple of points worth pondering:Colombia’s rightist government is a U.S. client state, which puts that government at odds just about all the Americas, except for the United States and Mexico. Mexico does not face an organized leftist insurgency, but there are leftist movements within the country, similar to those that have come to power (democratically, one might add) throughout the region – most prominently in Venezuela (and very nearly did in Mexico, though the left probably was not “allowed” to win the 2006 elections).

That’s plausible, but not likely. Venezuela, with its oil wealth, has been able to invest in modernizing its air force and army. Colombia – with the infusion of United States aid supposedly meant to interdict the narcotics bought by U.S. consumers – has also been beefing up its security. Like all other Colombian paramilitary groups (and the government itself) – left and right – FARC was involved in the narcotics trade, and taking out a narcotics kingpin is a legitimate POLICE action.

However, the military assistance Colombia has been receiving since the Clinton Administration has never been really expected to be used for narcotics control. After “terrorism” became the cause de jour in 2002, FARC was re-christened as a “terrorist organization,” at least by the Colombians and the United States. But not by oil rich Venezuela, semi-oil rich Ecuador — nor, for that matter, by very many nations except those that almost automatically accept U.S. designations for this sort of thing… like Canada. Within Colombia itself, right-wing guerrilla groups were considered “paramilitaries,” not “insurgents” nor “terrorists” even though they also dealt in narcotics, hostage taking and murder. Of course, a number of the right-wing killers were tied to the Uribe government.

The whole purpose of “Plan Colombia” was always about propping up the friendly rightist government, and only incidentally about drug control. Which brings me back to Mexico…

“Plan Merida” channels “anti-drug” money from the U.S.government to the Mexican military for hardware and training resources (i.e., subsidizing U.S. based suppliers. The danger has always been – and continues to be – that governments will use the equipment to bolster their own interests, and not – as intended – to combat narcotics shipments to the United States.

What will be interesting to watch (and I admit these are just notes, not having a grasp of the whole situation, not really enough to go on yet) is how Mexico reacts. Besides having to deal with the fall-out of Mexican citizens (or at least one citizen) having been wounded in the Ecuadorian incursion  and the believability of the supposed laptop memos on Mexican involvement, the Calderon administration is Colombia’s only friend in Latin America. Given the Calderon Administration’s clear tilt towards the United States (and its eagerness to upgrade military equipment through “Plan Merida” funding) this will be a test of the Juarez Doctrine – staying the hell out of their neighbor’s business.

Michael Chertoff’s deepest fears: Terrorists entering U.S. from Canada

BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
daily news washington bureau

Sunday, February 10th 2008, 4:00 AM

Ake/AP

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff

America’s top counterterror official says “more than a dozen” people tied to Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and other extremists have tried to infiltrate the U.S. since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

But they weren’t caught swimming the Rio Grande from Mexico, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the Daily News in a recent interview.

“More Canada than Mexico, to be honest with you,” he said….

Full story here

A quick “Google search” for Canadian ownership of Mexican gold mines turns up mostly corporate press releases.  Even within Canada, the extent of Canadian ownership of Mexican mines — the the environmental and social costs engendered by Canadian firms is seldom mentioned.  Canadians own  about 40 percent of Mexican mines, and 75% of mining equipment used in Mexico is imported from Canada.

Dawn Pawley, writes in The Dominion (”a monthly paper published by an incipient network of independent journalists in Canada since May 2003. It aims to provide accurate, critical coverage that is accountable to its readers and the subjects it tackles) on one of the most overlooked foreign-controlled industries in Mexico.

Skyrocketing gold prices, favorable mining laws and a recent flood of speculation-linked financing for junior mining companies have opened up the way for Vancouver-based Continuum Resources to buy up the majority of the mining concessions in the state of Oaxaca. The reactivation of the historic “Natividad” site, reportedly Oaxaca’s richest gold and silver mine, has been spearheaded by Continuum, majority owners in a joint venture which started up in 2004 with a Mexican firm. At the Natividad project alone, Continuum holds more than 54,000 hectares of concessions.

It was gold that first brought Cortés to Mexico, and Mexican gold that financed the Spanish Empire.  After Independence, Britain and the United States vied for economic control of the new Republic, mostly in a bit to gain control of the gold (and, later, other mineral resources).  Although the 1910-20 Revolution returned Mexican resources to Mexican control, under NAFTA, it hasn’t only been the United States that has attempted to control key Mexican resources.

