Thread: Will the U.S.-Mexico Interparliamentary Meeting be Substanti

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Monday, February 27, 2006

Will the U.S.-Mexico Interparliamentary Meeting be Substantive?


By Barnard R. Thompson

Members of Congress from both the United States and Mexico will hold their 45th annual U.S.-Mexico Interparliamentary Group session from March 2 to 4 this year, at the idyllic recreational community of Valle de Bravo west of Mexico City. A legislatorial diplomatic summit that comes at a crucial time in bilateral relations, considering the needs for understanding and solutions to a number of incessant, conflictive and worsening problems between people on both sides of the border.

But too often the meetings are heavy on pomp and circumstance and short on substantive solutions or lasting accomplishments. Little more than pleasure junkets disguised as working sessions with lots of show, and then the elected officials and their entourages return home to tout achievements as they go about business as usual.

A situation exacerbated this year with an all member lame duck Congress in Mexico, and too some of the U.S. delegates are up for election.

“Hope springs eternal” however, especially since the Interparliamentary Group represents at least a fleeting opportunity to find innovative and workable solutions to persistent needs.

Yet the task will be formidable, especially considering what some Mexican legislators had to say recently about the postures and attitudes their delegation of 12 senators and federal deputies will take to the Valle de Bravo sessions. Here is some of what was said by deputies from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), National Action Party (PAN), Mexican Green Ecological Party (PVEM), and Convergence Party, four of whom participated in a televised discussion regarding the forthcoming Interparliamentary Group meetings.

The three most pressing matters on Mexico’s agenda will supposedly be opposition to the U.S. Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 (H.R. 4437, the Sensenbrenner Bill); the relining of the All-American Canal in Imperial County, California; and the extraterritorial application of U.S. laws in Mexico.

Opposition to walls along the border was mentioned several times. As well, a possible topic will be claims that the ultra right in the United States is attempting to use fears of border penetration by terrorists to damage binational relations.

Other subjects will include shared homeland security goals; Mexico’s long sought migration agreement with the United States – including a guest worker’s program; and the U.S.-Mexico Partnership for Prosperity. The latter seen as a means to spur development and growth, and thus as part of the solution to Mexican emigration.

In a thinly veiled criticism of President Vicente Fox and his government, the PRI and Convergence deputies said that this year’s Interparliamentary meetings with the United States must be used to revive Mexico’s past foreign policy, especially in light of vulnerabilities that have surfaced as of late. In this last regard they specifically mentioned migration, border area safety and security, and the U.S. compelled eviction of 16 Cubans from a Sheraton Hotel in Mexico City on February 3.

Whereas the PAN deputy followed her president’s line and was most diplomatic, saying migratory matters must be number one on the agenda, the others attacked Fox and his ill-starred foreign policy.

And showing they are more party partisan then statesmanlike, some of the Mexican discussants also made telling remarks to which their U.S. counterparts should be forewarned.

The harshest comments against the United States came from Deputy Leonardo Alvarez Romo of the Mexican Green Ecological Party, none of which were contradicted by the other participants. Comments by a member of yes a small party, however significant in the election year context as the PVEM is part of the important PRI led “Alliance for Mexico” that is fielding Roberto Madrazo in this year’s presidential race.

After briefly mentioning several environmental topics, and differences over water from California’s All-American Canal, Alvarez turned political.

The main topic at the meetings should be the Sensenbrenner Bill, “because it is an insult to the dignity of our country,” Alvarez said. And he called U.S. representatives who voted in favor of the bill “bigots and fascists.”

As well, Mexican and Central American immigrants make important contributions to the U.S. economy, and the money they send home cannot be stopped with a wall, he said.

Concluding comments made in an historical perspective, and most certainly alluding to the U.S., Alvarez said: “Now it wants to close this stage with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars contrived to earn money and control oil regions, and to raise walls. It began an age destroying walls, and now it is closing this age of violence and uncertainty building walls in the Middle East and on the border with Mexico.”


Barnard Thompson, a consultant, is also editor of MexiData.info. He can be reached via e-mail at mexidata@ix.netcom.com.

As well, Mexican and Central American immigrants make important contributions to the U.S. economy, and the money they send home cannot be stopped with a wall, he said.

After all the name calling, they finally get to the real issue, $$$$$$. All they really care about, is staying on the gravy train. With so much fuss about building the wall, that tells me they know it will work and they must stop it from being built.