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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | March 2005 
Rice Tries to Calm Troubled Waters on Mexico Visit
 Alistair Bell and Arshad Mohammed - Reuters
| Mexican politicians & citizens are increasingly accusing the United States of meddling in Mexico's internal affairs.
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Mexico City - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried on Thursday to smooth over tensions with Mexico, irritated by U.S. comments criticizing its war on drugs and warning it faces possible political upheaval.
On her first visit to Latin America since taking her post, Rice praised Mexico's transition to full democracy after decades of one-party rule and lauded cooperation on drug smuggling and anti-terrorist security on the border.
Mexico was upset earlier this year by State Department warnings that drug gang violence in Mexican border cities was out of control.
A Central Intelligence Agency analysis that the oil-rich country could suffer political upheaval in the run up to presidential elections next year also raised Mexican hackles.
The United States needs Mexican cooperation on border security against possible terrorist infiltration and Rice, who also struck a deal on sharing water from the Rio Grande on her visit, was conciliatory, recommending Mexico as a model for emerging democracies.
"We have been enormously impressed with how Mexico carries out its democratic enterprise, how Mexican institutions function," she told a joint news conference.
CIA director Porter Goss mentioned Mexico as a possible source of political instability in testimony he gave to the Senate Intelligence Committee in February.
U.S. To Stay On Sidelines
Leftists have staged street protests in support of the capital's mayor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who risks being forced out of the presidential race by a minor legal case.
The left-wing mayor is the favorite to win the July, 2006 polls, raising fears in Washington of a return to statist economic policies and an anti-U.S. foreign policy.
Rice said the United States would stay on the sidelines.
"It is not the position or the right of the United States to be involved in any way in Mexican presidential elections."
President Vicente Fox has generally been close to Washington since he ended single-party rule at elections in 2000, although he refused to back the war on Iraq.
His big gamble was to win U.S. immigration reform but Bush's proposals for a limited guest worker program faces stiff opposition in the U.S. Congress.
Rice described Mexico as "a very good partner" in the fight against drug smuggling, despite recent comments from U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza that Mexico is failing to control violent trafficking cartels on the border.
A U.S. move to limit the rights of foreign inmates, an issue that affects Mexican immigrants, did not appear to sour Rice's meetings with Mexican leaders.
After recent heavy rains, Mexico agreed to pay off a water debt it owes to the United States under a 1944 treaty regulating the use of rivers on the border.
"We have arrived at a positive solution for the United States and Mexico on the use of water on the border," Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez said.
Mexico is to give 716,670 acre feet of water to Texas by the end of September, the State Department said.
An acre foot is enough water to cover one acre to a depth of one foot, and is equivalent to 325,850 gallons. |
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