Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
AMLO’s recent foreign policy decisions reveal unacceptable alliances with dictatorships. These alignments indicate that Mexico is positioning itself to validate an era of anti-liberal and anti-democratic practices. A government’s foreign policy is also a faithful portrait of its domestic policies.
Recently, the Mexican government has validated the policies of several dictatorships in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. It has also promoted economic exchange with governments breaking the international order and its laws.
Mexico recently refused to condemn China at the United Nations for its repressive, inhumane and discriminatory treatment of the entire Uighur ethnic group of Muslims, including their internment in concentration camps, according to the report presented by Michelle Bachelet, the Chilean High Commissioner to the United Nations, after a visit to the Uighur-inhabited area of China. Mexico’s refusal to endorse Bachelet’s report was an unpleasant surprise to countries of all latitudes.
Mexico then promoted the inclusion of two Latin American dictatorships, Cuba and Venezuela, in the United Nations Human Rights Council, based in Geneva, Switzerland. The Mexican insistence on including two countries where the systematic violation of the human rights of their citizens has been elevated to the level of a State policy came as a surprise to all and sundry.
Mexico promoted, in conspiracy with Cuba, a candidacy for the leadership of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), whose central axis was promoting the Cuban program of exportation and exploitation of doctors in the region’s countries. The proposal ignored the resolution taken by the United Nations to declare this program a form of forced labor, also classified as a modern form of slavery. This promotion explains the overwhelming regional rejection of the Mexican proposal. The candidacy promoted by Brazil won.
The Ordinary Assembly of the Organization of American States was recently held in Lima, Peru. At that meeting, Mexico refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its multiple violations of international law and human rights, including the executions of unarmed Ukrainian civilians. The Latin American community was surprised by Mexico’s alignment with Putin’s Russia and its invading army. At the same OAS session, countries were advised to refrain from trading with Russia under the logic that any economic support to Russia implied, in fact, support for the invasion of Ukraine. Hence the reason for international sanctions on the invader country.
Amid these international condemnations of Putin’s Russia, the Mexican government announced an unusual trade negotiation signed precisely with the international violator of laws and agreements. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that on September 28, 2021, Mexico and Russia signed an agreement on exploring and using outer space for “peaceful purposes”. The agreement includes installing the Russian GLONASS system and an electronic optical system “for preventing dangerous situations” in Mexico. The GLONASS system is a network of space satellites administered by Russia. It functions as a GPS network that also serves Cuba and Venezuela.
When I was in Cuba as Mexico’s ambassador, the Russian ambassador told me that the best way to spy on the United States was through satellite systems. Therefore, he concluded, Russia no longer needed Cuba as an “observatory” to know what was happening in the northern country. Besides, he added, satellites are cheaper and more efficient. This agreement between Mexico and Russia would indicate that Mexico is offering itself a platform for Russia to spy more effectively on the United States. In other words, Mexico becomes a collaborator of an American enemy Power. The GLONASS system is a spying system used by Russia for this purpose. And Putin has just signed his authorization to the agreement with Mexico.
Although the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs denies the above, the accumulation of information is unquestionable. Mexico has allied itself with the enemies of liberal democracy and is acting to advance the anti-democratic agendas of China, Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela. Mexico’s international praxis, and the support it offers, indicate that it has decided to follow this route internally as well.
The government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador is trying to arrange its domestic chips to turn Mexico into the new and privileged strategic ally of the authoritarian regimes of the world, given the decline of Cuba’s usefulness in such matters. Mexico has everything to be the new bride of the world’s dictatorships: it has a relatively strong economy, the country is armed and in chaos, between organized crime and an army motivated to seek political and economic power. But mainly, it is the gateway “from behind” to the colossus of the North, perfect for sabotage teams and espionage and with the option of creating social conflicts due to the existing political polarization in the United States. The upcoming November elections are a golden opportunity to create chaos in that country as a response to the actions of the Ukrainians in Crimea. And Mexico can make it easier for them.
Domestically, AMLO promotes conditions to break with the West and liberal democracies. He seems bent on taking Mexico to a one-party regime, restricting liberties, and using the military as a priority partner in a system that will allow him to reproduce his existing political model in power indefinitely.
Otherwise, Mexico’s behavior in the world would be inexplicable, promoting authoritarianism abroad and facilitating its territory to be used by the main enemy of the United States as a platform for espionage towards its neighboring region. If it does it outside, it is because it intends to do it inside.
The time to defend liberties and democracy in Mexico is getting shorter. Tragically, the ruptures and betrayals in the oppositions are an ingredient contributing to López Obrador’s anti-democratic civic-military project.
There is a window of opportunity of two short years to reverse this dynamic. After that time, everything will be a free fall to the precipice of authoritarianism.
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