While Canada itself is a major mining country (including gold mining), it has gained more and more control of the Mexican mines — and, with the price of gold still going up — continues to operate mines like Natividad.

As Pawley explains, using the Natividad mine as her focus, these operations are not in the best interests of the locals, in theory, the owners of the minerals.

“While other companies have shied away from exploration due to the violence in Oaxaca, Continuum has been able to acquire highly prospective properties with very large land areas due to a lack of interest there.”

Continuum has made good off of “protest and violence,” doing deals with Oaxaca’s corporatist governments, and joining a host of other mining companies, like Vancouver’s Eurasian Minerals in Haiti and others in Colombia, aiming to make a profit in parts of the Americas where repression and violence are often directed against popular movements.

The Canadians may not be torturing people (and good on them), but they are robbing them and poisoning people throughout the world.  Much of the anti-NAFTA protests you see in rural communities are only incidentally directed at local administrations.  Those crooks have to get their loot from somewhere.  And, in places like Oaxaca, the moneybags are in Vancouver.

Sombrero doff to South Texas Chisme.

McClatchy Washington Bureau reports on where the real security threat is.  Homeland Security, my ass!

A 2006 report from the Nixon Center, a Washington, D.C., policy institute, quoted a senior FBI official as saying that Canada is the most worrisome terrorist point of entry and that al Qaida training manuals advise terrorists to enter the United States from Canada.

The report concluded that “despite widespread alarms raised over terrorist infiltration from Mexico, we found no terrorist presence in Mexico and a number of Canadian-based terrorists who have entered the United States.”

And as security is ratcheted up along the nation’s southern border with Mexico, law enforcement officials up north fear that the bad guys — terrorists, drug smugglers and illegal aliens — may increasingly be headed their way.

“It’s a safe assumption,” said Whatcom County Sheriff Bill Elfo, whose jurisdiction includes more than 100 miles of rugged and remote border stretching east from Blaine.

Even senior Border Patrol officials concede that the heightened security on the Mexican border could spur new pressures up north.

“It’s logical they will look elsewhere,” said Ron Colburn, the deputy chief of Customs and Border Protection, of those trying to clandestinely enter the United States.

Nearly 12,000 federal agents patrol the U.S.-Mexican border, along with National Guard troops. Of the 6,000 agents expected to be added to the Border Patrol in the next year, most will be assigned to the southern border.

About 5,681 people were apprehended entering the U.S. illegally from Canada in the year ended Aug. 31, the Border Patrol said. That compared with more than 800,000 caught along the U.S.-Mexico border in the same period.

Workers, farmers, and those scary OTMs that turn out not to be the enemy agents of right-wing fantasies cross the Mexican border… watched by 10,664 (and climbing) Border Patrol Agents, shitloads of county sheriffs, spy-cams, the Hindeburg of Texas  [for real... run by Lockheed-Martin, and the smallest U.S. Air Force base in the United States, the Marfa blimp base, on US 90 between Marfa and Valentine, is only slightly less absurd than other intrusions on the desert landscape] and assorted crazy people. Who are bound to see people crossing.

But whose watching the other border?

The CANADIAN border is …

“…so long, frankly, the security on that border has really not increased too much since the French and Indian War,” John Cooney, the GAO’s assistant director for forensic audits and special investigations, said Sept. 27 during testimony in Washington before the Senate Finance Committee.

At the same hearing, Border Patrol Deputy Chief Ronald Colburn didn’t question the accuracy of the GAO report. “I’m satisfied that they were accurate in finding that there are still vulnerabilities along our border,” Colburn said.

Who knows how many — or what’s — crossing over from Quebec?

Sacre bleu!  FRENCH CANADIANS may be planning  La reconquête right under our noses.  After all, the FRENCH and ENGLISH have invaded the United States from Canada several times (French and Indian Wars, The War of Independence, War of 1812, even the American Civil War … don’t think any Mexicans ever attacked from Canada — ever).

Say adieu to the American Way of Life as THEY infiltrate down into the Great Lakes, the Mississippi and Missouri River Valleys and force their poutine and gravy and french-fries on us. And, if we’re not careful, they’ll even make us buy universal health insurance.  BUILD THE WALL NOW!

