|
|
Delegation Reports
PARLIAMENTARY DELEGATION TO MEXICO
FROM 20-25 MAY 2007
Outward Delegation to Mexico
20 to 25 May 2007
Report by Rt Hon Dr Denis MacShane
Delegation
Rt Hon Denis MacShane MP
Leader Labour
Stephen Hepburn MP
Labour
John Robertson MP
Labour
Lord Brennan QC
Labour
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP Conservative
David Tredinnick MP Conservative
A strong IPU delegation of three government MPs (ex-FCO Latin American
minister, Denis MacShane MP, Stephen Hepburn MP and John Robertson MP),
two Conservative MPs, including a front-bencher (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
MP and David Tredinnick MP) and the human rights QC, Lord Brennan (Labour
and fluent in Spanish) visited Mexico in May 2007.
Despite the heroic efforts of Bob Blizzard MP and Lord David Montgomery
who have been carrying the Latin American flag for decades in Parliament,
the United Kingdom does not enjoy the same intensity of relations with
Latin America and with Mexico, in particular, as do some other EU member
states and of course, the United States.
Mexico has the 12th biggest economy in the world. Under British leadership,
Mexico was invited to join the G8 plus 5 group so that the Mexican president
is now seen as a world leader.
But there is a price to pay. Mexico does not accept the primacy of Brazil
as the other big-population Latin American nation to be a permanent member
of the UN Security Council. Nor is Mexico willing to sign international
treaties on the environment which do not accept the right of Mexico to
develop its economy to serve its people’s needs.
The global movement against global warming is seen as the rich, white
north dictating terms to a south that still wants the right to air conditioning
and adequate transport networks. The environmental and other lobbies which
are so sure of the righteousness of their arguments as they worship Bob
Geldoff, Bono and Al Gore might be well advised to come to Mexico and
see that combating poverty may in many parts of the world be a greater
priority than listening to Madonna as she carbon footprints from one concert
to the next to save the world.
Tony Blair was the first serving prime minister to visit Latin America
in British history. He visited Brazil, Argentina and Mexico when the leader
of the IPU delegation was an FCO minister. No British Foreign Secretary
has set foot in Latin America on purely FCO foreign policy business though
when Mexico and Latin America have hosted global conferences or summits
then UK cabinet ministers have attended.
Yet, as the delegation discovered there is almost a yearning amongst Mexican
parliamentarians and minister for closer links with the UK. Britain is
seen as the English-speaking hub of Europe. The old cliché about
Mexico - “So far from God, so close to the United States”
– remains pertinent.
President George W Bush entered office in 2001 pledging to make Mexico
and US relations with Latin America a priority. The 9/11 attacks and the
consequent military, foreign policy and homeland security response from
the US meant that Mexico felt herself sidelined by her dominant northern
partner.
Although linked in the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Mexico
and the US do not share the same relationship as do the members of the
European Union. Mexican lorry drivers have to stop and unload their goods
onto American trucks as trade union protectionism does not allow cross-border
traffic and trade such as is taken from granted in Europe.
Much of Mexican industry remains under full state control or quasi state
monopolies with the ubiquitous ending of MEX – thus PEMEX for the
state petrol company, TELMEX for the parastatal telecommunications company
and CEMEX for the cement company which is now operating in Britain.
There were polite suggestions from the delegation to their opposite numbers
that a wider spread of ownership and more small enterprises would help
to create a broader middle class and properly waged employees in place
of the continuing concentration of ownership and wealth in a small number
of hands and the absence of adequately waged employment for the mass of
Mexicans.
Moreover, as the Mexican oil industry needs to find new investment to
discover new and more difficult off-shore oils fields, the constitutional
ban on anything other than state ownership of the oil business no longer
makes economic or national sense.
Millions of Mexican head north to find work, as legal or illegal (documented
or undocumented in American jargon workers) workers. Their remittances
amount to billions of dollars and earn more in hard currency from Mexico
than oil revenue.
But the rupture to family life, the misery of many Mexican migrants as
they seek to enter the US and their often miserable treatment there at
the hands of unscrupulous employers, or the affluent middle class professionals
who want cheap-cost nannies, cooks, gardeners and domestic servants is
not something that either Mexico or the US can be proud of.
American trade unions remain hopelessly protectionist and the Mexican
labour confederation was merged in with the corporate state structures.
Too many Mexican workers and citizens miss out on basic social justice
measures especially as few in private employment pays income tax and state
revenues are wholly inadequate to the needs of the Mexican people.
Mexico is going through its own slow-burn democratic modernisation. For
seventy years, just one party ruled. The interestingly named Institutionalised
Revolutionary Party held power from the 1930s to 2000 when the centre-right
PAN party took over.
The Mexican constitution limits to one six-year term the right of anyone
to be President but a younger PAN candidate, Felipe Calderon, narrowly
won power in 2006. Although a right-winger, Sr Calderon entered into an
electoral alliance with the one million strong ultra-left teachers’
union which blocks all reform of Mexico’s school system which is
a major weakness of the country.
Mexico is a country through which drugs travel north and guns travel south.
The insatiable demand in the United States for cocaine and its use by
film and rock stars as a recreational drug much as in Notting Hill, defies
all efforts at interdiction.
Equally, the uncontrolled US small arms industry pumps weapons of mass
and individual murder into the hands of the narcotrafficantes, criminals
and kidnappers in Mexico and other Latin American states.
President Calderon has called in the army to launch its own war against
the drugs traffickers, and there have been pitched battles in northern
Mexico between drugs gangs and the military. But as long as overwhelming
demand from the US sucks cocaine northwards it is hard to see what will
stop the lucrative drugs business with its millions to pay off officials,
police officers, judge and politicians from flourishing.
Some 350,000 British tourists go to Mexico every year and the holiday
coastal regions in Yucatan has one of the most energetic Honorary Consuls
in the business. Three members of the delegation inspected the work done
to help UK tourists under the overall supervision of Ambassador Giles
Paxman.
Mexico has a cultural heritage which can match – with its splendour
of pyramids, giant cities, mummies, and beautiful art – almost anything
Europe and its Mediterranean civilisations can offer. It is a shame that
Easyjet or other low cost airlines cannot yet do serious long haul flights
at accessible prices as the culture, sights, and genuine pro-British friendliness
of the Mexicans makes the country a vast potential delight for visitors,
or for those wanting to brush up their Spanish and understand that there
is more to North America than the lost colonies of the Crown.
The Mexican Senate was the principal host for the visit as Senators in
Mexico are as central as deputies in the legislative process. Both houses
limit the number of terms one can serve and full-time politicians move
in and out of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies and in and out of regional
positions as elected or executive office-holders.
The British Council is a key UK stake-holder in maintaining a strong British
presence in Mexico. The Chevening Scholarship scheme remains one of the
hidden jewels in the networks of making friends and influencing future
leaders in overseas countries and the young Mexicans who studied under
Chevening met the delegation.
Back home much is written about the right to demonstrate outside Parliament.
Outside the Senate, the delegation experienced the most unusual political
demonstration anyone had seen. A group of campesinos – peasants
and small farmers – were protesting that their land had been taken
away from them by a senior politician.
To make their protest they all stripped completely naked with every part
of womanly charm on full bouncing display and the men holding a picture
of the politician they did not like in front of their private parts.
As we entered the Senate or walked or drove down the Mexico City equivalents
of Whitehall or the Mall there was a profusion of breasts, pubic hair
and naked flesh such is never seen outside a nudist colony. Perhaps the
rules should be changed to allow demonstrations outside Parliament - but
on condition the protestors are naked.
|
|
