The Mex Files

I expect we’ll be hearing some more about the Bush famil y’s 98,000 acre spread in Paraguay in the coming months. Neil Bush (last month) and First Drunk Daughter Jenna (in October 2006) both made mysterious trips to the otherwise forgotten country in recent months.

Down With Tyranny has been one of the few widely read news blogs to follow the story, and actually went to Paraguay to investigate:

…I was hoping to track down the humongous Bush estate in the most remote part of Latin America’s least known country. I never did manage to get anywhere near the Bush estate– it was meant to be remote for a reason and the only way to get there is by private plane and then you need permission to land on their airstrip– but I did take note of a certain backwardness that might make it very alluring not just to Bush but to many of the potential war crimes defendants from his regime. They were actually selling Nazi memorabilia on the streets of Asuncion.

Well, Paraguay is in the news this morning– and not in a way likely to please the Bushes. The fascistic-oriented ruling party was deposed yesterday. Fernando Lugo, a former Roman Catholic Bishop– the “bishop of the poor”– and the leader of a left-of-center coalition of unions, Indians and poor farmers, beat Blanca Ovelar, who headed the very corrupt far right Colorado Party, widely considered to be in Bush’s pocket.

President-Elect Lugo, and his party, are promising to redistribute land in the last country in Latin America (like the United States, most agricultural land is held by corporate interests. Unlike the U.S., most Paraguayans are farmers). The Bush family lands are said to be investments in soya (Paraguay’s largest legal export) though there are rumors the Bush’s were interested in capturing water drilling rights in expectation that neo-liberal policies in the Southern Cone would lead to privatizing water distribution within those countries. However, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia and Uruguay have all elected social democratic leaders who have rejected neo-liberalism, leaving Paraguay as the last hope for making a fortune from these privatized natural resources.

Then again, maybe some of the more sinister suggestions about the Bush compound are true, and water isn’t their main concern. Paraguay was, of course, best known as the refuge of Nazi war criminals and other nasty types. There are those who believe the Bushs are planning for their eventual exile somewhere beyond the jurisdiction of the United States and international courts. If even slightly true, the Bushs may have to start asking “Is it safe?” before they pack their bags.

Fernando Lugo’s election in Paraguay is also more proof, if any is needed, of my own hare-brained theory that the Bush family are working for Castro... think of it. Since Chinese Commie lovin’ George W. Bush was “elected” — with the help of Cubans in Florida (where his brother was conveniently Governor), Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, ,Panama ,Nicaragua, Suriname, Venezuela and Uruguay, have all moved to the left. the fractured Mexican left united — and Bush’s handler, Fidel Castro, having achieved his goal of a leftist Latin America, could finally retire.

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.

I do, but first I need to pay the electric bill ($200) and $300 in rent. And eat for the next month or so…

It’d be nice not to have to be so blunt about it, but I’m waiting to take a “regular job” (this is a small town and the doc who does the pee test is on vacation) which is going to cut into the work I can do here, and push the startup on my commercial site further behind, but I can’t go living on faith and partial payments indefinitely.

I saw Sicko (in a semi-official pirate version found by Burro Hall). Seeing I’m not the only uninsured person in the United States, I’m SOOOOO glad the President of the United States is working on health care in all the Americas.

The “White House Conference on the Americas” came and went last week. There was almost no mention in the press. The Miami Herald had a little bit:

The White House rolled out the red carpet and its biggest names Monday to tell the world that it really does care about Latin America and that it’s doing more for the region than most people believe.

President Bush and no fewer than five Cabinet secretaries touted U.S. initiatives before a group of 150 Latin American community groups and 70 U.S.-based organizations, many flown in at U.S. taxpayer expense.

At a luncheon speech, Laura Bush announced that the United States would work with Mexico, Costa Rica and Brazil to combat breast cancer in the Americas.

But more than big announcements, the White House Conference on the Americas was an exercise in public relations and regional networking.

If it was even about public relations, there wasn’t much accomplished. The biggest story out of the Canadian press was that some Canadian octet performed; the Stabroek News of Guyana reported two Guyanese doctors were going to Washington (it was a slow news week in Guyana) and a few social work newsletters mentioned various invites.

