* On monday the 11th. the mexican leftist party "Movimiento Regeneración Nacional" (Morena) published a letter to inform "in a direct and clear way that mexican laws do not allow the handing over of the oil industry to foreign companies"
* "If you fall in the trap of Mexican government, the possible investments of your business in the Mexican oil industry will always be at risk": Morena
Mexico City, March 11, 2013
To Whom It May Concern:We reach to you in an opportunely manner to inform you in a direct and clear way that Mexican laws do not allow the handing over of the oil industry to foreign companies.
The Mexican Constitution, our supreme legal rule, establishes on its 27th article the following: “The proprietorship of land and water comprised within the borders of national territory, originally corresponds to the nation (…)
Corresponds to the Nation the direct domain of…solid mineral fuels; oil and all carbides of hydrogen, whether they are solid, liquid, or gaseous.
In the case of oil and solid, liquid, and gaseous hydrogen carbides or of radioactive minerals, there will be no granting of concessions or contracts…” The dominion of the nation over the natural resources has a long history in Mexico. In Colonial times, 500 years ago, there was an institution of the eminent domain of the Spanish Crown. In consequence, such institution was the owner of gold, silver, gemstones, copper, tin, lead, mercury, cadmium, bismuth, rock salt, bituminous materials, and all the juices of the earth, as well as any other fossil. The owners of the land were not the proprietors of the subsoil/underground.
Except under Porfirio Díaz rule, in the last years of the 19th century and at beginnings of the 20th, the owner of the oil has been the Mexican nation.
The constituent from 1917 transformed such idea on the basis of the original proprietorship of the nation. Over this principle, General Lázaro Cárdenas, patriot President of Mexico, with the expropriation of March 18, 1938 recovered the oil that President Porfirio Diaz had handed over to foreign companies for decades and gave it back to the Mexicans. Those years, in which the oil was on foreign hands, were years of suffering and looting for the country and the workers of such industry. The companies did not care about the development and progress of our country. They kept all the oil they extracted and paid miserable wages to their workers.
Do not let yourselves be fooled by the government of Enrique Peña Nieto. Previous governments (Carlos Salinas, Ernesto Zedillo, Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon) tried to privatize oil but could not achieve it. The Mexican people did not let them.If you fall in the trap of Mexican government, the possible investments of your business in the Mexican oil industry will always be at risk. We do not advise to allow yourselves fall in the game of this violation to our constitution, or to the businesses with high Mexican officials. Remember the apothegm of Benito Juárez: “Respect to the rights of others is peace”.
Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena) – México.
* Traducción: Secretaría de Mexicanos en el Extranjero y Política Exterior – Morena.
* Fotos: Washington Post, Itsgettinghotinhere.org, libcom.org
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