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.

Following on the heels of the FARC-fetched explanations of why the Colombians launched a missile into Ecuador, the Colombian government’s only remaining overt rationale for U.S. military support seems to be evaporating. NarcoNews reports that:

… thousands of coca growers that had been occupying town centers in northern Colombia to protest the forced eradication of their crops have begun returning to their villages after three weeks of negotiations with local authorities. Their occupation of four large towns showed that Colombia’s much-demonized producers of the raw material for cocaine are willing to move to alternative, legal crops – if the government will treat them as partners rather than enemies.

Despite some whining from missionaries, about minor things like death squads, our national security depends on free trade with Colombia.

However, Haliburton and Blackwater can take heart (though it’ll mean more U.S. military casualties in Colombia)… now that the Israelis have been put out of the death squad training biz, there are other business opportunities. And, if all else fails, we’ll always have Venezuela:

Two Florida-based companies that have exported a total of at least 11 aircraft to Venezuelan buyers since 2003 are linked to four cocaine planes and what appears to be an elaborate covert intelligence operation…

Durn those Venezuelans.. they may screw the whole thing up:

The Venezuelan police have arrested a suspected drugs and weapons smuggler wanted in the United States. The US authorities have offered a five million dollar reward for the arrest of Hermágoras Gonzales Polanco, who has ties with the Colombian Guajira cartel.

He is suspected of smuggling large quantities of cocaine into the US and weapons, destined for paramilitary groups, from Europe into Colombia. Mr Gonzalez was arrested at the border with Colombia, together with 48 suspected paramilitaries.

While initial reports on the Colombian rocket attack on the FARC encampment in Ecuador mentioned a Mexican — Lucía Morett Àlvarez — among the survivors, it’s now reported that up to ten Mexicans were among the twenty casualties.

There are two conflicting stories about what the Mexicans were doing in Ecuador. One version has the students attending a Bolivarian Solidarity Conference in Quito or there was a FARC cell in Mexico City, at UNAM. Morett said she did not believe there was anything illegal in visiting FARC leaders in Ecuador — which would bolster Colombian claims that the Ecuadorians knew FARC had a base in their country. At the same time, the Colombian vice-president claims that Mexican and Chilean students were being trained and armed. And that there is a FARC “terrorist cell” operating in Mexico City (maybe this is what vice-presidents are supposed to do. I seem to recall that the U.S. vice-president also made claims of wider “terrorist” connections to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq, after initial rationales were universally questioned). Count among those who are dubious the UNAM administration.

So far, Felipe Calderon has called the situation “deplorable” — but he seems to accept the Colombian story that the students (if they were students) were guerrillas.

Ecuador’s claim — that the Colombians (with U.S. support) attacked the camp because the Uribe administration was worried that Ecuadorian and Venezuelan negotiations to release foreign hostages held by FARC were about to bear fruit — is the most widely accepted. The Colombian government is widely seen as involved in human rights abuses and narcotics trafficking itself, ignoring right-wing death squads and narcotics dealing “terrorist” groups (and, in some cases, complicit in their activities), using the U.S. military equipment to fight leftists, and not narcotics traders.

So far, Mexico seems to be taking a “wait and see” attitude. I’ve seen nothing from the Mexican left condemning Colombia at this point, other than the expected anti-Colombian protests. Calderon and Uribe met briefly but there is no word on their discussions.

So far, Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua have broken relations with Colombia, with Chile, Brazil and Argentina all supporting Ecuador. France and China also seem to be backing Ecuador, with only the United States in Colombia’s corner. Anything could tip Mexican neutrality –

I’m surprised no one has commented on this, but do you notice something about OUR friend Alvaro Uribe of Colombia (owner of the magic laptop) as compared to the “FARC-ed” leaders of Ecuador and Venezuela?

Hey… don’t call me nuts. The Free Republic is quoting a Colombian reporter as saying the two guys on the right (in the photo, not in their politics) are in cahoots with this dude:

That, of course, makes no sense. None of the U.S. Presidential candidates seem to know diddly-squat about Latin America.