The ONLY coverage in the U.S. has been about who wasn’t there:

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban President Fidel Castro on Sunday scoffed at Bush administration efforts to ease social problems in Latin America, boasting his poor country could run circles around the United States in health and education aid.

“Bush will discover that the empire’s political and economic system can’t compete in the area of vital services such as education and health with Cuba, assaulted and blockaded for almost 50 years,” Castro wrote in an editorial published by the official newspaper Rebel Youth.

Mexico, by the way, has a low infant mortality rate and does offer free mamograms, though of course, it could do more. One reason I live on the border is cheap health care across the border…It ain’t perfect, but:

“The Mexican health reform has been a global laboratory for proving how to give access to a range of vital services to the entire population,” said Dr. Richard Horton, a physician and editor of The Lancet, an international medical journal. “It is a model even rich nations can learn from.”

If we really wanted to assist Latin American health care, we could begin at home…

Another consequence of the lack of healthcare for the poor in the United States is that OUR immigrant labor is sending home more than money. Mexico’s low AIDS rate is growing, due to our neglect of public health.

Marc Lacey in the International Herald Tribune:

Migrant workers … go to the United States with dreams of new prosperity, hoping to bring back dollars. But they are bringing back something else as well, HIV and AIDS, and they are spreading them in the rural parts of Mexico least prepared to handle the epidemic.

As immigration reform founders in the United States, the expanding AIDS crisis among the migrants goes virtually unaddressed on both sides of the border. Particularly in Mexico, AIDS is still shrouded by stigma and denial. In the United States, it is often assumed that immigrants bring diseases into the country, not take them away.

But AIDS is spreading quickly in rural Mexican states with the highest migration rates to the United States, researchers say. The greatest risk of contracting AIDS that rural Mexican women face is in having sex with their migrant husbands, a new study found, a problem that is compounded by the women’s inability to insist that their husbands use condoms.

The AIDS rate in Mexico is relatively low, especially in rural areas. According the the International AIDS/HIV Alliance, “It is still largely concentrated among men who have sex with men, but there has been a gradual shift towards injecting drug users and women becoming more affected.”

I remember the guy from Chiapas who chose to die in front of the Palacio Nacional as a protest against the lack of treatment in rural communities. That was in late 2001, before Julio Frenk’s reforms at the Secretaria de Salud were implemented. Frenk did a lot of make sure more treatment was available, fought for anti-discrimination laws and better sex education. What’s frightening now is that his successor seeks to undo much of what has worked in the past.

At least in the Capital, there is treatment (though the tight public health budget can only go so far, and the drugs are hugely expensive. Military personnel who contract AIDS cannot be booted out of the service, but have the right to treatment in military clinics and hospitals.

There have been creative campaigns — Farmacias Similares sells their own brand of discount condoms, and their owner ran a somewhat factitious campaign for President of the Republic to push low-cost heath care, free condoms and (of course) his own brand name. The Federal District has regular health fairs. I was at one where a stentorian-voiced drag queen (she must have a day job as a tout in Tepito) was demonstrating proper condom use to the teenage sons of traditional (white pajamas and all) campesinos.

And — much to the chagrin of the Bishops — Mexican education includes comprehensive sex education. But none of this is reaching the rural adults who are likely to emigrate.

Our anti-immigration folks like to whine that immigrants use the public health facilities here (which may be more anecdotal than anything. POOR PEOPLE use public health facilities in the U.S. UNINSURED people use public health facilities), but you won’t hear boo out of them about this.

I expect we MAY hear more about this though, as we get closer to the 2008 International AIDS Conference which will be held in Mexico City.

My introduction to Mexico’s role in saving the Jews of Europe during World War II, as well as a lot of other would-be victims of the fascists, was due to my very bad Spanish. I was still going to Mexico City as a tourist, and noticed some unusual silver ornaments in a shop across from Parque Alameda (where the Foreign Ministry complex now stands). For some reason, when I walked in, my Spanish failed me, and didn’t know enough to say “Quisiera mirar los ornamentos”… saying – I think – something like mira los tchotkies”. Where I pulled the Yiddish word from is a mystery to me to this day, but the old guy in a yalmulke behind the counter sort of understood me. After trying out Yiddish and German on me, he finally hit on his limited English. He’d been a Mexican since 1940.

