Mexico & Nafta - April 2005 (ISSN 1741-444X)

Cuba: Mexico's vote on 14 April to criticise the human-rights situation in Cuba, and to ask Cuba to accept the (previously approved) visit by a special investigator on human rights, sparked criticism from politicians in the leftwing Partido de la Revolución Democrática and the Partido Revolucionario Institucional. On 14 April Mexico voted, along with 20 other countries, at the UN Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva for the inspection of the human rights' situation in Cuba. Politicians from the PRI and the PRD want to censure President Vicente Fox for allowing Mexico to vote, in essence, to condemn the human-rights' situation in Cuba. Fox's supporters argue that the vote was not against Cuba but for human rights.  

The PRD wants Mexico to condemn the human rights abuses committed by the US in its prison camps at Abu Ghraib and at Guantánamo. In the past couple of years Mexico has voted against Cuba at the annual Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva, triggering a torrent of abuse from Cuba that led, in 2004, to a rupture in diplomatic relations.  

The opposition politicians in Mexico claim that President Fox traded support for the US criticism of human rights in Cuba for US support for the Mexican foreign minister, Luis Ernesto Derbez, in his effort to become secretary general of the Organization of American States. In the first vote, on 11 April, Derbez tied with José Miguel Insulza from Chile. A second vote to pick the new OAS secretary general will be held on 2 May.

Drugs: The US State Department's International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) reckons that 90% of the cocaine consumed in the US comes via Mexico. Mexico is now the second principal supplier of heroin to the US and the largest foreign supplier of marijuana. It is also a major supplier of meta-amphetamines. The INCSR reckons that in parts of the Sierra Madre, growers have two harvests a year of marijuana and three of poppies. On 3 April the US Drug Enforcement Administration said that it would deploy more agents in Mexico. Most of the agents will be deployed at Nogales, Sonora and Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo in Tamaulipas. The DEA has 32 agents serving in Mexico: it expects to increase this field force by between nine and 12 agents.  

The US is also increasing its support for Mexican anti-drug initiatives from US$30m to US$37m. The US is also, for the first time, allocating US$19m to support efforts by Mexican border states to combat the drug trade.  

Texas: Members of the Texas Fair Trade Coalition criticised the US government's proposed free-trade agreement with Central America and the Dominican Republic (Cafta). The group comprises small farmers and Democrat party activists. Big agri-businesses, represented by the Rio Grande Valley Partnership argue that they will benefit from Cafta, as they have done from Nafta. Cafta's opponents retort that the Central American countries are so poor that they will not increase their purchases of US goods in any meaningful way.