Although this is a Mexico-focused website, it’s hard to ignore what has happened in Ecuador. The only Mexican connection, so far, has been that two survivors of the Colombian incursion are Mexican nationals (and are being tried in Ecuadorian courts). So far, Mexico has been able to maintain its strict neutrality when it comes to other nations’ internal affairs.  I think, however, Mexico (like Argentina and Brazil, which have already weighed in on the side of Ecuador) will be affected, though only obliquely.

While the whole thing may blow over — for the practical reason that no one wants a war, and it’s economically not feasible, there are some long term worries. It was Bill Clinton’s. administration that got the United States into the Colombian civil war, which was sold as an anti-cocaine trafficking police operation, we were warned we were involving ourselves in Colombia’s domestic politics. Given that funding for “Plan Merida” is still in the works, and the Mexicans, as well as some in the United States are concerned that the “real” use of military hardware will be to stifle internal dissent, this incident may have an echo in Mexican affairs over the next several months.

And, given that no country in Latin America is backing the Colombians (and, by extension, the United States), Mexican diplomacy may have a role to play here, if the Mexicans don’t (as I think they will) tilt towards the other Latin countries in this dispute. How the Calderon administration balances their role as a pro-U.S. state in this situation is going to be worth watching.

While the English-speaking press is beginning to realize the Colombia v. Ecuador… and Venezuela (and the rest of Latin America) is unlikely to erupt into a shooting war, they have still be slow in understanding that it is a serious issue, which will change the ways inter-American politics works.

Canada.com — and I give credit where credit is due — was the first English-speaking “main stream media” source to question the Colombian rationales for the attacks on FARC in Ecuador. Canada, like the United States and Colombia (and, if I’m not mistaken, Bahamas) label FARC a “terrorist organization”, but most American nations accept that they are a rebel organization seeking changes in their own country, not an international group. Even so, the Canadians have a hard time swallowing the “dirty bomb” story (a Colombian official claimed the laptop computer that somehow survived a rocket attack on a FARC encampment in Eucador — which killed 18 and wounded three — somehow spared a laptop computer that included, among other things, unencrypted correspondence regarding acquiring fissionable material… uh, right).

The Independent (U.K.), which some regard as a lefty rag, adds the obvious fact that FARC’s narcotics dealings are what earned them the cachet of “terrorist.” The Guardian does not overlook the fact that EVERY rebel group in Colombia (including the right-wing ones) — and for that matter members of the Uribe government — are involved in the same dirty business.

Another U.K. paper, The Guardian, with the veddy British gift for understatement, downplays the likelihood of a more than temporary crisis by noting:

Daily life largely continued as normal across Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. Caracas’s skittish middle class, which habitually stocks up on tinned food and toilet paper at the first sign of political turmoil, had yet to make a run on the supermarkets.

Venezuela, much to the delight of the right-wing, has a meat and milk shortage, importing commodities from Colombia. And Colombia’s army is about twice the size of the Venezuelan and Ecuadorian armies combined (plus is much better equipped and trained). The cartoon is from a Venezuelan newspaper (which also shows that the country does have a free press).

Both the Guardian and Independent articles are the best I’ve seen so far on the background of this situation. For the “whys and wherefores”, you need to go to more partisan publications. ZNet’s Justin Podur (reprinted in Venezuela Analysis) finds a logical reason for the Colombian actions in FARC’s negotiations with France and Venezuela for the attack.

Investor’s Daily oddly spins the whole mess into an argument for a free-trade pact between Colombia and the United States.

When Hugo Chavez says that Colombia is Latin America’s Israel, he is correct. They are the United States’ third largest recipient of military aid are using that aid to attack perceived enemies. And, apparently, with U.S. assistance, Colombia launched a missile attack on a foreign nation to wipe out what they consider a “terrorist”. A thought: a number of known terrorists live in Miami, and have attacked Cuba. Would the Cubans be justified in launching an air strike on Little Havana to wipe out Alpha-66 or Luis Posada Carrilles?

