Mexico and Ukraine vs. the factor of distance

Recently the United Mexican States has celebrated the bicentennial of the country’s independence from Spanish colonizers. In this period of time the country has gone through revolution, not quite simple relations with its northern neighbor, held Olympic Games and two soccer championships, and several years ago survived a swine flue epidemic. The main problem for Mexico now is the war against drug traffickers, which has killed 28,000 people. What lessons has the country learned during the years of independence? Will the government be able to put an end to drug trafficking and by what means? How has Mexico managed to ride out the financial crisis? How does it view the prospects of relations with Ukraine? Below are the answers to these questions, in The Day’s interview with Mexico’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Ukraine Berenice Rendon TALAVERA.

“Of course, this was a very important date for Mexicans. We celebrate not only 200 years of independence, but a combination of historical processes, because when the Spaniards came to Mexico they found a great civilization there. So the combination of that civilization and Spanish colonial rule for three hundred years resulted in a different national identity. That brought the independence movement (September 16, 1810). In this 200 years we have dealt with a lot of issues, it has not been swift process. But this year we are also celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution (November 20, 1910) which was first social revolution of the 20th century. Those were historical processes that Mexico had to go through in order to reach what modern Mexico is now. Indeed this year is the occasion to consider what lessons we have learned and what should we do for the future. We commemorate our heroes, but we also need a debate about where we are heading.”

And where are you heading?

“We have learned first of all that we have gone a long way, and Mexicans have improved their welfare in the process. In 1910 we were mostly a rural country, with a population living in the fields, in poverty. Now because of these processes and advances, we are an urban country with a very large middle class that has houses, services, infrastructure, education, health, employment. We do not say that we do not have any problems; 40 percent of our population is still in poverty but the other 60 percent is in a better situation. I know you will ask me about drug trafficking.”

Yes I will…

“Indeed this is our main problem right now.”

But it is a very serious issue. State Secretary Hillary Clinton said that Mexico, plagued with drug-running and violence, is looking more and more like Colombia two decades ago…

“First of all the problem of drug trafficking and security in Mexico is well known in the world because of the media. But we are not in the same situation as Colombia 20 years ago. First of all we do not have any insurgency, revolutionary or guerrilla movements in Mexico. In Colombia that was a major problem connected with drug trafficking. What we have in Mexico is a problem of the drug transit, consumption, trafficking to the north, along with security issues. But politically we do not have the same situation. And President Obama clearly said that after Mrs. Clinton’s remark.

“In order to understand this, we should have a look at the magnitude of the international problem of drug trafficking. This is not only a problem for Mexico, it involves every country in the world. Mexico is in the middle of the problem because our neighbour is one of the biggest drug consumers in the world. And with the money from profits, drug traffickers buy weapons in the US and sell them in Mexico. Then they are used in very violent crimes. The money they get is also used to bribe officials in both countries. Drug trafficking, money laundering, weapon sales are global problems. We have about 3,000 km border with the US, and American authorities are not successful in stopping drugs coming into US through this border either, because they get to all their big cities.”

What are Mexican authorities doing to stop drug trafficking?

“We are trying to confront the problem in Mexico. In the past in our country there was no strong commitment to fighting drug trafficking. But the administration of President Calderon started to combat the trafficking from the beginning, as well as doing prevention and solving social problems. More than 30,000 people linked to drug trafficking were detained. More then 30,000 big weapons were confiscated. Last year the authorities confiscated more then 2,000 tons of marijuana and nine tons of cocaine.”

It was reported that President Felipe Calderon called for serious discussions to legalize drugs in order to win the drug war. What do you think about this?

“Indeed, the president mentioned the problem and said that he himself was not in favour of that. But a lot of experts and academics say that in order to limit the economic gains of the drug traffickers, we should consider legalizing marijuana. But this is only a discussion.

“By the way in California marijuana is grown and it is going to be legal for medical purposes. Once you legalize it for medical purposes it may be used generally. So what is the point to fight it, have so many people killed, and keep it illegal, if on the other side there is a legal market? So the law of demand and supply works perfectly there. And so goes the argument, one needs to limit the drug traffickers’ profits. The government spends a lot of money on fighting drug trafficking. We may use that money on solving poverty, building infrastructure, houses for people, education.”

Relations between former colonies and their metropolis tend to be difficult, because usually the latter tries to play the role of an elder brother, as in a case of Ukraine and Russia. How are relations between your country and Spain?

“Our relations with Spain are very important for us. Spain is a bridge to Europe. We share many historical and cultural values. Both countries have influenced each other over more than 500 years of common history. They have an impact on our development, as do we on theirs. This is an intertwined relation that we have. Some people in Mexico think that we should not have that kind of relationship because of the Conquest and colonialism. But that was in the past. We need to look to the future. We have only broken our diplomatic relations during the Spanish Civil war; many Spanish republicans went to Mexico and they have made a great contribution here. After the death of General Franco we restored diplomatic relations in the 1980s. Since then our relations have been one of the best we have with any country.”

And what about your relations with the US? One can hardly say that this is a relation between equals?

