The Plan to be proposed for immigration 'reform', is to involve Mexico in policing The Border more, for the US. This is hardly the rosy picture that Fox is painting back home, of making Mexico more European-like with a future of prosperity and open borders with the US in equal partnership.. Actually, it is a plan to militarize Mexico even more, under the supposed need to stop drug flow north, AND to stop immigrants from flowing north through Mexico and from Mexico's poorer southern and central regions. Mexico will use the US aid to further erode the civil society in Mexico. This is an extension of the militarization of Mexico's indigenous areas into a more national militarization. The US government is tired of the inefficiency of previous Mexican PRI efforts to act as a repressive national police force. It must be done with more gringo-like efficiency. In turn, Mexican elites will have paperwork expedited. Tony Abdo _________________________________ Mexico's Fox to float ideas on border in Washington 21 Aug 2000 20:00 By Jonathan Wright WASHINGTON, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Mexican president-elect Vicente Fox comes to Washington on Wednesday to float his ideas on how to reshape U.S. policy on border controls and the migration of Mexican workers. Fox, a former Coca Cola executive who speaks the language of the U.S. establishment, will also pursue his campaign against the discredited annual test Mexico has to pass on cooperation against the drugs trade, analysts said on Monday. Supplies of Mexican oil and natural gas, especially as winter approaches under tight market conditions, are expected to come up too in his talks with President Bill Clinton and with the presidential candidates in November elections, Al Gore for the Democrats and the Republicans' George W. Bush. Fox's defeat of the deeply entrenched PRI party last month gives him enormous prestige in the United States but, with Clinton on his way out and a presidential campaign in full swing, he might have trouble winning American's attention. Yet the relationship with Mexico is perhaps the most intense the United States has with any country, because of the level of migration, the volume of trade and the constant disputes over how to handle the flow of people and goods across a border which stretches over 2,000 miles (3,200 km). Fox has argued that the United States should spend less on defending the border and more on creating jobs south of the frontier, so that fewer Mexicans feel the urge to migrate. Fox is expected to propose that the United States let in more legal migrants, in exchange for more cooperation from Mexico on illegal flows, U.S. officials said. "I think he's really serious about this," said Carol Wise, a political economy professor at the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. "And now he has some leverage because we need these workers." The two nations are linked, with Canada, through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which Fox would like to evolve into something closer to the European Union. CHEAP MEXICAN LABOR The United States spends billions of dollars a year on keeping Mexicans out of the country. But once illegal immigrants find work away from the border, the authorities turn a blind eye to their presence. Under the present system, the U.S. private sector is happy to hire cheap Mexican labor but simultaneously lobbies against giving the workers the same benefits as U.S. citizens. "He (Fox) wants to institutionalize the escape valve function of the border. U.S. policy is in disarray," said Larry Birns, director of Washington's Council on Hemispheric Affairs. Fox's proposal would be "to create a more seamless mechanism for getting them in and out of the country", said Professor Riordan Roett, director of the Western Hemisphere Program at Johns Hopkins University. TRANSITIONAL STATUS On the annual certification for cooperation against drugs, Fox and the Clinton administration agree that the process has outlived its usefulness but in the end it is the U.S. Congress which has to decide how long the system survives. U.S. officials do hope that Fox will be more assertive than his predecessors in cracking down on the massive trade in drugs across the border but Birns said they would be mistaken to expect a quick change in practice. "One of our great mistakes would be to think that things will be dramatically different under Fox. Fox is not going to control the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy basically remains the same and they are a heavy drag on change," Birns said. Because of Fox's transitional status -- his inauguration will not take place until December, the visit to Washington this week must be more tentative than substantial. "He doesn't have his cabinet together so in the official meeting he does not really want to get down to the weeds and talk about a bunch of nitty-gritty," the U.S. official said. "This is an initial meeting, to reach out and have a chance to meet with President Clinton and, equally importantly, with both of the candidates, one of which he will actually work with," the official added. Even when more substantial talks begin, between Fox and the U.S. president-elect in November, his ideas for reform could take years to come to fruition, the analysts say. Ideally, for example, he would like an open border, but that will not happen until the standards of living in the United States and Mexico have converged, the official said. "The initial response will be polite but nothing will be done before 2001 and that depends on who wins... There is no sign that Bush or Gore have thought much about this," said Roett. ________________________________� FEATURE-Guatemalan border town fights for survival 22 Aug 2000 