Can Mexico launch an airstrike on the El Paso Gun Show?

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.

For a backgrounder on PEMEX, I was forwarded a rough machine translation of an interview with Raúl Muñoz Leos posted on Catholic.net.  That seems an odd place to read about the workings of a major oil company, but remember, that PEMEX was nationalized back in 1938, among other reasons, to fund social development.  The Church-connected website is a natural for this.  

More surprising, in a way, is finding Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the pages of the conservative daily Reforma.  Reforma is paid-subscription only.

¿Qué Queremos Ser los Mexicanos, País o Colonia?: AMLO (Diario Reforma, 18-Feb-2008,) was reprinted in the lively “legitimate government” virtual resistance movement — Blogotitlan

Unlike the right wing and their technocrats, we think that we can move the country forward, while cutting out the corruption which nourishes the political and economic power in this country.

Furthermore, we think it indispensable for the transformation of the nation, that we develop an economic model that is based on the advantages of our own people’s abilities and the rational use of our natural resources – especially our energy resources

I will not deal at this time with the problem of political corruption and the benefits that we would obtain by with eradicating it. Nor will I speak of the substantial business interests presently favored by the state, such as the sale of gas to the Spanish company Repsol for 15 billion dollars, sold without bids, or of the gas extracted by that company in Peru, and resold to the Federal Electrical Commission at the highest possible price.

Nor, will I talk about how much we would benefit by liberating Mexican workers from their oppression, the cancellation of their future in this country, which has forced them to emigrate, sending their talents and labor abroad. 

Instead, my intention in this article is to emphasize the strategic importance of petroleum and to discuss ways we can turn it to our advantage for our national development.  The energy sector’s relevance extends from the extraction of crude oil and gas to refining, petrochemicals and electrical generation.  The products of these industries are engines that drive yet other industries, and of great economic value.  In addition to the energy generating industries are massive amounts of goods and services depending on them, all serving to fortify internal markets. 

On the other hand, all projections indicate that energy demand will continue to grow regardless of anything else.  Estimates for the year 2020 show a 50 percent increase over this year.  That is to say, even as we continue to investigate other sources of energy, for the next several decades, hydrocarbons will sustain world-wide economic development. 

With these developments on the horizon, Mexico enjoys an invaluable possibility for development.  Our country can count of reserves of crude oil sufficient to produce gas and petrochemicals, and, furthermore, we possess great quantities of natural gay which, over time, will be used more and more for electrical generation. 

Why then, given the economic potential of petroleum resources to foment industrialization, generate power and has Mexico not become an energy power?  The answer, although seems incredible, has to do with an idea that has prevailed for the last 25 years, to privatize the electrical and petroleum industry.  And, of course, behind this thinking are those interests who seek control of those resources which are the property of the nation and the Mexican..

The only explanation is that from 1983 onward, instead of modernizing the oil industry and driving national development, all neoliberal governments have chosen – deliberately – to ruin the industry, giving a pretext to sell it and turn it to private businesses…

During this period, our energy policy has been handled inn a perversely irresponsible way, with a suprising lack of vision and common sense.  The only thing that has mattered has been a drive to sell crude oil to foreigners while neglecting the search for new deposits and abandoning the refining and petrochemical industries

Direct public investment in Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) has fallen from 2.9 percent of GNP in 1982 to 0.57 percent in 2007.  Investment in electricity has gone from 1.2 percent in 1982 to 0.31 percent in 2007.  That is to say, during this period, total public investment in the energy sector fell from 4.12 to 0.88 percent of GNP.

And, for the past two decades, production has depended primarily on fields opened in the seventies: mainly the Cantarell deposits in the Sea of Campeche, and Chiapas and Tabasco wells.

With respect to the gas, the technocrats have never comprehended the strategic importance of this power source.  And, as to refineries and petrochemical plants, they have been starved of resources for expansion and modernization.  No refineries have been built in over 25 years.  As a result, we are importing 307 thousand barrels of gasoline daily, which could be produced in our own country, generating employment for Mexicans. 

