Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
In the face of the Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine, Mexico’s position has been full of ambiguities. In the first place, the government took several days to define its position in the face of the violent and unprovoked invasion of one country by another. When it made its position clear in meetings of international organizations of the United Nations (UN), it condemned the invasion and called for a cease-fire.
But President Lopez Obrador gave the Mexican policy a confusing ambiguity: he refused to condemn the invasion and rejected economic sanctions against Russia as a form of pressure on that country. He even added that Mexico would continue to buy fertilizers from Russia (Russia later announced that it would stop exporting fertilizers to the rest of the world without further explanation).
In response to the Ukrainian request that Mexico send arms to their country to support the resistance, the Mexican President also refused the request. “We are pacifists,” clarified Lopez Obrador.
The Russian ambassador in Mexico thanked this Mexican gesture towards his country. By rejecting the two requests, sanctions and arms, Russia considers that “Mexico showed the independence of its foreign policy”. Indeed, Mexico distanced itself not only from the United States but also from the rest of the democratic and liberal world. With this, Mexico (or at least Lopez Obrador) apparently thinks that there is a neutral and intermediate world between democracy and authoritarianism. We will return to this topic.
Since his campaign, López Obrador theorized about his proposal for a new strategy to confront the irregular army operating in our national territory: drug traffickers. He proposed the policy of “hugs, not bullets” and “scholarship holders, not hit men” to face drug trafficking with a new paradigm. “The fire cannot be extinguished with more fire,” he insisted.
If anyone thinks that the drug lords are not an army, even if they are irregular, look closely at the weapons recently seized in Sonora, which recently crossed the border. They were enough not only to wage war between cartels but also to conquer more towns and municipalities in the states that are part of their routes to get their merchandise to the world market. The displaced civilians are an eloquent testimony of the war being waged in our country.
Despite the pacifist prayer, violence has grown exponentially in Mexico during his mandate. The Mexicans displaced by the narco war are ominously similar to the Ukrainians displaced by the Russian bombing of their towns and cities. There is, in Mexico, everything but peace.
The only difference is that in Ukraine, they suffer the invasion of a foreign army into their country. Here, we are Mexicans against Mexicans. In a way, ours is crueler and bloodier than what is happening in Ukraine, as we are our own aggressors. But in neither case is there the “neutrality” that the President claims and believes he has found.
There is no room for neutrality in matters of violence, invasions, systematic violation of human rights, and displaced persons. To say that neutrality exists is only an elusive ambiguity of the States due to their ineffectiveness to solve their internal problems or hide real sympathies or not reveal their interests and foolish agreements.
In the case of Mexico, what would be the explanation?
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