Open Letter to Presidente Felipe Calderon – Arizona SB 1070

Honorable Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa

President of the United States of Mexico

Los Pinos

San Miguel Chapultepec

Distrito Federal, Mexico

Honorable President Felipe de Jesus Calderon Hinojosa:

In light of the latest outrage committed by the United States of America (E.E.U.U.) against the rights of Mexican citizens and persons descended Mexican citizens residing in the E.E.U.U., I am requesting that the United States of Mexico (USM) invoke the provisions of Article XXI of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (hereinafter “Treaty”) to demand the creation of a bilateral commission to address a series of issues that have arisen.  Amongst these are:

• The entire history of E.E.U.U. violations of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Protocols of Quaretaro
• The legitimacy of the E.E.U.U. / USM border in the context of perennial E.E.U.U. violations of the Treaty and the Protocols (hereinafter “Protocols”)
• E.E.U.U. systemic violations of the rights of Mexican nationals under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations
• E.E.U.U. systemic violations of the rights of Mexican nationals under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
• The State of Arizona’s enactment of SB 1070.

In the event that E.E.U.U. declines to participate in a bilateral commission or in the event that such a commission is unable to resolve issues arising under the Treaty rights of Mexico, Mexican nationals, and the descendants of Mexican nationals, Mexico should publicly declare an intention at the outset to seek third-nation neutral arbitration of any outstanding disputes as its right under Article XXI of the Treaty.

At the risk of belaboring the history reasons for why invocation of Article XXI is necessary and appropriate, to the extent that any treaty is a contract between nations, the E.E.U.U. has never been in compliance with the express terms of the Treaty or the Protocols in the context of E.E.U.U. domestic constitutional standards and domestic statutes.  To cite just a few examples:

• In California, following the cession of land to E.E.U.U. following the Mexican – American War, former and current citizens of Mexico were denied the right to bring charges or testify in court against “white” people, on the theory that Mexicans were defined as being at least one-quarter of indigenous extraction and were therefore denied by statute the right to testify against “white” people.  A concrete example of how this impacted Mexicans following the war was that it sparked the rebellion against E.E.U.U. authority by Joaquin Murrieta, who was denied the right to bring charges against Americans who had gang raped his wife and lynched his brother.  Murrieta’s rebellion was defined as “crime” by the authorities of the E.E.U.U.
• Organizations such as the Texas Rangers operated with state authority to simply run Mexicans off their land by means of threats and violence
• Thousands of Mexican, like African-Americans, were subjected to lynching without legal recourse throughout the “Southwest” of the E.E.U.U.
• During the ‘Great Depression,’ the administration of President Herbert Hoover instigated the forcible deportation and flight to escape threats and violence of 2,000,000 persons of Mexican origin or descent, approximately 1.2 million of whom are estimated to have actually held citizenship in the E.E.U.U.
• Mexican children were systematically subjected to segregation in education and other social institutions
• Indigenous U.S. “Indian” tribes, formerly recognized by the USM before the conquest of the “Southwest,” are repeatedly subjected to the desecration of their tribal burial grounds
• E.E.U.U. authorities systematically violate the rights of Mexican nationals that are accorded to by the Vienna Convention on Consular Affairs to consular notification and access.

Returning to my theme of treaties being akin to contracts between nations, E.E.U.U. has consistently and flagrantly violated its contract with USM and must be held to account for those violations, especially in light of the latest outrage perpetrated by Arizona. The mechanisms of Article XXI to address these issues should be immediately invoked by Mexico to protect its rights as a nation-state party to the Treaty and the rights of its citizens.

I stand ready to assist USM in any endeavors it chooses to undertake to enforce the basic human rights placed in jeopardy by the actions of E.E.U.U. and its constituent states and local authorities.

Respectfully Yours,

Jan B. Tucker

cc: Patricia Espinosa Cantellano, Secretariat of Foreign Affairs (SRE)