“We have great relations with the US. If we are intertwined with Spain, with the US we are interdependent. Our economies are strongly linked together and we share so many features. We are economic and trade partners in NAFTA; many Americans live in Mexico, and in the US we have more then 20 million people of Mexican origin. Many of them have their roots from the times when those territories were part of Mexico, and some were born in the US.

“Many American businessmen come to Mexico, which is recognized as a good place for business, investment and tourism. We receive 21 million tourists a year. Most of them are Americans. We have great places to visit. Many US students go to Mexico to study medicine for instance.”

Because it is cheaper…

“Yes, and also there are good education programs. If they do not have opportunities in the US they go to Mexico. We are very interdependent countries because we share history and culture. They love Mexican food. Places like Texas, California, New Mexico and even Arizona are proud of their Mexican culture heritage.”

Is there a danger or a threat for Mexico of leftist authoritarism and populism, which is spreading in Latin America?

“There is left and right types of populism (laughing). No, there is no threat. I think Latin America has been moving in waves. We had a wave of military governments in the 1930s to 1970s. Then there was a democratic wave, countries started to have democratic processes, elections, no more coups d’etat. Most countries are now democracies and will stay this way. That’s why we can elect leftist, center, or rightist governments, that’s democracy. People elected President Chavez, Evo Morales, etc. I was ambassador in El Salvador, there they have a rightist government for many years, but now they have elected a center-left government. That is part of democratic process in Latin America. Some experts say that the wave of leftist governments is already over. Now the center-right are coming in. In Chile, after so many socialist governments, now they have moved to the right. In Costa Rica, Colombia and Mexico we see this too. There is a discussion now who will win in Brazil. We are now open, pluralist and democratic societies.”

Recently we saw how European countries reacted to the global financial crisis: they cut social programs, fired government officials. How did your country respond?

“The crisis started in the US and, taking into account that our economies are very interdependent, we were one of the first countries hit by the crisis. Many US companies stopped doing business in our country. And we also had the flu problem that had a negative impact on our economic situation. Therefore the government of President Calderon started an important program to alleviate the impact of the crisis. We were not only reducing the government, downsizing the budget, but we also started stimulus programs, which helped us to have growth this year — we are expecting to grow four to six percent. Inflation is under control. The government started to invest in the development of infrastructure in order to boost employment. The other aspect of the structural approach of government was to have stronger social programs for people that are in poverty, for health, education and housing. Last year we received 12 billion dollars of investments. And according to the estimates of international agencies, our country is a very interesting place to invest.

What kind of Ukraine did you discover?

“I am the first ambassador of Mexico in Ukraine, so it was a great surprise for me to find a young independent country. We were talking about Mexico’s 200 years of independence and we have not solved all our problems yet. You only started 19 years ago. I think that for such a young country — with a very strong and proud sense of national identity — you have made a lot of progress. Because it is an open society; the most striking thing is how open, nice and hospitable people the Ukrainians are. I thought it would be very difficult for me to adapt to a country this far — not only in distance but also culturally — from Mexico. I thought that language was going to be an obstacle to communicate with people. By now I see that this country is very easy to adapt to.”

What is the Mexican vision of developing relations between our countries?

“Our embassy has been here only for five years. Ours relations are still young. I think we need more linkages between our countries, because distance is an important factor. For businessmen the language difference is difficult but Mexican businessmen are starting to look at Ukraine. The government of Mexico open the embassy in 2005, because they saw the importance of the country in this region of the world; it has a strategic importance for trade and investment too. This is a country that is growing economically. It has a lot of resources. Mexico can have more trade with Ukraine. We hope that after the crisis we can develop more trade, more investments, tourism, exchanges and cooperation. That is the main objective of this embassy. We would like Ukraine to know more about Mexico, about what Mexico really is. We must have cultural programs so people get acquainted with what Mexico is all about. We’d like more Ukrainian tourists in Mexico.”

So one of the steps may be cancelling the visa regime… What are the obstacles here?

“We do not really need to cancel the visa regime because there is a very easy visa procedure. Of course we ask if people have a salary and employment. If you fulfil all requirements you get the visa the same day — up to five years. Because we want people to visit Mexico. Secondly, now we do not have many tourists, businessmen or students going to Mexico. So there is no need to make a free visa regime, although we are now discussing ways to facilitate this process even more for Ukrainians.”

You know that our country is preparing for the Euro-2012. Your country hosted the World Cup in 1970 and 1986. Have Ukrainian authorities shown interest in your country’s experience in preparing such football events?

“No we don’t have such cooperation. This is joint effort with Poland and I am sure that the Ukrainian authorities work with other countries closer to home. What I think is important is that this is a national project, and everyone cooperates and participates. Not only the government and private sector, but the whole society should support this project. As far as Mexican experience goes, for us it was a national effort and everyone participated in it. There were critics, some people do not like that you spend money on such events, but I think it is also a very important opportunity to showcase any given country, people around the world get to know the host country. We saw that in South Africa during the last World Cup or in China with the Olympics Games. I think it is great opportunity for the world to know about the country when they have such sports events. It is important and it is a lot of fun.”