It is completely absurd that this year will spend 10 billion dollars to buy gasoline from abroad, exactly what it would cost to build three refineries, which would make the country self-sufficient in this fuel.  The energy sector has not been a government priority, and as a result Mexico has become an exporter of crude oil, and an importer of products with an added value. .

This leaves us in a seriously dependent state.  We pay dearly to foreigners for a quarter of the gas we need, and 40 percent of the gasoline we consume.  buy from foreigners dear All this has taken to a very serious situation of dependency. One buys expensive in the outside the fourth part of the gas which we needed in the country and the 40 percent of the gasoline that we consumed.

Outside Mexico, gas and electricity are more expensive for both consumers and industrial users than in the United States and other countries.  In December 2007, we paid 8.74 pesos for a liter of gasoline.  Compare this to other oil producers.  In Russia, a liter of gasoline cost 8.48;  in the United States, 7.51; in China 7.16; in Nigeria, 5.28; in the Arab Emirates, 4.99; in Ecuador, 4.34; in Iraq, 3.49; in Kuwait, 2.32; in Saudi Arabia, 1.32; in Iran, 0.97 and in Venezuela 50 centavos per liter. 

Facing the panorama of issues caused by lack of economic and technical resources, the usurping government [a reference to Felipe Calderón’s administration] tries to compound their misdeeds by privatizing the nation’s wealth, and to spread our oil revenue with foreign companies.

They must know that PEMEX, in spite of corruption mismanagement, generates an annual surplus of over 60 billion dollars, more than six percent of the GNP.  It is the most profitable company in the country (extracting a barrel of oil for four dollars, and selling it for 80 dollars). .

In terms of cash flow, PEMEX is the second largest oil company in the world.  The taxes paid last year were 60 billion dollars, equivalent to 38 percent of the federal budget and more than three times the amount of taxes paid by all other private companies in the country.  If PEMEX lacks investment funding, it is because the government confiscates everything.   

As far as technology goes, it is a mistake to assume that we must irremediably associate with foreign companies, and cannot contract what we need.  In addition there are many experienced Mexican workers, technicians and petroleum engineers with much experience.

We have not forgotten that, despite all prognostications by foreign companies in 1938, do not forget that, against all the prognoses of the foreign companies, Petróleos Mexicanos forged ahead with operations, and can continue to do so now.  We know, and they know, they can still do it.  is we all know, and we know they are ready to contribute.     

Only those technocrats with a neurotic need to sell out their country can argue that today’s PEMEX cannot survive, and that it’s delivery to the private sector – foreign or national – is the only way of salvation.  complex and sell mother countries, can argue that today PEMEX cannot and that its delivery to the deprived sector, national or foreign, it is the only salvation.

The strengthened energy policy we propose would not require opening the energy sector to neither foreign nor domestic private capital.  The first phase would be the immediate investment of 400 billion pesos for exploring new fields, developing natural gas deposits, perforating new wells, constructing three new refineries, modernizing and expanding petrochemical plants and research and technology development (including alternative energy plants) and maintaining existing oil facilities

A logical question is to ask where the money would come from.  Our proposal is based on funding from two sources.  First, we propose to reduce the current government operational costs by 200 billion pesos

This implies, among other things, cutting off the budget guarantees to high bureaucrats, one of the most privileged castes in the world.  I would emphasize that budget cuts would not reduce investments, not reduce the salaries of lower paid workers nor public works, but only to reduce those bureaucratic operating expenses and salaries in the public sector where there have been enormous increases. 

The current cost of the public sector, from 2000 to the present, has increased by 714 billion pesos to one trillion, 466 billion.  That is to say, it doubled. 

The second funding source we propose is that all excess profits over the actual price of petroleum approved by the Chamber of Deputies, be reserved for energy sector development. 

To give an idea of the potential revenue: if the present international price for petroleum remained constant for a year, the excess revenue would be more than 200 billion pesos. 

