Angered by the treatment of two Border patrolmen. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher has begun an investigation into the disturbing pattern of undue influence that the Mexican government has applied in several Federal prosecutorial decisions.
"There is a hidden agenda here at play with the Ramos and Compean prosecution. The American people have a right to know who gave the order to go ahead to prosecute Ramos and Compean in the first place. I am sure Gonzales was in on it, and we need to know that. We also need to know as this case progressed where the President and Mr. Gonzales played a role in making decisions as to where they would be imprisoned, and if they would get out on bail during the time of appeal. "
To that end, Rep. Delahunt and Rep.Rohrabacher, in their capacity as Chairman and ranking member of the Human Rights and Oversight Subcommittee, will begin investigations and hearings on the extent and source of Mexican influence into recent border cases. That Ramos and Campean remain in jail, has stirred deep anger among a wide swath of the political spectrum.
"How did an incident that could have easily been resolved through an administrative reprimand within the Border Patrol itself spiral into charging them with attempted murder and a civil rights violation? According to a memo dealing with a meeting between four members of the Texas delegation and representatives of the Department of Homeland Security investigating team, the Mexican Consulate contacted the U.S. Attorney's Office on March 4, 2005, the same day this investigation began.
It seems to fit a disturbing pattern with all of these other prosecutions that the administration has moved forward with.
In the Gilmer Hernandez case, the Mexican Consulate sent 17 letters to our government demanding prosecution. In the Gary Brugman case, the Mexican consul sat in the courtroom during the trial, and Johnny Sutton went so far as to thank him for his assistance in locating the illegals Sutton used to testify against Brugman.
This stinks. We need to get to the bottom of this and find out if a foreign government is having an undue influence on prosecutorial decisions of our own law enforcement agencies and members. This subject of whether there is some type of foreign involvement, meaning the Mexican Government, in prosecutorial decisions here of our own law enforcement officials, that is now going to be looked into by the International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight Subcommittee of which I am the ranking member. Chairman Delahunt has stated that we will be holding hearings into this subject. There will be hearings of our oversight subcommittee to explore the pattern of questionable foreign influence on our government's decisions to prosecute law enforcement officers in the United States, especially those law enforcement officers who are trying to stop drug dealers who are coming in from Mexico, and stop the invasion of illegal immigrants who are pouring into our country from Mexico."
The congressmans anger, bewilderment and sense of betrayal are understandable. It is hoped that the investigation will look into these elements of the Faustian relationship between the White House and Mexican oligarchy.
Bush, Cheney and Vicente Fox met soon after Bushs election to formulate a quid pro quo. The goal was and is, to create an energy monopoly of North America. The first step was the privitization of the Mexican electric grid, which had been tried unsuccessfully before. The sticking point in the Mexican political process was the electrical workers union; a powerful entity that has 40 percent of the board seats on Pemex.
"After May,2002 the Mexican congress passed a resolution opposing any changes in the Constitution to make privatization possible. The PRI itself took a similar position in its own national meeting. But after Fox invited PRI leaders Roberto Madrazo and Elba Esther Gordillo to the presidential residence of Los Pinos for a late night snack, they happily announced they’d give his proposal serious consideration."
It was at this late night meeting that Fox revealed the payoff for the unions support. The payoff was the'Totalization Agreement' that will make illegal Mexicans eligible for US Social Security benefits after working as little as eighteen months in this country.
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Why did Bush give away this gift that will keep on giving? In order to garner the support of the powerful electrical workers union, and the opposition party, Fox revealed the Bush would integrate the Social Security systems of Mexico and the United States. What was Bush and company buying for the billions that would flow from US wage earners to Mexican relatives of wage earners? Integration of the Mexican energy industry into the global corporations. Pemex would give integrated drilling, machine and technology contracts to Halliburton, and the first of many foreign-owned electrical plants would be built by Sempra Energy just three miles into Mexico.
Despite an acute deficit in electricity distribution throughout rural northern Mexico, U.S. energy corporations are now pumping tens of thousands of kilowatts from that region further north into California to keep San Diego households whirring with the latest modern appliances. U.S. per capita consumption of kilowatts is seven times that on the Mexican side of the border.
Last August, the California-based Sempra Energy conglomerate's 600 megawatt generating plant went on line out in the scrub desert west of Mexicali Baja California - all of the power generated will flow north to what Mexicans call "the Other Side." The Sempra project is one of 20 that such energy kings as Shell, British Petroleum, Phillips, and El Paso Natural Gas have on the drawing board for this stretch of the northern border.
Sempra and Inter-Gens, whose Mexican subsidiary Azteca Energy X is about to inaugurate a pair of huge generating plants a few miles from the Sempra facility, say they came to Mexico because construction costs were low, labor cheap, licensing quick, and environmental regulations lax. "That's what free trade is all about" an unidentified Inter-Gens executive recently told the New York Times.
"Despite Fox's repeated pledges never to privatize PEMEX, whose purview includes natural gas development and production, the national petroleum monopoly now contracts with 300 transnational corporations for services it cannot afford to perform for itself. Now with drilling about to begin in the enormous Burgos dry gas fields, a tri-state region along the northeastern border, PEMEX is promising transnationals "Multi-Service Contracts" (MSC) - constitutionally outlawed "risk" contracts in which the driller takes home a percentage of the find.
Among those U.S. transnationals participating in the Burgos project are Fluour Daniel (which also won a $300 million contract to drill in the revived Chicontepec oil fields), and the ubiquitous Halliburton Corporation. In addition, Halliburton, whose KBR division is making out like Ali Baba in "reconstructing" Iraq after an invasion designed by the company's ex-CEO, has won a $23 million contract to build a gas separator in Reforma, Chiapas, not far from rebel Zapatista autonomous zones. Zapatista "autonomias" in the Lacandon jungle sit on PEMEX-proven deposits of natural gas.
Greenpeace
Off-shore, Halliburton has become the chief purveyor of technology for the Cantarell complex out in the Sound of Campeche, Mexico's most abundant oil field. Some critics complain that PEMEX's Exploration and Development division has virtually been taken over by Halliburton.
This year, the first wholly owned electric plant goes on-line three miles just over the Mexican border. The plant is exempt from California emissions standards. Also due to be completed this year is the huge natural gas terminal and storage facility being built fifteen miles north of Ensenada. Both plant and terminal complex is owned by Sempra Energy.
Soon there will be twenty more electricity producing plants along the border,; plants that will fee into the US grid via the Powerlink.
Sempra has gotten first dibs on the spoils of bribery due to the fact that its financial partner is none other than the Carlyle Group, a private equity fund with substantial Bush family holdings.The Sempra-Carlysle entity was named Topaz Power, and has been aquiring Texas power plants.
"Carlyle/Riverstone is proud to be working in partnership with Sempra Energy in this enterprise," said Michael Hoffman, managing director of Carlyle/Riverstone. "We expect that this first acquisition by Topaz Power will produce significant value on its own, and we look forward to growing this enterprise through additional acquisitions and business-development initiatives in the Texas market." Houston Chronicle
It is hoped that the Congressional Committes investigating the Mexican influence will over turn this rock, as well as freeing the railroaded border agents.