Sierra Blanca and Mexican politics

rayrena rayrena at accesshub.net
Wed Nov 11 09:47:52 PST 1998


As promised, a story about Sierra Blanca. This is from the Austin Chronicle, the city's "alternative" weekly, which seems to have really degenerated into MOR mush since I left the city. Anyway, this doesn't really give all the historical and political context of which I boasted, but near the end there is some interesting politicl anylysis by one of Austin's city coucil members.

eric

___________________________________

They Came, They Went on Hunger Strike, They Left

Life After Sierra Blanca

by Jenny Staff

Most people weren't expecting the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC) to deny

approvalof the Sierra Blanca low-level nuclear waste dump. Conventional wisdom went that as soon as the

November elections were safely passed and all repercussions for governor and proto-presidential candidate

George W. Bush nullified, the deal would be rubber-stamped and the dumping would begin. But the

members of the Mexican federal congress (and some local officials) who came to lobby against the dump

didn't let cynicism dampen their zeal. Not content just to offer official pleas and call it a day, the Mexicans

set up a makeshift camp in downtown Austin which became a center for protestors and all manner of

anti-nuke artistic expression. Several of the Mexicans went on a hunger strike that lasted from 3pm Saturday

until the Thursday hearing in which the TNRCC rejected the plan.

Councilmember Gus Garcia, a longtime watcher of Mexican politics and the closest thing the Austin City

Council has to an elder statesman, turned amateur political scientist this week in his comments on Sierra

Blanca and its role in the changes underway in Mexican government. He said the participation of the

Mexican officials in the process signaled good things for the future of democracy in Mexico, the current

status of which is tenuous at best. "What has happened is that in this last election of the national congress,

the PRI had to open up the process," he said, citing the diversity of the political ideologies represented

following the most recent Mexican elections as proof: Of the group that came to Austin representing the

federal congress, "One of the congressmen was from the Green Party [Partido Verde], another was from the

Workers Party [Partido de los Trabajadores]."

Members of the group visited both Wednesday's [city council] work session and Thursday's council meeting to repeat

their plea that the TNRCC deny approval of the Sierra Blanca site, and express frustration at their treatment

by Texas officials: "When we were [meeting] with Texas Secretary of State Al Gonzales, they would throw

the ball between the federal government and the Texas government, and into the Mexican federal level, and

they play the ball different ways," one delegate remarked.

This time the Mexicans were hoping to apply pressure through an appeal to the American public, citing

appeals on the issue's merits as fruitless: "I do not want to go into technical details, because it was not

technical details that made the decision of the site," said one congressman. "It was a political decision, not a

technical decision." Of their last-minute visit to Austin -- hunger strike and all -- he said, "We know we are

causing a little bit of trouble because it's an election time for the state of Texas. Probably it's a little bit on

purpose -- to move the positions of the TNRCC. [They] are appointed by Gov. Bush, even though he

doesn't participate in policies, you know that they are going to do whatever Gov. Bush wants."

Chief among the officials' complaints was that in

considering the Sierra Blanca site, the United States

disregarded a 1983 treaty signed by President Reagan,

known as the La Paz agreement, which prohibits

environmentally risky projects within 100 kilometers on

either side of the U.S./Mexico border. Had the TNRCC

given the project the go-ahead, officials indicated, Mexico's

relationship with the United States, and Texas in particular,

would have been damaged. But they would not have given

up, they said, indicating that they would make an appeal to

the international court at The Hague.

But despite the unanimous accord of the Mexican federal

congress in opposition to the dump, other officials dragged

their feet in joining the opposition. Garcia said that the

congresspeople "were concerned about the posture of the

executive branch -- that Mexican President Sedillo [sic] had not

come out in opposition to Sierra Blanca," and that "maybe

those people are in cahoots with Sierra Blanca."

"One of the problems is that there's still a lot of corruption

left over. It's widespread," Garcia said, adding that he

feared that corruption may have touched one of Sierra

Blanca's staunchest opponents. Just before the delegation

came to Austin, Mexican congressperson Jeffery Jones was shot in Mexico City. "He was shot three times,

on his knee and the side of his head. Why would anybody in Mexico want to do that unless they were the

people advocating for the dump? Jeffery was kind of like the lead spokesperson for the group, so I'm sure

that his incident must have had some relationship to his position on Sierra Blanca."

Garcia said that talk of political assassination is by no means an exaggeration, and laments the lack of

information he perceives in the American press about the scenario unfolding south of the border: "You hear

of all the assassination attempts that go unpublished, because the American media don't cover Mexico. They

cover the Middle East like it was the only place in the world, but they don't cover Mexico."

Garcia is withholding judgment on prospects for Mexico's future: "I think the presidential elections in the

year 2000 will be a better barometer as to what effect all this stuff is having." Garcia cites Vicente Fox of the

PAN (National Action Party) as the opposition candidate to watch. Fox, the governor of Guanajuato, is

"dynamic, very clean -- they can't pin anything on him; he was president of Coca-Cola in Mexico, Mr.

Knight in Shining Armor, and I think he can pull it off. I told my wife I would go and work in Fox's

campaign. She said, 'They'll kill you.' I said, 'I'm old enough, I can die.'"

The 2000 election could be pivotal, according to Garcia, either in solidifying the current trend toward true

democratic participation, or a violent return to the chaos and violence that has characterized Mexican politics:

"Mexican people are deathly afraid to oppose the PRI. Everybody's afraid Fox is going to get killed. If Fox

gets killed, we're going to have a revolution." *



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list