With respect to these numbers, remember that during the Fox administration, we received 10 billion dollars annually between 2004 and 2006 because of excess returns from the high price of oil. Our misfortune was – and continues to be – that this money was not destined to modernize PEMEX, nor to promote Mexican development, nor to guarantee the well-being of the people, but was wasted on benefits for the high bureaucracy or disappeared down the sewer of corruption.

So the answer is yes.  Yes, there is an alternative proposal to confront the robbery of our Mexico which would leave the people without future development.  Let us celebrate the 70th anniversary of oil expropriation by turning our backs on the right and their allies within the PRI who would return us to the Porfiriate and leave us a colony. 

(Diario Reforma, 18-02-2008)

With oil prices today at $100.01 per barrel, it isn’t only the Mexican left looking at their natural resources in a new light.  Edmundo Rocha (Xicanopwr.com) analyzes the recent dustup over ExxonMobile’s suit against Venezuala’s PDVSA (also a funding source for social programs), and reaction by Hugo Chavez, as well as a new player in the oil market, Iran’s Oil Bourse.

In case anyone is keeping score, since George W. Bush was “elected” in 2000, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Panama, Suriname, Uruguary, and Venezuela have all elected leftist or social-democratic leaders. Add Guatemala to the list.

Alvaro Colom, a social-democrat, was elected on the UNE ticket, seems to offer a program similar to that offered by Mexico’s not-elected (by 0.05 percent) Andres Manuel López Obradór: expanded social spending and integration with Latin America, and attacking crime by going after the root causes — poverty and corruption — rather than the approach favored by both Colom and AMLO’s main rivals — the hard hand.

Colom is an intriguing figure. His uncle was the martyred mayor of Guatamala City, Manuel Colom, who was one of a spate of left-leaning democrats murdered after Guatelemala supposedly returned to Democracy. The new president’s background as a business executive and social services administrator (the big scandal in the election involved supposedly diverted funds from his campaign going to social services — even if true better than the other way around) is about what you’d expect for the president of a small country. One other interesting piece of trivia: those a “ladino” (a Guatemalan of non-indigenous ancestry) he is a Mayan priest.

Other than bananas (and workers) Guatemala doesn’t have much in the way of resources — no oil to make the election caputure the attention of the U.S. It has already signed on to CAFTA (the Central American Free Trade Agreement) which hopes to repeat the mistakes of NAFTA over a wider area.

Under the Spanish, Guatemala was a “vice-viceroyalty” of Nueva España, and until the 1820s, its history is Mexican history. Chiapas was once part of Guatemala and is a slightly better-off version of conditions in Guatemala. The Revolution never having reached Guatemala, it’s indigenous population has never had the advantages of legal equality.

Though, both in Mexico and Guatemala, Mayans have been treated as less than human, and often denied their civil rights, Mexican Mayans could at least get an education, vote and a wider economic and social sphere than their relations across the border. In 1954, Jacabo Arbenz, a rare democratically elected president, was overthrown in a bloody coup. His “crime” was attempting to nationalize the banana industry, and reform agriculture, modeled on Lazaro Cardenás’ nationalizations in 1930s Mexico. Unfortunately, the foreign entity controlling Guatemalan bananas was the United Fruit Company. One of the directors of United Fruit was Alan Dulles, the director of the CIA.

Arbenz was painted as a “Communist” (much as Venezuela’s elected left-wing leader, Hugo Chavez, is) and overthrown in a not-very-covert — though very bloody — coup. Guatemala remained under military dictatorships until the 1980s, democracy sacrificed for bananas . The bat-shit crazy Guatemalan dictator of the 80s, Efríam Rios Montt, was …well… bananas.

With no legitimate route to change, Guatemala had been in the middle of an on-and-off civil war since Arbenz was tossed out. Rios Montt launched a “scorched earth” campaign against his own people — or rather, the Mayans. Allegedly putting down Communists, Rios Montt was of the theory that he should “kill em all and let the Lord sort ‘em out.” Like Colom, Rios Montt was also a minister… though in his case, it was a California-based Fundamentalist Christian sect that won his allegiance.