Homologo is a fairly common word in Spanish, just meaning “a person with an equivalent position.” News articles quoting a Texas County Judge, for example, would say she is the “homologo” of a Presidente Municpal.

Less used in English is homologation. I think I’m one of the few people who had to use the word in my daily vocabulary. I was the technical writer on a project to develop cross-company telephone credit cards, and I actually had to give talks to engineers on the homologation issues involved.

All it meant was that if the phone card was going to be issued by British Telecom, but used in French telephones to make calls to Hong Kong, it had to meet the security and credit reporting standards (and telephone record-keeping rules) of all three jurisdictions. A bit complicated, but not a biggie.

Homologation exists in every industry. Mexican meatpackers, selling to the European Union, follow EU health codes in their plants. U.S. televisions are manufactured to meet Swedish or Canadian standards on radiation emissions. Simple — you take the highest engineering standard of wherever your product or service is being distributed and use it as your standard.

It’s a no-brainer and non-controvestional … except when the batshit crazy right-wingers talk about Mexico.

They (the batshit crazy right-wingers, BSCRW for short) are convinced that Mexican trucks crossing into the U.S. are part of some master plot to make us all eat tortillas — or put gravy on our french fries, since the Canadians are part of the secret plan, apparently.

In their quest to stop Mexican truckers from engaging in normal cabotage (Another word you learn having written technical papers. A simple example that we’ve seen for years involves bus travel. Mexican buses can pick up passengers in the U.S. for a Mexican destination, but can’t sell them a ticket between two destinations within the U.S. Likewise Greyhound can’t run local buses in Mexico), the BSCRWs have come up with every rationale they can to “stop Mexican trucks” (as a sign says in front of the motel down the street from me).

While my favorite so far remains the suggestion that Mexican truckers are going to run over kittens (or shoot them), the BSCRWs actually got some mileage out of their claim that Mexican trucks don’t meet U.S. safety standards (they do — most U.S. trucks are manufactured in Mexico, and they’re the same trucks on Mexican roads). For that matter, different States within the United States have different safety standards.

As we do in the United States, where there’s a need, there’s a business opportunity. The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance originally set up to write common standards for several western states, came up with the homologation statandards for those states, and now has come up with standards that meet all three NAFTA country’s rules. No big deal.

The BSCRWs, in an “exclusive scoop” for the BSCRW’s house organ, Wingnut Daily, smells poutine (or is it salsa?). It seems that — for a fee — local mechanics who follow the standards can use the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance inspection sticker, and from Manitoba to Michoacan, state inspectors will know those “foreign” trucks meet their local standards. AHA… LOCAL MECHANICS DO THE INSPECTION. IT MUST BE A PLOT.

Uh… my car is inspected by BAM Automotive on Holland Street in beautiful downtown Alpine Texas, not the State of Texas. I thought BSCRWs were in favor of private enterprise taking on state functions. So, what the heck are they whining about?

Reuters:

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - The strong Canadian dollar has hit the illegal marijuana sector just as it has other industries that export to the United States, one of Canada’s best known legalization advocates said on Thursday.

But western marijuana growers have also benefited from Canada’s strong economy, especially the booming Alberta oil patch, which has increased domestic consumption, according to Marc Emery, a founder of the British Columbia Marijuana Party.

…A study in 2004 estimated the street value of British Columbia’s annual marijuana crop at more than C$7 billion, which would make it one of the western Canadian province’s largest industries.

Simon Fraser University economics professor Stephen Easton, who authored the 2004 report, said there has been no specific study of the impact of currency on drug exports but it should be the same as with legal exports.

… Canadian marijuana is also facing price competition in the United States from Mexican-grown pot, which has benefited from a relatively weak peso, as well as increased domestic production in the Western U.S.

The U.S. anti-drug agency said in its 2007 report that large scale cultivation of marijuana by Mexican criminal groups was expanding beyond California, and into the Pacific Northwest, and that the potency of the pot available was rising.

So, uh… can we expect British Colombian farmworkers to flood into Sinaloa now too?

From the International Herald Tribune:

Mexico and Argentina said Monday they are negotiating a free trade accord for vehicles and car parts that would make foreign car companies with factories in those countries more efficient.