13:47 By Greg Brosnan PEDRO DE ALVARADO, Guatemala (Reuters) - Before free trade can reach Central America, it will have to get past bar owner Transito Quinones, tricycle taxi driver Carlos Gonzalez and moneychanger Cesar Lucero. Along with scores of mostly informal merchants and service providers, the three recently blocked traffic between their sweltering Guatemalan coastal village and neighboring El Salvador to protest the planned closure of a border post they say provides their only income. And if the two countries' governments press on with a free-trade-inspired pilot offensive against lumbering frontier bureaucracy, Pedro de Alvarado's residents may pull more drastic tricks from their sleeves. "They've threatened to burn trucks," Guatemala's Tax Superintendent Rudy Castaneda told Reuters. He has suspended the plan while he seeks a solution to the conflict. In preparation for a free-trade agreement with neighboring Mexico and Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador have declared war on the twin-town border system predominant in most of Latin America. Travelers now must perform often laborious bureaucratic tasks, including sorting out trade permits and immigration papers, on both sides before continuing on their journey. Under the new plan, operations at all crossings would be concentrated in one country, in this case on the Salvadoran side. "The idea is to facilitate trade," said Castaneda. "Unless we facilitate trade, Central America won't work." BORDER FEEDS THOUSANDS But in Pedro de Alvarado, one person's bureaucratic hassle is another's livelihood. Some 500 villagers on hand to guide amateurs through the paper maze, change myriad currencies and offer refreshment to travelers bogged down in lengthy border procedures have heard the bells toll for their livelihood. "We're not opposed to globalization but this would really hit us hard," said Transito Quinones, proud owner of El Comedor del Viajero, a rough-and-ready roadside cafe where perspiring truckers lounged with cold beer one recent afternoon. Beaming down from a dog-eared poster on the wall, a naked blonde bathed in a tumbler of foamy lager, encouraging the bar's burly customers to further quench their thirst before picking up transit papers and heading into El Salvador. "This place would end up like a desert," lamented the watering hole's gold-toothed proprietor. For the past three years, Carlos Gonzalez has fed his wife and three children by ferrying passengers across the stretch of "no man's land" linking Pedro de Alvarado to El Salvador in a three-wheeled rickshaw he calls his "plane." The homemade tricycle taxis, which proliferate in the village, have themselves spurred a mini-industry, with at least two workshops dedicated solely to their repair. Pedaling past a row of small stores selling goods ranging from groceries to footwear, Gonzalez said the plan would hit all Pedro de Alvarado's 5,000 inhabitants, whether or not they earned a living directly from the border. "I earn 50 Quetzales ($6.50) on my bike and I give it to my son to buy a pair of shoes," he said. When the border post closes down, he asked, "Who's going to buy from these places?" MACHETE BLOWS AND GUNSHOTS Dominated by mixed-blood 'ladinos,' Guatemala's steamy coastal plains are a world away from the colorful Mayan villages that draw hordes of tourists annually to the spectacular highlands. In cattle-ranching lowland border departments like Jutiapa, devoid of industry, Pedro de Alvarado's border post is a vital safety net for scores of disenfranchised peasants. Many haul goods and check inventory dockets for a small fee when agricultural work is scarce. This year, the few who do own meager plots have fared little better. Dry, broken corn stalks outside the village bear witness to a long, cruel summer. Hundreds of local schoolchildren also supplement their families' income by whisking immigration papers through government offices for a handful of coins. "It's easy to say 'Do something else.' Like what?" asked the protestors' spokesman, local schoolteacher Jaime Jarquin. "These people don't have a single alternative." Guatemala's government says Pedro de Alvarado's residents have nothing to fear from the proposed plan. "The informal sector is going to have more work because the amount of cargo passing through this border is going to almost double with the free-trade agreement," said Castaneda. But he conceded the Guatemalan town would no longer be an obligatory stop for international traffic. "The truck driver who wants to park there can park there, but there will be no official procedures." VILLAGERS FEAR BLEAK FUTURE One recent quiet afternoon, as El Salvador's rugged western mountains loomed blue on the horizon, a black air-conditioned bus with darkened windows lumbered up to Pedro de Alvarado's border post along its only paved road. As passengers heading south from Mexico emerged stretching weary limbs, the village sprang to life in a throng of activity. Drink vendors and moneychangers accosted the newcomers while a dozen children, many of them barefoot, flitted back and forth clutching immigration forms. After 20 minutes, the bus rolled on toward the Salvadoran village of La Hachadura, where an even more desperate welcoming party awaited its occupants. As calm returned, Cesar Lucero, standing with his back to El Salvador, flicked through his multicolored clasp of dog-eared banknotes that earn him a living and worried about his future. The 35-year-old moneychanger pondered a possible last resort if the border post shuts down: Seeking his fortune in sprawling Guatemala City.. "The money I earn here is enough to support my family," he said. "There it would be another story." _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
