Susan
From: in%"uv1bo1fn@cine88.cineca.it" 4-mar-1995 15:50:26.83
To: indig.canada@gnosys.svle.ma.us
Subj: Judy Hellman responding
TITLE: MEXICAN BIG BROTHER WATCHES CANADIANS
The day after the assassination of Colosio, I was interviewed five
times on CBC radio (as the morning news shows moved from one time zone to
the next across the country) and I appeared the same night on CBC-TV. In
each of these interviews, I was identified as a professor of political
science at York University and in some as "an expert on Mexico." The
questions were the predictable ones, and on this occasion they were
virtually identical in all six interviews, since everyone was using the same
wire service information.
To give but two examples from the interview, I was asked: "Isn't this
a virtually unprecedented situation, when you consider that there has not
been a political assassination in Mexico since 1929 when President Obregon
was killed?"
In my 15-second "bite" I replied to this question by noting that while
it is the case that an official party presidential candidate has not been
assassinated since 1929, in fact political assassinations occur with tragic
frequency in Mexico, but inasmuch as it is opposition candidates who are
killed, we do not always learn much about it in Canada.
I was also asked the classic: "What does this mean for Canadian
investors who had thought about investing in Mexico?"
In my 15-second reply I said that it was not my "thing" to give
investment advice, but it seemed obvious that the atmosphere of instability
that was likely to prevail in the wake of this assassination was not going
to be one that investors would likely find particularly reassuring. In any
case -- I asserted -- Canadian investment dollars had not moved to Mexico at
anywhere near the rate that had been anticipated by Salinas administration
planners.
In all, the interview lasted 8 minutes and covered politics and
economics. Less than a week after this interview was aired, I received a
personal letter from the Mexican Ambassador to Canada, Sandra Fuentes, (sent
to me at Political Science at York University, but addressed -- curiously --
not to Prof. J.A. Hellman or Dr. J.A. Hellman but to Ms. Hellman). The
letter, in very polite terms, said that people who know nothing about Mexico
should not get on T.V. and comment about Mexican affairs.
Oddly enough, none of my several assertions regarding the lack of
democratic freedom, free press, or rule of law that I had also made in the
TV and radio interviews were remarked upon by the Ambassador. Instead she
took issue with my assertion that Canadian investment had not flowed into
Mexico at the rate projected, and she enclosed a batch of economic data from
the Banco de Comercio (which, was useful stuff but did not, in fact, prove
the point she was trying to make).
When I mentioned this letter to various friends and colleagues who also
work on Mexico, I learned that it had become standard practice for the
embassy and the consulates to respond to every public utterance or written
piece on Mexico that comes out anywhere in Canada. Strikingly, the tone of
these communications is almost always the same. The "condescension" noted
by Ryan in his characterization of the letter to Prof. Murray, was remarked
upon to me by several people who were recipients of letters. The underlying
assumption in almost every case is that Canadians know nothing about "the
reality" of Mexico. That there are people in Canada like myself and my
colleagues who might reasonably claim expertise on Mexican politics or human
rights issues is not acknowledged in these letters (although, as was the
case for Prof. Murray, the good will or honourable intentions of Canadians
is sometimes mentioned.)
A second common element in these communications is the characterization
of the press in Canada as irresponsible and ignorant of Mexican conditions.
It is as if the people at the embassy and consulates, never having lived in
a country with a genuinely free press, have no idea how it works or how you
would begin to assess the accuracy of what the media communicate.
Well, this is a long story, but it is all to a purpose. Yes, the
Mexican Embassy in Ottawa has a press office (headed by Lic. Antonio
Ocaranza) that, in so far as possible, monitors every word written and
spoken about Mexico in Canada. It is the job of this office then to
communicate with Canadians on these issues.
In itself this is not a bad thing, even if it sometimes ends up making
Canadians feel that they are living the life of Mexican dissidents. (Indeed,
if it helps us to empathize more with our Mexican friends it may not be a
bad thing at all.)
But what is important for us is to have the confidence to know that
there are plenty of judgements that we, in Canada (or elsewhere outside of
Mexico), are perfectly equipped to make concerning the possibility or
probability of the occurrence of human rights violations in a situation in
which the army has been sent into a zone from which both the international
press and international observers have been excluded. The international
community of concerned people who have written to the Mexican government in
this period have done the right thing and must continue to do so, regardless
of how many letters of the kind circulated from the Mexican consul are
written in return.
Best regards, Judith Adler Hellman