“It’s an agreement we know will benefit both countries enormously,” President Felipe Calderon said in a news conference with Argentina’s leader, Nestor Kirchner. “We could have a huge potential for growth in this area.”

We don’t think about how important the Mexican auto industry is to the United States, but an agreement on auto parts isn’t likely to get people interested. When the Argentine President said that the proposed Great Wall of the Rio Grande is an affront to all Latin Americas the usual suspects commented (and, no I’m not going to bother linking all over the place to every anti-immigration “fuck you Argies” site). It’s a standard AP article on Latin America. Except for one overlooked phrase:

Kirchner also said he would personally help Mexico improve relations with leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and that Mexico has an open invitation to join the South American trade bloc Mercosur.

Some negative reference to Hugo Chavez is de rigur in AP-landia these days, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Mexico is being openly courted to get out of NAFTA and join Latin America. THAT IS IMPORTANT…

We don’t hear much in the U.S. about Mercosur (hell, we don’t hear much about Latin America in general), though it is likely to be extremely important to the futures of all the Americas. Mercosur is still feeling its way around (but then, the European Community took 50 years to develop, and Mercosur has only been around for the last ten), and – if we hear anything – it’s only that Venezuela hasn’t quite joined yet. Or, as the U.S. press puts it, Hugo Chavez hasn’t joined – much to our relief. WE (and Canada) were counting on a U.S. led “Free Trade Area of the Americas”, and blame Chavez for killing OUR plan – and instead opting for the existing (though far from united at this point) Mercosur.

The Mercosur countries (Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay) and the “associate states” (Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru) and semi-member Venezuela (there’s a diplomatic spat holding up Venezuelan membership) have been paying down their debts to the big foreign lenders like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Interamerican Development Bank. Hugo Chavez has his own ideas about development, but is in agreement, and likely to work with, what Mercosur itself has been organizing – Banco del Sur, a self-financed development bank.

The Global Policy Forum describes the problem with just one of the existing development banks this way:

The World Bank, based in Washington, is a multilateral institution that lends money to governments and government agencies for development projects. For more than twenty years, the Bank has imposed stringent conditions, known as “Structural Adjustment Programs,” on recipient countries, forcing them to adopt reforms such as deregulation of capital markets, privatization of state companies, and downsizing of public programs for social welfare. Privatization of water supplies, fees for public schools and hospitals, and privatization of public pensions are among the most controversial Bank reforms. While the Bank insists that “fighting poverty” is its first priority, many critics believe instead that it is responsible for rising poverty. Many also criticize its cozy relationship with Wall Street and the United States Treasury Department. The stormy resignation of World Bank Vice President and Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz in late 1999, and his subsequent public comments, suggest that the Bank is not as benign as it claims to be.

Yeah. There were riots in Argentina over privatizing water systems (and the country went through a couple of presidents in a couple of months), Bolivia nearly had a coup and Mexico is roiled over “suggestions” that various public utilities be privatized. Even the most conservative proposals for Banco del Sur will take into account peasant economies and state services. Right now, Banco del Sur is mostly Brazilian and Argentine money. Their economies are recovering from the tender mercies of IMF and World Bank concern (fun fact – every Latin American country with a president or treasury secretary with a graduate degree from the U.S. universities that turn out the bankers who run the development funds over the 40 years went broke, or had to restructure their currency).

And this is where Mexico comes in. Mexico has been losing ground economically since joining NAFTA. Mercosur requires single membership (in other words, countries like Bolivia would have to pull out of the Andean Pact to join, though the two trade groups may merge, or Mercosur may make special rules for Bolivia). NAFTA was originally pushed by PRI President Carlos Salinas de Goutari, though PRI has lost much of its original enthusiasm for the trading bloc since then. The PRD and the smaller left-wing parties never liked it, and have been pushing for more pan-Latin economic intergration. ONLY PAN, and only the wing of the party to which Calderón belongs, have been cheerleaders for the status quo development plans.

Although the announced agreements between Mexico and Argentina only cover auto parts, Mexico has expressed real interest in Banco del Sur. The country won’t be pulling out of NAFTA any time soon, but under pressure from the “left”, it has been considering renegotiation of the treaty, and it would not have to join Mercosur (where it is already an “observer”) to become a member of Banco del Sur. Once Venezuela works out it’s differences with Brazil, that’s going to change the whole pan-Latin development picture… and our economic ties to Mexico.