Later, when I lived in Santa Maria de la Ribera, I’d see very elderly Spaniards and Basques and French out with their grandchildren… who looked and acted as Mexican as everyone else. The park in Santa Maria faces several high schools – including French, Dutch and Spanish ones.

My neighbors, and my friend the silversmith, and many, many others owe their existence to Lazaro Cardenas, and to the Mexican diplomatic corps. People just don’t know that Mexico accepted almost any refugee from fascism (and, legally, still does) and the Mexican diplomatic corps played an important role in World War II, even before Mexico declared war on Germany in May, 1942.

One of the heros of the Mexican diplomatic corps is being honored with an exhibit at the Museo Histórico Judío y del Holocausto Tuvie Maizel (Acapulco 70, Condesa, D.F.). Arturo Jimenez of Jornada wrote about the “Mexican Schindler”

He is often called “The Mexican Schindler” for his work during the Second World War, when as Mexico’s Consul General in France, he aided 40,000 refuges – Spanish Republicans, French Jews, Lebanese and others facing persecution, among them leaders of the European opposition and members of the antifascist resistence.

Described as “a Mexican hero” or a “savior” or simply “brave,” he spent a year as a prisoner of war of the Germans, where – together with his family and collaborators – his dignified attitude was the epitome of Mexican diplomacy of the era, gaining even the respect of his jailers.

His name was Gilberto Bosques, born in 1892 in Chiatla, Puebla.  In his 103 year lifetime, he was a revolucionary, a congressman, an educator, a reporter, a writer, a diplomat and, above all else, a humanist and patriot: but somewhat forgotten until now.

For everything he was, the Jewish community in Mexico has decided to mount a photographic exhibit in Bosques’ honor, the best way to teach about our tradition of asylum and solidarity.

Embajador Gilberto Bosques: un hombre de todos los tiempos (Ambassador Gilberto Bosques: a man for all times) opened last week at the Museo Histórico Judío y del Holocausto Tuvie Maizel (Acapulco 70, Condesa).

In 88 photos, the exposition covers the life of Gilberto Bosques from his birth to his death in 1995. The images and information sheets are organized in 25 panels, and include photos of the almost unknown French Holocaust.

All the images are copies from the Bosques family archives. The museum has plans to show the exhibit in other locations. The curator, Erick Saúl, of the United States, said he is “historical curator, not a museum specialist,” spent two years working on the Tuvie Maizel museum exhibit.

Saving lives, raising spirits

The exposition includes images from throughout  Bosques’ long and varied career:  his participation in the 1910 Revolution when he was 17; as a Puebla and later Federal legislator working on labor issues in the 1920s and 30s;  his activities as as an educational and political reformer and his career as editor of the Government paper, El Nacional.

His diplomatic career began at shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, when he was tasked with  carrying out the foreign policy of presidents Lázaro Cárdenas and then Manuel Avila Camacho.

Under the leadership of Mexican Minister to France,   Luis I. Rodríguez,  Bosques embarked on a series of adventures in his quest to obtain visas and safe-conduct passes for those persecuted by the Germans in France, even as he moved the diplomatic mission from Paris to other places, eventually coming to Marseilles.

In the French port, he used his role as Mexican Consul General to rent two chateaux (Reynarde and Montegrande) to house and protect hundreds of refugees marked for deportation to concentration and extermination camps, while he arranged for their exit. In the chateaux, he organized artistic activities to “raise the spirit” of the persecuted.

In Marseilles, the Mexican Ambassador had to confront open hostility from pro-German French “authorities”, Gestapo spies, the government of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco as well as the Japanese diplomats who had offices in the same building as the Mexican delegation.

Bosques resisted them all. The French and – above all – the Germans, until on his recommendation, Mexico broke relations with both countries in 1943. The Gestapo violently assaulted the Mexican delegation, robbing money from a strongbox and taking the diplomat, his wife and three children and forty staff members into custody. They were sent to Bad Godesberg and locked in a hotel for the next year, which he spent organizing art programs. He above all upheld his dignity and the dignity of Mexico. He told the German bureaucrats:

“We have read the rules you have laid down for Mexican personnel and will abide by them. However, as Mexico and Germany are at war, we expect to be treated as prisoners of war, and will accept no special consideration due to age or other condition, but only those accorded to such prisoners.”

