NEWSWEEK: What did you talk to President Bush about this morning? FOX: A very quick review of what we’re doing together: how we’re advancing on money and bank accounts related to terrorism. Border activity–where the flow and the crossing time is back up to 80 percent of what it was two months ago. [I] also suggested that countries should have information daily or monthly on what’s going on [with the war effort] so that we can maintain this cohesiveness. Finally, we discussed the bilateral, regional and multilateral agendas. In the case of Mexico and the United States, on Nov. 19 we’ll [have bilateral meetings] discussing security, narcotraffic and organized crime, and on Nov. 20 we’ll address migration. We’re back to business.
What about the economic impact of September 11 on Mexico?
Fiscal reform doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere, and now you have the rise within the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party [PRI] of a more left-wing, union-oriented leadership. Is this your biggest challenge over the next year? Our biggest challenges are in the next month. I think there is a clear consensus in Mexico over the need for tax reform. We have one of the lowest fiscal incomes in the world: 11 percent of gross domestic product. We cannot develop like that; we have to move ahead. The fear is electoral. The fear is losing market share in the political arena. But we have to be responsible. And I think we are getting closer and closer to reaching an agreement. [Last month] we came to a historic agreement, signed by eight political parties and government, that describes an economic base, political actions, social development, security, corruption, human rights. It’s a minimum base of agreement among all these parties and government.
But it doesn’t translate into specific programs. Well, I don’t think you can come to an agreement between eight different parties covering thousands of senadores and government if you talk details. The strategies are there, the definitions of the nation we want are there. It’s a big, big step ahead. And 90 percent of the reforms–from stock-exchange regulation to microcredit–have been approved. All of this, to have attained in 11 months with a government with no majority in Congress, is a great accomplishment.
But you promised fiscal reform, uncovering the PRI’s past, indigenous people’s rights… Rome was not built in a day.
Are you still planning to go after the PRI on human-rights abuses? We are examining cases that we inherited. A few days ago we freed the ecologists [Rodolfo] Montiel and [Teodoro] Cabrera, who claimed their human rights were violated when they were apprehended. We have totally opened up more than 500 files related to los desaparecidos in the ’70s and ’80s and have turned over this information to the national human-rights commission and the attorney general. They have already begun investigations, and we are going to appoint an autonomous special prosecutor to follow up on the cases.
Why not a South African-style truth commission? At lunch the president of South Africa told me they moved from the truth commission to the reconciliation commission–an intelligent way to handle this.
You didn’t hold back because of fears of what the PRI could do, even in the opposition? No. I held back to make sure that we were complying with the law.
