U.S. aid package to Mexico is band-aid for failed global economic policies and a threat to peoples of both countries

By National Commission for Democracy in Mexico. 25 January, 1995

[Mexico]...a nation with 90 million people, a diversified economy, a vigorous middle class, an amazing cultural continuity -- and 40 million human beings living in poverty.

--Carlos Fuentes

These economic policies have been beneficial to entities like Citicorp whose largest operations are now in Mexico, and whose profits last year were $3.4 billion. This "modern miracle" of global economics has made Mexico the largest debtor nation of Latin America. The completion of this aid package will make Mexico's foreign debt a total of $180 billion, 54.8% of its GNP for 1995.

The "aid package" is designed to recuperate losses for Mexican and US investors. It is an abuse of power by a few who use public institutions and monies in both countries to alleviate private financial losses. The people of both countries will be burdened for generations with unending public deficits, debt payments, shrinking social welfare policies and lowered standards of living.

At the same time IT WILL NOT generate jobs or higher wages for the people of Mexico. The debt service of the loan will be shifted to the people of Mexico (calculated at $400 or more per capita). The Mexican people are already burdened with austere economic policies imposed by international financial institutions.

The extraordinary poverty created by these policies has increased immigration from the rural areas to the cities and to the United States. Yet both groups of politicians on Capitol Hill would continue these economic policies, in complete disregard of their impact on social and political issues.

The National Commission for Democracy in Mexico, an independent non-partisan national network of concerned groups and individuals asks the American people, and American Congressional representatives to evaluate the US AID package under the following criteria;

FULL RESPECT FOR MEXICAN SOVEREIGNTY

Only the people of Mexico can determine Mexico's foreign policy, economic policy, and domestic social policy. It is precisely the intervention of the World Bank, the IMF and the United States government which has created the unjust social system which has now exploded into this economic crisis. No conditions should be imposed about privatization, fiscal policy, national policies for foreign investors, or foreign policy.

NO TO THE PRIVATIZATION OF PEMEX

The privatization which has been carried out in the past 6 to 8 years has done little more than create 27 billionaires and concentrated 54% of the country's wealth in the hands of 36 families. The natural resources of Mexico belong to the Mexican people; to the farmers, the working people, the housewives who are now unable to survive on the 33 cents an hour Mexican minimum wage.

FULL HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS FOR MIGRANTS

The people of the United States are all descendents of people escaping poverty and injustice. The poverty and injustice created by global economic policies in Mexico will continue to increase the emigration of the Mexican people. The solution for the immigration in general is decent salaries in Mexico and a society which guarantees democracy, liberty, and justice for all. The solution is not increased repression.

A GENUINE DEMOCRACY FOR THE MEXICAN PEOPLE

The political and economic crisis has been created by the alliance of Mexican and US financial interests at the expense of the large majority on both sides of the border. As long as the US government continues to support the PRI, a party increasingly tied to drug trafficking, corruption, and manipulation of Mexico's political system, stability will remain out of reach. The people of Mexico have the right to a pluralistic government determined by their own free will; and not by the needs of foreign investors. The best guarantee of stability in Mexico is a true democracy.