U.S. Blocks Military Aid to Mexico

WASHINGTON — Since last fall, the United States has halted military assistance to Mexico because of a dispute over whether U.S. citizens should be exempt from prosecution by the International Criminal Court.

The sanctions were imposed in October after Mexico became a signatory to the Hague-based ICC, which was set up in 2002 to hunt down perpetrators of genocide and other crimes against humanity.

Mexico was the 12th country from the Latin America-Caribbean area to be sanctioned by the U.S. under a law approved by Congress four years ago.

In each case, the sanctions have been imposed without an official announcement. Jan Edmonson, spokeswoman for the State Department bureau of Western Hemisphere affairs, confirmed the sanctions against Mexico in response to an inquiry from The Associated Press.

The penalties involve the loss of $1.1 million budgeted for English language, counterterrorism and counter-narcotics training. Also affected was a $2.5 million program to provide counterterrorism equipment to the Mexican military.

ICC-related sanctions have cut the roster of trainees from the hemisphere by almost 800 over the past few years, eroding the traditionally deep military ties between the U.S. and Latin American militaries. Worldwide, about two dozen countries have been sanctioned.

Countries that wish to join the ICC and evade sanctions have the option of signing immunity agreements with the United States that shield Americans from ICC jurisdiction.

Mexico announced last month that it has no plans to enter into any such deal, known in government lexicon as an "Article 98" agreement.

Ruben Aguilar, President Vicente Fox's spokesman, said Mexico "will be irrefutable in supporting the protocols of the international court, whatever the cost. Nobody in the world should be immune from the action of justice." More than 100 countries have signed immunity agreements.

The Mexican government declined comment on the U.S. sanctions. Historically, Mexico has not been a recipient of U.S. assistance. The programs suspended last fall were relatively new.

The sanctions could create a political tempest in Mexico, which often views actions by its northern neighbor with suspicion.

President Bush could mitigate that by using his authority to waive the sanctions. His relations with Fox have been generally good, though Fox has been disappointed in the absence of progress toward a new migration agreement.

Bush plans to meet with Fox at the end of March, days after cabinet-level discussions between the two countries in Washington.

The 2002 U.S. law, known as the American Servicemembers Protection Act, gives Bush the authority to waive the sanctions if he deems it to be in the national interest.

Lawmakers approved the legislation out of concern that Americans overseas, including military personnel, diplomats and ordinary citizens, could be subject to politically motivated ICC prosecutions.

Defenders of the court insist that such concerns are greatly exaggerated because of safeguards written into the ICC statute.

Army Gen. Bantz Craddock, the commander of U.S. military forces in Latin America, said the United States is paying a price for the sanctions.

"We now risk losing contact and interoperability with a generation of military classmates in many nations of the region, including several leading countries," Craddock told Congress last year.

He will repeat his concerns next week during separate appearances before the House and Senate Armed Services committees.

U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Jonathan S. Gration, the director of strategy, policy and assessments for U.S. European Command, said the sanctions are impairing the U.S. counterterrorism effort in East Africa.

"The restrictions we've put on our ability to move in Africa may be hurting the very people we are trying to help," he said.

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Mexico holds a long standing belief that they have sovereign claim over most of North America. As soon as the Spanish gave up their colonies in the New World Mexico declared themselves an Empire and went so far as to fight wars over Texas and Guatemala in a futile attempt to hold those lands. Children in Mexico are still taught that everything between Columbia and Idaho is Mexican land.

As far as racism, the US was mixed race in the 1800's. If you look at Mexican stratification it's clear whites are on top and there's a gradual decline in social status to black who are treated as non-Mexicans in many instances.

Mexico still has a police force run from the central capital terrorizing the other states, made up of people from Mexico City. They still live under Napoleonic Law which means you never have to face a judge to be convicted.

On top of all they, they have traditionally been very close to nationalistic and fascist governments, including the Nazis.

