This column by Carlos Fernández-Vega originally appeared in Spanish in La Jornada on August 28 2024.
With the classic proconsul air of gringo ambassadors, Ken Salazar, with blood on his tongue, assures that he conducts himself with the utmost respect for Mexico’s sovereignty. Clearly! The same was said, for example, by John Dimitri Negroponte, a sinister CIA agent –one of many– who at the end of the ’80s was appointed to the same position by then-President George Bush Sr., only for Mexico’s national Congress to end up declaring him persona non grata for his systematic violation of Mexican sovereignty.
Salazar is not one to hold his tongue, he is compulsive and provocative, and it seems that he wants to receive the same award as Negroponte, because he is earning it. The National Palace has already put a stop to him, but he insists:
“The United States wishes to continue its close collaboration with Mexico to achieve our shared objectives as equal partners and in the spirit of friendship that reflects our long-standing ties,” but he continues to be hard on the issue of judicial reform, which is only the responsibility of Mexicans. Whether he likes it or not, that is not his problem. The same goes for the transnational banks, the “rating agencies,” the foreign chambers of commerce and other battering rams coordinated by the US State Department that wants nothing to change, that everything remains the same to keep its interests intact. And in the chorus, the organizations of the national oligarchy and their media hitmen.
Lapdog Graeme Clark
It is not by chance that President López Obrador has put on hold (with a copy to the Canadian ambassador, Graeme Clark, who also follows the instructions of the State Department) his relationship with Ken Salazar for his attempt to get involved “in matters that only concern Mexicans.” Such “a pause,” according to the president, “means that we are going to take our time. In reality, it is the State Department, because it is not him either. What a coincidence that at the same time that they are speaking in Mexico through the embassy, the Canadians are doing it, which is also embarrassing; [Canada] seems like a client state.”
One more thing: “How can we allow the ambassador, with all due respect, that this is not a matter of litigation, of hostility, but how can we allow him to think that what we are doing is wrong! Now we are not going to tell him leave the country, no, but we do have to read the Constitution, which is like reading him a primer.”
López Obrador explained that the trilateral relationship “continues, but hopefully there will be a ratification from them (the ambassadors) that they will be respectful of the independence and sovereignty of Mexico. So long as that does not happen and they continue with that policy, there is a pause” with the embassies of the United States and Canada, because “they have to learn to respect the sovereignty of Mexico; […] because we are not going to give them advice, or tell them what is right and what is wrong. So, we want them to be respectful, for there to be a reciprocal relationship in terms of respect for sovereignty.” And it is not about Andrés Manuel [personally], “forget it,” he said, but about the presidential office.
Salazar arrives at the National Palace, the President explains, and “he is received by the President of Mexico, and suddenly he comes out to say ‘I came to give you my opinion, that the people of Mexico should not elect the judges, the magistrates, the ministers, because that –as they have come to say– is antidemocratic, it complicates things more’, right? They say: ‘How embarrassing’. As our philosopher would say: ‘but what a need’; as long as I am here I will not allow any violation of our sovereignty.”
How to resume the relationship? Easy: “a clarification from them, stating that, in the matter of the constitution of our government, in the application of our democracy, in the decisions taken by our legally, legitimately constituted government, they have to be respectful, they have to understand that it was imprudent to act as they did.”
So, Salazar and Clark have won the Negroponte Prize, but in the meantime they urgently need an intensive course in diplomacy, with an emphasis on respect for sovereignty.
(https://mexicosolidarity.com/ambassadors-salazar-clark-win-the-negroponte-prize/)