I’m not an economist, nor a banker. Nancy Davis, at Narco News isn’t either. She writes about the existing development project in Mexico (Plan Puebla-Panama). Even skipping over the Marxo-academic phrasing, it sounds as if the locals are getting screwed. They’d probably still get screwed by developments funded by Banco del Sur, though there’s a better chance of their being included in the plans.

The Canadian economics website, Angus Reed Report, blames Mercosur for killing the “Free Trade Area of the Americas” (which would benefit Canada), but notes that “free trade” conceptually is salable to the Latin American voter:

Investors’ Business Daily wonders whether “WE will clear Latin America for Takeoff” and misses the point that the Latin Americans may not give a shit what we think about it.

In January 2006, Laura Carlsen speculated in an article for the Center for International Policy on Mexican participation in Mercosur. At the time, she saw the Fox Aministration as likely to act as a “trojan horse” for their northern neighbors, but that appears to be changing now.

The Bank Information Center sees Banco del Sur as “direct challenge to the Northern based IFIs [International Financial Institutions] struggling to remain relevant to the region.”

I was able to get into subscription only “The Banker” for an in-house look at the effects of Banco del Sur on international lending. At the time the article was published (in May) Hugo Chavez was the big worry. The link may or may not get you in, so I’ll try posting my copy somewhere accessible.

Not MY lust for gold though I can understand people taking some radical steps to raise cash. Around here, the mines gave out years ago (and a bentonite robbery just doesn’t have the same cachet) juThe Mex Files is written from a very rural, isolated corner of the U.S./Mexican border (the Texas Big Bend) where there aren’t a lot of outside economic opportunities. I do a little free-lancing for the local papers, and live modestly. But, my own bills — compounded by the problems caused by a mentally ill neighbor I helped out who wrote me several large bad checks to cover her expenses — mean I’ll have to discontinue the Mex Files unless more financial support is available.

I need to raise a few hundred dollars immediately, and about 12,000 over the year. That’s only $30 a reader, given 400 “regulars” — and maybe some from people reading this…

If you prefer to send a check, money order or make other arrangements, please write me at “richmx2 -AT- excite -DOT- com” and include “Mex Files” in the subject line.

Sonora really is the wild west…

Back on June 6, Sierra Minerals (a Canadian company, as are most of the big mining operations in Mexico) sent out a press release:

TORONTO, ONTARIO–(CCNMatthews - June 6, 2007) - Sierra Minerals Inc. today reported an armed robbery at its Cerro Colorado Gold Mine in Sonora, Mexico. Three gold bars (roughly 750 oz gold) worth approximately US$502,000 in aggregate were stolen from the secured gold room on the project hours before the armoured truck was due to arrive to transport the bars to a U.S. based refinery. …

The gold bars that were stolen represent 14 days’ worth of production, at the current annualized production rate of roughly 18,000 gold ounces per annum. This is the first time since the inception of mining operations at Cerro Colorado in 2004 that an incidence of armed robbery has occurred, and the Company is taking the following steps to further tighten security at the mine and to prevent any repeat occurrences of this nature…

Gary Cooper being unavailable, the mine owner was looking at a U.S. security consultant and high-tech solutions. (Geeze, guys, stop trying to make Mexico into Canada). The banditos, not being sporting I guess, didn’t wait for the consultants.

Last Wednesday, they were back, this time making off with 33 kilos of refined gold, worth about $650 thousand.

Although the item in El Universal called them “Commandos”, these were just old-fashioned gold mine robbers. Nothing to do with politics or weird conspiracies involving international financing or even anti-Canadian plots (though, if you want to hold up a gold mine in Mexico, you have to rob Canadians)… ordinary decent criminals.

Fashions change over the years, but Mexico keeps it’s traditions. The banditos weren’t wearing the traditional bandana over the face and waving six-shooters (they were in cammies and ski-masks and carried R-15s), but it’s nice to see that Mexico hasn’t gotten so decadent that there are 24-hour cable networks breaking in with breathless stories about every detail and worried talking heads yabbering about “terrorists”.