In 1944, the Mexican were liberated and repatriated in a prisoner exchange with the Germans who were held in the concentration center at Perote, Veracruz.

After the war, Bosques was appointed Mexican Minister to Portugal, Finland and Sweden. From 1953 to 1964, he served in Cuba. The photo shows Bosques with the Castro brothers (Raul and Fidel) and Ernesto Che Guevara.

Don Gilberto’s daughter, Laura Bosques, recalled her family’s experiences in Europe, which organizing tertuilias during their incarceration at Bad Godesburg which included reading from the  poems of Rubén Darío at tertuilias.

“It was an era of intense drama. Along with everyone else, my parents and my brothers and I were aware of the suffering. The War was a tremendous thing that should never have happened, and the violence continues to this day.”

Laura Bosques spoke with us in the  offices at the Centro Comunitario Nidjei Israel, where the Tuvie Maizel museum is also located. There, we also met press spokesman Enriqueta Loaeza Tovar and museum coordinator Leyla Malki, who summed up the man:

“Gilberto Bosques was a Mexican hero. With this exhibit the museum and the Jewish community in Mexico renders its homage, to one who did so much for us, and for his country.”

If you ever wondered how Ilsa and Victor Lazlo got to Casablanca, now you know… Gilberto Bosques arranged it.

 A

A discoverer of hidden motives who pointed people in the direction they needed to go to resolve their conflict, a witty commentator on the worlds’ absurdity and a Latin American icon… and somebody you always think of when you say “cigar:…

Of course, I mean Sara García (hey… this is the MEX files, remember?)

García’s very long film career begin in 1917 with Alma de sacrificio, Azteca Studios first production.  She was a 22 year old convent school teacher, looking to make a little money on the side. She’d go on making films until her death in 1980… playing in 146 in all, as well as appearing in television productions, writing, producing and directing films… and becoming a staple in Mexican pantries. 

In 1940, when she was only 45, García took out her front plate, put on her glasses and… created a Mexican icon. In every movie she was in — and it didn’t matter whether she was playing a historical figure, a peasant or a dutchess – she was wearing those tortise-shell glasses and smoking her cigar. Whether really necessarily for the script or not (and Mexican scripts usually did call for it), a place was found for “Abuelita”

The 1946-47 “García” films … Los Tres García and Vuelven los García,  were a vehicle for Pedro Infante — as usual — the charro, macho, and  slacker.  Sara is the matriarch of the Garcías in a melodramatic tale of the family’s feud with the Lopez family…  ”granny” controls the family, even (by the end of Vuelven los Garcia)  from beyond the grave — with psychology, humor and sheer Latin American orneryness… and with a cigar always in hand.   

From the 1947 Vuelven los Garcia, Pedro Infante sings Maldita sea mi suerte. 

xxx

Do I have this right?  In the U.S., the politicians are bickering over how much port security is required… or even if it’s a requirement

While in the meantime…

U.S. offers aid to beef up security

The U.S. government will help Mexico acquire anti-terrorism equipment to ensure safety at key Mexican ports such as Veracruz, Tampico and Mazatlán, sources here told EL UNIVERSALThe value of the equipment will be around US$50 million, and U.S. President George W. Bush is expected to formally announce the measure during his visit to Mexico next week.Port security - especially regarding shipments of goods from abroad - is a central concern of the U.S. government.And speaking of Bush’s Magical Mystery Tour Michael Werbowski, who can get away with cutting through the bullshit, by writing for a Korean news service, says…