A Mexican brokered peace agreement ended the “official” civil war in 1996. While largely a forgotten step-child of Mexico, foreign reaction to Guatemalan events influences Mexican actions. After the 1954 CIA-sponsored coup, Mexico foreign policy turned conservative and did not seek to challenge the United States. The “socialist” PRI began repressing leftist challenges where before Mexican leaders coopted them, or made space for them within the system.

Rios Montt and the odious right-wing dictatorships that were only slightly better sent waves of Guatemalan refugees into Mexico… When the United States began withdrawing its support for the Guatemalan dictators, Mexico began making space within the system for indigenous groups and paying more attention to indigenous affairs. In many ways the latest in a long string of Mayan uprisings (the Zapatista movement) was a indirect result of the Guatemalan situation. The Mexican Army would not have been in a confrontation with the Mayans had it not been for the refugees, nor would there have been a push to identify Mayan dissent with the left if it hadn’t been for the U.S.-backed regimes in Guatemala.

And, while you are already starting to hear rumbles on the right that Guatemala may be “going left” (well, it is… but “going commie” has lost its cachet and now countries “fall under the sphere of influence of Hugo Chavez”) I’d expect Mexico is going to recognize that the U.S. is losing its hegonomy in the region, or — at least — is starting to recognize that social democrats are not a threat.

( A bit off topic, but I don’t know how to insert a footnote when writing directly on “wordpress”: Paraguay is also likely to join the left-list — and, there too, it is likely to elect a clergyman as president. Though Fernando Lugo Méndez is more what you expect a Latin American clergyman/leader to be: he is — or was — a Roman Catholic bishop).

Richard Nixon may have said that about Latin America, but some people care very much.  Australian film-maker John Pilger’s “The War on Democracy” (sombrero tip to Roman Cotera, the “Amazing Mexican” ) doesn’t have much specifically to do with Mexico, but well worth watching — and I seriously doubt it will be showing on U.S. TV stations any time soon .  Pilger is one of the few “Western” journalists who supported Hugo Chavez’ administration’s decision to cancel the license of Radio Caracas Televisión, arguing that any television station that overtly called to overthorw any government would expect to have their broadcast license pulled.

Even if you’re not sold on Hugo, you’ll want to watch this — unless, of course, you’re a Dick.

The second ever post on MexFiles was about my (accidental) meeting with Juan-Carlos II of Spain.  His Most Catholic Majesty does have a tendency to act in rather unregal ways (which makes the guy human, not a jerk).  Asking Hugo Chavez “why don’t you shut up?” probably was taken out of context, but c’mon… Hugo is one of the windier politicos around, and he does tend to go on... and on… and on… about almost anything.

Mexican politicos too are being told to shut up, though in Mexico, which isn’t such a bad thing at all.  A new election law prohibits paid political advertising... which means Mexican political journalists, unlike those in the U.S. will actually have to talk about what the politicos are proposing, and stop farting around wasting everyone’s time talking about who has how much money to spend.  In Mexico, where they’re a little more realistic about things, that kind of money is called by it’s proper name — bribes.

Our political writers will also have a hard time with another reform… no political campaigning until 90 days before the election (which has been the law for some time now… just that the rules have been strengthened).  This means avoiding all those meaningless “debates” between 7 or 8 party pre-candidates and endless agonizing over which of several people who won’t be running for president to support (er… bribe).

And, in a really radical reform, it looks like Mexican politicans are going to have to hire people who do work, not “spin” their accomplishments. No more burying facts in some hagiography of your local politician.  In the U.S., you get used to letters from your local congressman saying “Congressman Bilgewater announced today that he is in favor of mom, apple pie and homeland security…” After you read all about Congressman Bilgewater, you learn that a congressional committee considered a proposal to add funds to some obscure budget line item to fund more hay for Border Patrol horses.

Official propaganda (and that is the correct word for information from the State)  can no longer even suggest being presented for the benefit of any individual or political party.  WOW!  Maybe these congressional aides, city assistant liaisons and so on and so forth will have to find real jobs. One can only hope they’ll be replaced by people who actually do stuff.

The people speak…