'Friendly Pens' fail to blot out the human rights message

The government did not really want her to come. And when she finally arrived, it tried to keep her away from probing reporters and human rights campaigners. But the cordon was breached, writes John Ross from Mexico City as he looks at a woman who is quietly breaking the UN mould for diplomatic niceties in a sensitive area.

It is a sign of the powerful influence that Mary Robinson has brought to her job as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights that the Mexican government worked so hard to keep her away from the press and independent human rights groups during a recent visit.

The strenuous efforts to curtail Robinson's contacts were designed to prevent a repeat of the July visit by United Nations special rapporteur Asma Jahangir, who laid the groundwork for the Robinson trip. Jahangir, a sharp-tongued Pakistani woman, publicly chastised the human rights failings of President Ernesto Zedillo's government, drawing threats of a protest note from the Foreign Ministry.

The Robinson visit has been under negotiation since 1996. Mexico resents UN "intervention" in what it considers its domestic affairs, and refuses to recognise UN recommendations on torture, poverty among indigenous peoples, and military impunity.

After arriving by Mexican airforce jet (airforce units stand accused of human rights violations before the Inter-American Human Rights Commission), Robinson was swept up by VIP delegation, protected by phalanxes of military police to discourage unauthorised petitioners and pertinent press questioning.

Then it was on to closed-door meetings with Zedillo, Defence Minister Enrique Cervantes, the president of the Supreme Court, and the neophyte ombudsman of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH).

"The government and the PRI [the Institutional Revolutionary Party that has ruled Mexico for 70 years] have kidnapped Mary Robinson," declared opposition deputy Benito Miron, who heads the Mexican Congress's human rights committee.

A plan drawn up by senior officials and leaked to the press plotted every step of the Robinson visit - before, during, and after - and described how to conceal the reality of the human rights situation from the High Commissioner.

"(Robinson) will always be accompanied by a functionary who will be prepared to intervene at any moment," said the draft plan. The Foreign Ministry would control media interviews and protect the Commissioner from off-the-cuff questioning. "Friendly pens" would be contacted to report the Zedillo administration's "progress in the area of human rights." Fake reporters would be sent to meet Robinson's flight to Quito, her next stop, to record her first impressions of Mexico so that the Zedillo administration could quickly formulate a response.

The government's efforts reaped some success. Although the ostensible reason for the visit was the signing of an agreement to put UN technical personnel on the ground, an agreement deferring the agreement was signed instead.

A smooth Robinson visit was considered vital to Mexico's future commercial interests, particularly in Europe. To become an associate member of the European Union, Mexico must sign a 'democracy' clause that obliges it to respect human rights. Several European human rights groups oppose the Mexican application and a clean bill of health from the High Commissioner for Human Rights would help ward off their challenge.

In addition, her visit came in the midst of a row over the new CNDH head, Jose Luis Soberanes, who is seen as a government supporter (he describes himself as a mediator rather than a spokesperson for the people) and at a moment of deteriorating human rights conditions.

Hundreds of political prisoners languish in jail and the impoverished Indian south is under virtual military control. Human rights workers are regarded as subversives by the government and the military, and are often attacked.

Despite the government's precautions, umbrage at the PRI and the government runs so high that sanitising the visit proved impossible. The security bubble was frequently punctured by human rights groups and the political opposition.

Robinson was startled when, during a Congress session, deputies from the left-centre Party of the Democratic Revolution became so infuriated at the PRI's whitewash of abuses that they began pounding the tables. She was swiftly led away by security agents.

Similarly, barred from a news conference, striking university students pushed their way into the room to present their case to the Commissioner in person.

On Robinson's lightning visit to the northern border in Tijuana, where more than 450 Mexican migrant workers have been killed since the US Border Patrol initiated "Operation Guardian" five years ago, two top Mexican officials were forcibly thrown out of a meeting with migrant rights' advocates, who read a long list of complaints against both the Border Patrol and its Mexican counterparts.

Her most critical stop was Chiapas, where thousands of Tzotzil Indians had prepared a reception for her at the site of a 1997 massacre.

Protocol interviews with government and judicial officials took up so much time that Robinson was prevented from travelling to the community. Nevertheless, she subsequently managed to meet some massacre survivors. She condemned the paramilitary death squad responsible for the killings and called for a military stand-down in Chiapas.

Robinson further riled the generals by suggesting that Mexico try soldiers accused of violations against civilian populations in civil courts rather than military tribunals. And she rubbed salt into the army's wounds by calling for the establishment of a military ombudsman to protect the rights of the troops: a general who has repeatedly called for such an ombudsman is currently serving 28 years in prison.

Throughout Robinson's four hectic days, she was relentlessly pursued by womens' groups, students, teachers, farmers, Indians, opposition politicians, and even aggrieved taxi drivers, who nearly drowned her entourage with letters of protest, petitions, and testimony.

"Oh dear, I hope I haven't raised expectations too high," she confided. "I need to buy two more suitcases just to get all these documents home."

She clearly got the message.

"What the government told me and what I saw here are two very different realities," she commented at a parting press conference.
- Gemini News

The author is a journalist-poet-author who has covered Mexican affairs for 30 years. His latest book is Blood On The Corn - the Zapatista Chronicles 1994-2000.