By Hector Carreon
La Voz de Aztlan
Los Angeles, Alta California (January 28, 2001) - (ACN) The meeting between President George W. Bush and President Vicente Fox on Friday February 16, 2001 at Rancho San Cristobal, Guanajuato and the march to Mexico City by the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional(EZLN) on February 25, 2001 are two key events that will turn a new page in the history of Mexico and possibly of the United States of America as well. The two recently elected world leaders will meet at the ranch of the Mexican president to discuss issues of immense importance to the stability of the Western Hemisphere. The meeting of the presidents will take place just nine days before Subcomandante Marcos and his EZLN Army begin their long 9 day march towards Tenochtitlan to negotiate peace with the Mexcian central government. The EZLN struggle in Chiapas and other Indigenous uprisings in Central and South America present very thorny problems for the US and President Bush.
The march to Mexico City by the Zapatistas is making US business interests in Mexico very nervous. President Fox stated during his campaign for the presidency that one of his priorities
would be to establish peace in the war-torn region of Chiapas. He has kept his promise and recently pulled back many contingents of the Mexican Army from the region. Certain sectors of Mexican society, however, have criticized President Fox, saying that he is conceding too much to the Zapatistas. These same sectors are demanding that Subcomandante Marcos and his Army enter Mexico City without their "masks" and without military assault weapons. At this time, it is not known whether
the EZLN will comply. The EZLN will depart from San Cristobal de las Casas and march northward through many regions of Mexico hoping to pick up support along the way. The number of Zapatistas that will eventually arrive at the Mexican capital is unknown. Another unknown is whether the Ejercito Popular Revolucionario (EPR) will join the Zapatatistas. The EPR operates in the region of Guerrero.
This will be the first time that President Bush will meet in a foreign country and shows the importance that he places on good US/Mexico relations. The two economies are now intricately intertwined and the US has become dependent on Mexican labor. Over the past few decades, the huge demand for Mexican labor has resulted in unprecedented migration of workers from Mexico to the United States. Many of these workers have simply crossed the border without proper documentation because of the difficulty and long waiting periods in obtaining the necessary immigration documents from the US Immigration Service . This phenomena has resulted in US organized xenophobes to demand the militarization of the border and the construction of walls and large fences to separate the US from Mexico. In extreme cases many racist US vigilantes have resorted to hunting down and terrorizing Mexican migrant workers crossing the border.
Mexican President Vicente Fox, however, is working hard to establish free and open borders. He is also proposing an economic common market between Mexico, the US and Canada and possibly Central and South American Countries. He is a visionary and a great new leader of Mexico. Last week he was a big hit at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland. "He's been the star of Davos," said financier George Soros. At the World Economic Forum, President Fox also met with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and both discussed including Mexico in the UN Security Council. President Fox said to Secretary General Annan, who speaks Spanish, "Queremos ser parte de los países activos que conducen a la civilización y que conducen a la humanidad."
President Vicente Fox also spoke at delegate meetings of what he saw as growing ``spiritual discontent and restlessness'' that was evident on both sides of the global divide. ``We now see throughout the world a rejection of crass materialism and an intense, undirected desire for spiritual rebirth.''
The meeting of President Bush and President Fox at the Mexican president's ranch, where he grew up, will set the future pattern of US/Mexico relations and will indirectly affect what happens when the EZLN marches into Mexico City. The stakes are high not only for Mexicans in Mexico but for La Raza de Aztlan as well. President Fox has kept all of his promises. He has declared war on drugs and corruption in Mexico and has taken unprecedented measures to assure success to the point of endangering his life due to possible retaliation from drug cartels. Will President Bush respond in kind? To what extent is President Bush willing to cooperate with President Fox? Bush wants Mexico to build electric generating plants and export electricity to California to relieve that state's power crisis. What will Bush concede? President Fox has stated unequivocally that he wants to better the lives of not just Mexicans in Mexico but also of the millions of Chicanos and Mexican-Americans in the US. The problems of Chicanos and
Mexican-Americans in the southwest US or Aztlan, as we fondly call the region, are huge. They are problems regarding ethnic discrimination, education, housing and health. Problems which are the outcome of the Mexican-American War of 1848 and the failure of the US government to keep the promises made in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. They include problems of incarcerated Chicano political prisoners and the extremely high incarceration rate of our youth.
It is the hope of La Raza de Aztlan that both presidents consider our problems here during their meeting in Guanajuato. President Bush was Governor of Tejas and as such is well aware of the historic problems La Raza has had to endure and he is now in a position to resolve them at the national level. President Fox can live up to his promise to us that he will seek ways to better our lives by using whatever bargaining chips he has for this purpose as well. The time for focusing on our mutual economic development and social progress is now! We must look after the well being of our own Western Hemisphere and stop paying so much attention to Europe, the Zionist Nation of Israel and certain other far away countries. If we do not, both Mexico and the US will be endangered by the growing Indigenous political movements seeking cultural autonomy and self determination such as that represented by the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN).
La Voz de Aztlan is making the following book "El Amanecer" on the personal experiences of President Vicente Fox with Mexicans in the US available to our
subscribers. If you are interested in purchasing the book for $16.95, please
let us know by e-mail at LaVoz@Aztlan.Net
The book is in Spanish.
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En las páginas de "El Amanecer" encontrarás muchas de las experiencias personales que he compartido con los mexicanos en los Estados Unidos y aquí en México durante los últimos treinta años. "El Amanecer" está dedicado a aquellos millones de mexicanos, nuestros paisanos, nuestros hermanos y hermanas, a cada uno de nuestros amigos y amigas que se han ido ‘al norte’ en busca de una vida digna, de una oportunidad y de una forma de alimentar a los que dejaron aquí en México. Esta dedicado, especialmente, a los miles de paisanos que han desaparecido durante ese largo y peligroso camino; almas olvidados por su gobierno, pero nunca . . . nunca por sus familias, ni por nosotros, ni por Vicente Fox.