George W. Bush’s Latin American journey is notable for its timing, coming very late in his second term as president after years of neglecting what the U.S. considers its “backyard.” Perhaps it is too late.…Glaringly absent from the travel agenda are Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua. In other words, the places that are right now radically redefining the South and Central America’s — if not all of Latin America’s — relationship to Washington and in turn its image in the wider world. This absence evidently underlines the United States’ diminished and waning influence in what it deems its own playground since the days of the Monroe Doctrine.…The U.S. president might be expecting the red carpet to be rolled out for him. But he may be lucky just to get a welcome mat at the door. Warm embraces historically reserved for European potentates, Vatican officials or, more recently, leaders of Mercosur, the regional trading “powerhouse,” will probably be replaced by courteous handshakes at official photo ops at best. Bush might give us a smile and pat his Uruguayan or Brazilian counterpart on the back just for good measure. Yet signs of open hostility to the American leader’s global policies from his retrograde stance on global warming to his fossilized view of Cuba and the Iraq War are likely to overshadow this visit in the form of street protests wherever he goes.…

A year ago a Canadian couple got their throats cut in Cancán, probably over something to do with their own affairs in Canada.  A couple of weeks ago, a 19 year old got hit by a car in Acapulco (though his family kept insisting it was some convoluted murder plot. Then another Canadian couple got hit by a car in Chapala (the biggest concentration of Canadians outside of Canada, btw). Then a lady from Niagara, Ontario got dinged in the foot by a riccocheting bullet (again in Acapulco).

The LATEST “grief in Mexico from the Great White North” story seems to lack legs… this one involves a guy who showed up in rural Oaxaca with his wife (or, as the Canadian papers are careful to say, “Common Law Wife”and seven kiddies) was squatting in a broken down schoolbus (just the thing to endear yourselves to the neighbors… even in rural Oaxaca… especially around tourist resorts) and has ended up in the slammer.

According to his supporters (a British Columbia-based radio evangalist and some guy named John Joseph Kennedy who claims he’s running for President of the United States), the fellow is expected to pay a $20,000 (dollar, but whether U.S. or Canadian, I can’t say) “bribe” to get out of prison. That’s their story, and they’re sticking to it. The reality seems to be the BC-hillbillies set themselves up as illegal contractors, cheated a British couple out of 200,000 pesos and… the guy got tossed in jail as a common, ordinary conman and crook. Mrs. Hillbilly and the little Hillbillies, having no visible means of support, and… if some stories are to be belieived, also renting themselves out by the hour, were deported as undesirable aliens.

The “bribe” the Rev. and the wannabe President are talking about is called RESTITUTION – he held himself out as a real estate agent and contractor, cheating the owners of the Casa Blanca Cafe and Bar in Hutalaco (an English couple with the all-too-delightful name of Kevin and Tess Hunneybell), out of a substantial sum of money… somewhere around, oh… 200,000 pesos, or $20,000.

I can see why the “poor Canadian in the clutches of the dirty Mescans” story only had a one-day life in the Canadian press. I’ve looked, but it died out.

Not that some Canadians are going to let a little thing like the facts interfere with their “demand” that their country do something about the alleged slaughter and miscellenous mahyem in Mexico. The Canadian government, to it’s credit, brushed them off.

“Harding”, who usually manages to find enough murder and mayhem just in Toronto to put out the hard–boiled (and, in a twisted way, very entertaining) “T.O. Crimes: True Crimes of the True North” (ok, so he’s also got a cannibal/serial killer from British Columbia to write about, but geeze, how could any crime writer resist that?) has been overlapping OUR geographic portion of the blogosphere. Ok, he can have the throat-cutting, since Canadians are suspected – though of course, they’re saying the Mexican hotel staff did it (obviously not a robbery, so why would they bother with a middle-aged couple from Woodbridge Ontario?).

The hit-n-run in Acapulco at least had some piquancy, but it sounds more like a family in need of serious grief counseling than anything else (isn’t social services the thing Canada is famous for?). In Ajijic you have to be a very good driver NOT to hit a Canadian. And, the foot-dinging was just one of those things that happens when gangsters are shooting at each other. Ok, maybe he can have that one too.

“Harding” wrote today:

If you went to Mexico, you’re more likely NOT to get shot than you are to get shot. Chances are… you’ll make it back.

…

Hey, if you really want to play the odds… you don’t have to go to Mexico. Just hang out at Yonge and Dundas… or in Flemingdon Park.