Sorry, oldleft -- but I live in Mexico, and have written extensively on Mexican history. Mexican schools do teach that Mexico was once a very large piece of real estate, but not that it should be, or ever will be again. And, it's not much discussed. I once saw a political pamphlet pointing out this particular factoid -- and suggesting that it was all the gringo's fault (which, to be honest, has some validity: however this pamphlet was from a very, very small caucus within a very, very small political party, so it's like saying some oddball platform from something like the "Boise Libertarian Gay Christian Caucus" is U.S. policy.

You may be thinking of a small U.S. group (MECHA) which pushes this nonsense, but is more an internet presence and has some U.S. membership, but is seen in Mexico mostly as a foreign pressure group that could cause problems for the Mexican state.

There was German (Nazi) activity in Mexico in the 1930s, and when the U.S. and Britian threatened to boycott Mexico following the oil nationalization, there were some noises made about selling oil to Italy and Japan. However, this was just political hardball. Mexico had an "open immigration" policy that allowed any person fleeing fascism or Nazism who arrived in Mexico to receive automatic refugee status. Actually that law is still on the books -- a couple of Iraqis who were denied entry into the U.S. were granted residency status here because Saddam and the Baathists were still in power at the time they arrived in Mexico. Incidentally, more European Jews found refuge in Mexico than in all the other WWII allies combined. Mexico did fight on the Allied side, in the Pacific theater, btw (the Mexican pilots were under Douglas McArthur's command, making McArthur the only officer to command troops of a nation he had once invaded -- with the Pershing Expedition).

There was -- and still is -- a small "Syarchist" group, a form of Christian fascism (or properly, Falangism -- which was one of the groups that later became PAN -- the more conservative of the main Mexican parties.

And on racism: this is a common, and understandable miscomprehension. Mexicans have always married across "racial" lines. Legal distinctions between the races only existed between the mid-18th century and 1821. The "whites" at the top aren't as "white" as you suppose. The wealthiest Mexican families are the Slims, Helus, Harps and Arrestiguas (spelling probably wrong). The first three are descended from Palestinian and Lebanese immigrants who made their fortunes during the Mexican Revolution buying up properties from wealthy emigres. The other family's fortune traces back to Basque refugees from Franco who arrived with a bundle of cash, and a lot of talent.

Cash and talent -- or an ancestor with the same -- is way people reach the top of society everywhere. Mexico was industrializing after the 1910-20 revolution when there was an influx of European immigrants with just the right skills to make a huge fortune. However, walk through a wealthy Mexico City neighborhood, and look at the grandkids -- they look and act like every other kid in Mexico.

Mexican blacks were never numerous. What gradual decline in social status are you talking about? Race slavery was never a major factor (and black men tended to marry free indigenous or "mestizo" women) before abolition in 1828. Some U.S. blacks fled to Mexico before Abolition in the U.S., and after Reconstruction (mostly because they could get better jobs in Mexico than at home), but again, most assimilitated into the general population.

Black Mexicans, from areas like Tabasco or Veracruz, are maybe darker skinned than Mexicans from areas with more European settlement (Sonora, Chihuahua, etc.) but aren't noticably discriminated against (except, alas, by some foreign owned firms). There are also more recent immigrants from Cuba, Brazil and the Caribbean. SOme of these people claim they are discriminated against, but the reasons seem to be more their perception as "illegal aliens" (which a lot of them are -- I had African neighbors facing the same stigma, though they didn't complain about racism) or drug dealers (especially if they come from Colombia or Belize). There are a few very tiny groups of Afro-Mexicans living in rural communities along the coasts -- and yea, they're poorer than dirt, but then they always have been -- but backwoods rural folk have always been poor, so I'm not sure "race" has much to do with it.

This has been a long, more or less "off topic" response to the original issue: the U.S. can, of course, attach strings to military loans and the Mexicans can, of course, say "no thanks" if they're willing to forego the money. Which is all that's happening here.

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