Both US and Mexican media have been suggesting that the United States, the UK and Spain have been carrying out a high pressure campaign against Mexico in the last couple of weeks. Mexico is a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, and thus its vote is important to Bush's war drive. 85 percent of Mexico's trade is with the US and there are millions of Mexican citizens living "in the belly of the beast" with or without papers, which makes Mexico vulnerable to the gangster-like pressure that George W. Bush is learning to enjoy inflicting on other countries. Mexico had originally said it would not support a unilateral attack on Iraq by the US, and 70% of Mexican public opinion is anti-war. Then there were stories that Mexico was bending on the issue, might switch to a pro-war position, etc.
Today Mexican president Vicente Fox Quezada was quoted in the left wing Mexico City daily La Jornada as saying to a group of businessmen that Mexico intends to hold firm to its opposition to unilateral action by the United States, but that all should understand that there may be "consequences" of thwarting the US in this matter, specifically to "our compatriots" who live within the United States and to "our exporters". This lends credence to the suggestion that the Bush/Power team, backed up by the weasel squad of Blair and Aznar, have been making threats against Mexico and against Mexican immigrants in the United States, which had been reported earlier in La Jornada and also the Chicago Sun-Times.
There are hundreds of thousands of Mexican immigrants in Chicago, some of whom are naturalized citizens, other permanent legal residents, others undocumented. What exactly these reprisals might be we don't know, but we should not wait to find out. We need immediately to protest the GANGSTER TACTICS of the Bush administration against Mexico and our Mexican immigrant neighbors, by speaking out and by demanding that our Congressional representatives take up the issue.