None of which are anything like Tepito or Ciudad Nezahuacoatl, where you’re more likely to emerge alive than otherwise, but what the hey… I’ll bet you can’t buy a used coffin in Flemingdon Park, like a friend of mine claims she saw being sold in Tepito (you can buy ANYTHING in Tepito… that’s its charm). Or, if you could, they’d probably make you get all kinds of health certificates (why?) and a business license and sell in a building and post the building inspector’s report and…

Which is possibly the reason Canadians sometimes run into problems in Mexico. Canada, despite its large immigrant population is extremely homogenous (90% “white”, they have to use terms like “Irish” and “English” on their census reports. They wiped out most of their indigenous people in the 18^th and 19^th centuries) and depends on the government to make the social rules. They did have a very brief rebellion in the 1860s, but never broke with their colonial overlords, the British. They’re idea of a rebel is Michael J. Fox.

Mexico is a very mixed population, not particularly wealthy and tends to make up the rules as they go along – or relies on the extended family to enforce conformity. The indigenous-other population is the majority, and they never particularly cozzened to the idea of colonial rule. After a bloody ten year struggle, they were invaded three times by foreigners in the 19^th century, occupied twice and had a spectacular social revolution in the 20^th century. These are not the kind of folks who pay much attention to the authorities. Their idea of a rebel is Cantinflas. Or Fidel Castro (who lived in Pozo Rica for a time)… or Subcomandante Marcos… or…. you get the picture.

Canadians, for all their good qualities, sometimes can be awfully provincial. Two things to remember (besides the basic “don’t act like a dick”):

The local copper isn’t paid to serve and protect you. He’s paid by the authorities (who no one listens to when they don’t want to) to maintain control. Next time you have trouble go to to the Ministerio Publico. They’re better paid, and even if they’re sometimes a bit crude (I had two conversation students who used to work as federal prosecutors. It even weirded me out when they were talking about the uses of torture to expedite confessions… otherwise nice guys). The CSI type guys are as good as anywhere… and know it. Alas, they get a lot of practice.

Things move slowly. Canada is a rich country, but you guys have enough oil and minerals of your own. You don’t buy Mexico’s. The big country right next door, which buys most Mexican oil and minerals, and invaded a couple of times to maintain control over the stuff, might expect to get served first. Sorry, guys… the only aggressive Canadian Imperalist down here was Lord Cowdray, and he was only a Canadian when it was convenient.  Usually he was “British”. And Mexico tossed him out when they nationalized the oil. Afraid the Canadians will have to wait in line with the Swedes and the Argentines when your diplomats come knocking. Patience is a Mexican virtue, but then, living in a country where it can take months to get your telephone installed teaches you patience.

UPDATE: There are excellent summaries of this, and other developing political scandals in the August 19 and 20 posts at Mercury Rising.

Journalist Carmen Aristegui aired videos yesteday of interviews with contractor and financier Carlos Ahumada who fled to Havana in 2004 to avoid prosecution for charges related to his bribery of Mexico City officials and department heads (story in El Informador de Guadalajara here).

There was something dubious about the whole affair. At the time I wondered how a PAN Senator ended up with Las Vegas surveillence tapes which were shown on la Mañanara, Brozo the Clown’s morning TV talk show. (A federal lawsuit in Las Vegas disclosed that the FBI was acquiring casino surveillence tapes, allegedly to look for money-launderers. If true, the tapes would have been sent to the Mexican Attorney General’s office, which apparently gave them to the politican as part of what Lopez Obrador called a “complot”). Ahumada, an Argentine-born builder and investor, had numerous business and personal interests that tied to PAN leaders. Mexicans are prejudiced against Argentines, and I thought a lot of what was said about Ahumada reflected that prejudice, rather than facts. Still, his name, and his companies, are involved in every scandal involving Lopez Obrador’s city administration, and in the affairs of most of AMLO’s political opponents.

During his interview, Ahumada said it was “difficult to imagine that Vicente Fox was not intimately involved” in various schemes to derail Lopez Obrador’s political ambitions.

