Bush's Visit to Mexico: NAFTA, Migration & the Oaxaca Conflict

President Bush finished his Latin American tour mid-week with a final stop in Mexico to meet with Mexican President, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa. During his longest visit of the tour, Bush spent two full days with Calderón discussing a range of topics including immigration reform, the Security & Prosperity Partnership (“NAFTA-Plus”), combating narcotrafficking and NAFTA’s agricultural chapter that is set to expire in 2008. Calderón emphasized that the relationship between the two countries was the most important for both nations and urged Bush to recognize the same. Meanwhile, massive protests erupted in each of the five countries Bush toured, attracting tens of thousands of protestors to the streets in many cities (including Oaxaca, where a protest was organized in front of the U.S. Consular Agency) to demonstrate their rejection of the U.S.  president and his policies in the region and the world.

The need for immigration reform was also highlighted in a recently-released study by the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The study shows that during ex-President Fox’s six year term, over 3.4 million Mexicans migrated to the US from over 600 municipalities across the country. Among this group were a greater number of women, indigenous, and unaccompanied minors who all bring with them a series of additional factors, demonstrating the ever-increasing complexity of this issue. The demographic changes were attributed to family reunification and the addition of southern and southeastern states with high indigenous populations (including Oaxaca) to the list of greater migrant-sending regions. This comes as no surprise as many of the very same root causes of this migration (principally, years of neoliberal policy and all of its impacts) manifest themselves in Oaxaca’s still very alive and vibrant social movement.

The movement’s tenth megamarch filled the city with a familiar energy as tens of thousands (estimates range from 40,000-100,000) of members of the APPO and Section 22 teachers union once again filled the streets on March 8th. Led by the women’s civil society group COMO (“Coordination of Oaxacan Women August 1st”)—known for their nonviolent takeover of the state radio and television station last August—the event was organized to coincide with International Women’s Day. Participants came together to demand the resignation of state governor Ruiz Ortiz, the release of all detainees in state and federal jails and the return of 124 schools currently under control of the state-aligned teachers union, Section 59. Also that day, transmissions of the teacher’s Radio Planton were heard for the first time since their installations were destroyed last June. In anticipation of the event, police forces sealed off the Zócalo with metal barricades, barbed wire and hundreds of officials blocking all public access to the city’s central square.

Just a week before, the International Civil Commission for Human Rights Observation (CCIODH)—an international NGO made up of mostly European activists—officially submitted a report outlining the results of their most recent investigation into human rights violations in Oaxaca to the Mexican Interior Secretary. Among the findings are 23 deaths (compared to the National Commission on Human Rights' report of 20 and the state attorney general’s office's 11), several other deaths and disappearances of so-far unidentified persons, arbitrary detentions and torture. In addition to the comprehensive report that included testimonies, a summary of violations committed by state and federal officials, and recommendations for federal officials, the CCIODH used their results to call on the European Union to send a commission to Oaxaca to investigate and consider acting on the clause in their free trade agreement that allows for a pull out by one nation if a partnering country does not guarantee respect for basic human rights.

Bush, however, made it very clear in his visit to Mexico that he had no intentions of renegotiating NAFTA, stating that it “would be a mistake” because it “has been incredibly important on both sides of the border.” It comes as no real surprise that the topic of the conflict in Oaxaca was not mentioned in discussions, nor was the relationship between the trade agreement and migration. Next year when all remaining import tariffs (on corn, beans, sugar and powdered milk) are removed and market prices for local producers further plunge, the daily struggle of small farming communities will be intensified and more people will be called to migrate or join the social struggle.