Posted on 08/15/2002 6:41:03 AM PDT by blam
Thursday, 15 August, 2002, 03:05 GMT 04:05 UK
Mexico's Fox cancels Texas trip
The case drew widespread appeals for clemency
Mexican President Vicente Fox has cancelled a forthcoming trip to Texas and a meeting with US President George W Bush in protest at the state's execution of a Mexican national. "This decision is an unequivocal sign of our rejection of the execution," a spokesman for Mr Fox said.>p>
Suarez was 19 when he killed the undercover police officer
Javier Suarez Medina, 33, died by lethal injection on Wednesday, after spending 13 years on death row for the murder of a Dallas police officer.
Mr Fox had made a personal appeal for his life to be spared, as did several other leaders.
He had been due to visit four Texas cities and Mr Bush's ranch from 26-28 August.
Suarez was convicted in 1989 for the killing of a police officer who was working undercover in Dallas as a drug trafficker.
Suarez, who was 19 at the time of the crime, admitted to the murder - but said he did not know the victim was a police officer.
Intervention
The Mexican authorities had argued Suarez's rights were violated because police failed to tell him he was entitled to legal assistance from the Mexican consulate.
It would be inappropriate, in these lamentable circumstances, to go ahead with the visit
Mexican statement
"The Mexican Government was prevented from providing priority assistance that might have influenced the outcome of his trial," President Fox said in a letter to Texas Governor Rick Perry on Monday.
On Wednesday Mr Fox spoke by telephone with President Bush, in a last-ditch attempt to secure a stay of execution.
Suarez was born in Mexico, but has lived in Texas since the age of three. Mexico said that under the Vienna Convention, the US authorities were required to put him in contact with Mexican officials.
Dallas police have said they did not know he was Mexican.
Finding religion
Mexico and 13 Latin American and European nations supported an unsuccessful appeal to the US Supreme Court.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson also sent a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell calling for clemency.
She said there were "serious concerns that the trial proceedings in the case had not complied with international human rights standards."
Suarez became religious in prison, and recently told reporters he preferred to die than continue to live in the intense isolation of death row
Suarez may have been Mexican by birth, but he lived in te US nearly his whole life. He may not have ever become an American citizen formally, but he was certainly part of that larger group recognized by the Constitution as "The People".
As such, he got the protection of the Constitution and received the same sentence that any red-blooded American convicted cop-killer gets in Texas.
Fox wants open borders between the US and Mexico. He picked the wrong cause on this one...
Next thing you know, Fox will be pulling Mexican foreign aid for the United States!
So does the GWB administration.
Did he vote here? Did he have a Texas drivers license? I would bet he had presented himself most of his life as a U.S. citizen.
Given the choice between our death penelty or "life" in a Mexican prison, I know which I would choose.
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Well that is one less we have to worry about teaching english! A few million to go.
With a name like Javier Suarez Medina I suppose it was an easy mistake to make. < /sarcasm >
And recall the ones already here. Fox keeps telling us that his illegal aliens Mexican workers are a benefit to America.
Mexico has a cop killer in custody and will not extradite due to our death penalty.
Let's start closing consulates and increasing immigration sweeps. On the day that was reserved for Fox's visit the President should have Congressmen Tancredo and McInnis and the American Patrol over for lunch.
If Mexico is opposed to the death penalty, then Mexicans had better be much more firmly opposed to Fascist Islamicism.
These new converts in Mexico may be currently led to believe in a loving Allah, but the odds these days are that the intentions of the Islamic clerics from southern Spain, are not inclined toward Mexicans' more peaceful interests:
Islam takes root in Mexico, Palm Beach Post, August 11, 2002, by Susan Ferriss (posted August 13th by USA21).
In particular, Islamic Mexico will have the death penalty; and it will be performed on a routine, weekly basis.
Not to mention the oncoming terrorist attacks.
g from Arizona
This murderer had no real ties to Mexico. He apparently slipped over the border with his parents when he was three years old, so he has no memories of Mexico at all.
The legal objection raised by Mexico had very little substance in terms of whether it would have prevented him receiving the death sentence. Texas has executed numerous Mexican nationals. He's hardly the first.
So, I don't understand why Fox is making a big deal out of this. I would think that he values the relationship with America more than the life of this loser.
I don't get it.
Question: How long would it take for a revolution to start in Mexico?
Fox just did the Mexican equiv. of Al Jazeera - public bluster for domestic consumption with negligible effect on foreign relations. I have no doubt that he personally called Dubya and told him, "Amigo, I got to do a little PR work on this one here - I'll come see you LATER, OK?"
Considering that the LAST trip he had planned got aborted by having his travel funds kayoed, this is a sop for locals and nothing more.
Michael
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