Today’s Jornada comments on the latest revelations (my translation):

Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador was right. His denunciation of a “plot” against him back in March 2004 was neither a paranoid fantasy, not a manouver to sidetrack public scrutiny of his adminstration. The machinations of the state and the involvement of the Presidency are certain. Carlos Ahumada, the keystone of the jerry-built intrige, confessed as much in Havana, Cuba in a video interview with journalist Carmen Aristegui.Nobody is making jokes about the construction magnate’s revelations now. They are substantial theads running through three separate episodes in recent national political life: the dissemination of recorded images of civil servants and Federal District Government (GDF) employees gambling in Las Vegas or receiving cash from Ahumada; the attempts to politically incapacite Lopez Obrador through a disafuero; and the now well-founded suspicions of fraud in the the recent elections.

All three events divided and polarized the country, irritated society and brought the nation to the abyss of madness. These three events demonstrate a fatuous misuse of state resources by a tiny nucleus of business interests to prevent the candidate from obtaining the Presidency of the Republic.

Carlos Ahumad’s confessions in Havana detail a sedititious plot in which at least then Interior Minister Santiago Creel, former Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha, Senator Diego Fernandez de Cevallos and ex-president Carlos Salinas de Gortari are all implicated. It doesn’t take much imagination to see the hand of Los Pinos behind the plot.

With nearly the speed of light, Santiago Creel picked up the smoke signals [an untranslatable pun based on Ahumada, Smoky). It appears that a bad memory is affects the entire Mexican political class when it comes to denying responsiblity. Fernanez de Cevellos, the incoming PAN Senate leader, when confronted by Puebla authorities with wiretapped conversations between him and then-fugitive pederast Kamil Nacif famously told a television interviewer “It is my voice but not me.” If, as Ahumad affirms, Fernandez de Cevellos was in on the plot, it’s bad enough. It is much worse if the Interior Minister ignored one of the greatest scandals in national political events despite having at his dispostion the country’s intellegence services.

The testimony disclosed yesterday is only one small part of the 40 hours of recordings with Carlos Ahumada now in Cuban hands. What is yet to be revealed. The video (available on Jornada’s Web page) show a smiling and open industralist. But he raises questions that have not been clarified, in spite of the time that has passed since his capture and deportation from Cuba. Why did he flee to Cuba, and who protected him during his escape?

The Havana confessions reinforce uncertainty about the lack of transparency, and raise questions about the fairness and — of the July 2 elections. Carlos Ahumada explicitly recognizes that the intention of his governmental protectors was to wreck Lopez Obrador’s presidential aspirations. If they were able to achieve their ends, what else would they do to conserve power. For those who were already dubious about the electorial results, the Argentine industrialist’s revelations only add to distrust and social discontent. For that reason, today, more than ever, it is made indispensable count vote by vote.

But beyond the final outcome of these revelations, there is a more immediate consequence for the nation. They reaffirm the national tragedy — the intellectial impoverishment and break-down of our political class, resulting in an unscrupulous use of government institutions in the administration of justice.

Yeah… I know… this is a Mexican website, so I’ll quote Alvaro Obregon, speaking of Porfirio Diaz, another Latin American leader with a world reputation… “his only mistake was to grow old.”

Tomorrow (29 August) we’re having another mega-march, so I shopped today. I bought some very fresh organic coffee (50 pesos the kilo — $2/lb.) from a Tuxpam, Puebla farm family, who are losing their collective shirts, in town for the “do” tomorrow. Looking through the beads and trinkets stalls fronting the National Palace was a well-heeled gringo tourist couple. They commented on “those Russian things” around the Indigenous artesana. I’m assuming they meant the gold hammer and sickles on the bright red banners. Scary! These better-traveled, well-heeled compatriots are likely (Bush) voters. Those “noble red men” need every peso quaint customs and colorful handicrafts bring in. Oh well… if the touristas translated “Frente marxista-leninista”, they might sue. Who?

It’s the fashion among conservatives to mount dubious legal challenges to their opponents. Bill Clinton (a right-winger everywhere except the U.S.) lied about a fat girlfriend – grounds for impeachment. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (a devout Roman Catholic, not a Marxist) had the temerity to not only beat back an attempted U.S. sponsored coup d’etat, but also to spent Venezuelan oil revenues on frivolous sops for the voters like… schools and hospitals. Grounds for a recall. One of those “think tank” guys (who work hard daily to come up with plausible-sounding rationales for screwing the rest of us), said Chavez cheated by “pandering” to the voters (as opposed to, say, Ronald Reagan offering us middle-class folks tax cuts).Here in Mexico, the conservatives are trying to unseat our Jefe de Gobernación, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Cynical left-wing types say it’s because neither of the two big parties (Fox’s PAN and the PRI) have any possible candidates for the 2006 Presidential election with even half the support AMLO does. There’s no Monica Lewinsky – in Mexico sex scandals are only interesting when they involve bishops. AMLO (a recent widower and model of middle-class propriety) is unfit for public office because he didn’t open his mail.

Several years ago, the city expropriated an access road to the emergency room of a pricey private hospital in a wealthy neighborhood. Four or five different families claim the other guys all have forged deeds, and the wrong people were compensated. Once AMLO became a threat to the Foxistas, the fun began – one claimant (coincidentally, a PAN activist) mailed a court order to the Jefe de Gobernacíon. Not responding is a good enough reason for Congress to unseat the Jefe – making him ineligible to ever hold Federal office. Despite Marta Fox’s little financial irregularities (diverting money from the National Lottery to a “charity” she runs, which spend more on overhead that it collects), El Prez is a stickler for the law. He ordered PAN congressmen to vote against AMLO.AMLO’s party (PRD) is the smallest of the three major parties. Fox is hoping the PRI is more afraid of AMLO than they are of the conservatives. Fat chance. PRI and PAN both want to kill off AMLO (at least politically), but they see each other as the biggest danger to their survival. Every time Fox courts the PRI, his own party or the PRI splits into more factions – and AMLO becomes more credible. After Fox’s speech, the PRD, a good part of PRI and even some of PAN said el Presidente was thwarting democracy, so it’s time to go to the streets. The mega-march will be pure theater, but very smart theater.

Folks are starting to wonder how bright Fox is – it took the guy a year to realize George Bush II knows (or cares) nothing about Mexico or Latin-America in general. Did the moron in the White House really call those terrorists released by Panama “freedom fighters”? Well, just because Interpol and a half-dozen countries say so, maybe “terrorist” is a tad harsh. All they did was blow up a civilian airliner and murder a few dozen other folks. Only two were American citizens (blown up in Washington, DC – their own fault for riding in the same car as a Chilean exile). Any attempted murders only involved extraneous foreigners anyway – Gabriel Garcia Marquez? Geeze, how many Nobel Prize Winning Novelists does the world need anyway? The Pope? He’s old… and Polish, so that’s not such a big deal. And besides, those would have only been “collateral damage”. The big enchilada was Fidel Castro. Hey, planning to bump off the bearded one should have got these guys a free dinner in Miami, not life in a Panamanian prison. Right? But the mistake could be corrected … never mind that Panama only allows Presidential pardons for political crimes. These guys needed a Presidential pardon – now!Those pesky Panamanians swear in a lefty Pres next week. Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Paraguay, Panamá. Another Latin American country freely elects a left-wing leader. Hmm… I smell a plot. Fidel wants a leftist Latin America; the Bush family got rich the old fashioned way – kissing the butts of dictators and various baddies (Prescott Senior laundered money for Adolph Hitler, George I and Prescott Jr. have business ties to the Chinese Communist Party – and Saddam Hussein and the King of Saudi Arabia - as does George II, who also was in business with an obscure Saudi construction magnate named Osama bin Ladin). So Fidel, on behalf of dictators and baddies everywhere, cleared out the mental wards and prisons of Cuba, sending the cracked, the crazed and the criminal by the boatload to Florida back during the Carter Administration. The crazies helped elect Jeb Bush as Governor; Jeb did everything possible to disenfranchise anti-conservatives, and to swing his state’s presidential votes to big brother George W. in 2000. The un-elected President of the United States, in return, has done everything in his power to give capitalism and corporatism a really, really bad name. Pro-U.S., or pro-corporate Latin American leader look like fools. Fidel’s interest is a leftist Latin America: the conservatives are voted out and the people opt for the left. The Bush family’s interest is the Bush family. A win-win for both Fidel and George II.

Makes sense to me… but then I live in Latin America, where politics is simple and straightforward.