The Province (Vancouver, BC): Who will blink in Mexican standoff?
Sunday » August 27 » 2006
Who will blink in Mexican standoff?
Union boss vows to unleash national strike in Mexico from here
Mike Roberts
The Province
Sunday, August 27, 2006
The Associated Press file photo shows buses burn in Oaxaca, Mexico, on Aug. 21 as workers protested in strikes that followed, in part, the dismissal of Napoleon Gomez Urrutia, head of Los Mineros union.
The leader of a powerful Mexican mine workers’ union — who fled to B.C. after being accused of embezzling $61 million — has vowed to launch, by cellphone, a national strike unprecedented in Mexico’s modern history.
In an exclusive interview with The Province from a secret Lower Mainland location Friday, Napoleon Gomez Urrutia — whose removal as head of the 280,000-member National Union of Miners and Metalworkers (Los Mineros) in February sparked six months of crippling labour unrest across Mexico — said he and his union executive have set a deadline of Sept. 4 for his reinstatement and the dropping of allegations against him.
If neither take place, he will call for a national strike, he said.
Escalating unrest in Mexico has already triggered a warning from the Department of Foreign Affairs.
“Protests and subsequent civil unrest in general have affected local security and resulted in vandalism, arson attacks, violence and one reported fatality,” a current Canadian travel advisory states. “The situation remains tense.”
Gomez Urrutia, a 60-year-old Oxford-educated economist who five years ago took over leadership of Los Mineros from his father, Napoleon Gomez Sada, has been highly critical of Mexico’s labour and safety standards and has organized as many as 30 wildcat strikes.
He was replaced as union head and accused of corruption shortly after demanding an investigation into the death of 65 workers in a Feb. 19 coal-mine explosion he called “industrial homicide.”
His removal led immediately to three copper-mine strikes and sparked union walkouts and street demonstrations across the country as miners, electricians, bus drivers, airline workers, teachers and farmers marched to protest government interference in union activities.
Both the RCMP and the Department of Justice are aware of Gomez Urrutia’s presence in B.C., but refused to comment on the case.
Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez said Thursday that the government plans to request Gomez Urrutia’s extradition from Canada within days.
Gomez Urrutia, in an interview from an untraceable cellphone he uses to conduct union business from his home in an undisclosed Vancouver suburb, said Friday he fled Mexico with his wife and three sons, fearing for his family’s safety. His sons are “dispersed” across Canada for their own security.
He first fled to the U.S. in early March and then, on the advice of his lawyers, to Canada, arriving in Vancouver later that month.
“Canada is a more independent country, more liberal in terms of immigration and much more respectful of human rights,” he said.
In the Mexican press, President Vincente Fox has repeatedly called for Gomez’ extradition, though no formal criminal charges against him have been approved by the Mexican courts.
“Napoleon Gomez Urrutia is accused of acts of corruption against workers and there is information that he, from outside the country, specifically Canada, was directing this regrettable operation [civil unrest],” a Fox spokesman has been quoted as saying.
Gomez Urrutia maintains he is being “persecuted” for his opposition to Mexico’s labour policies and because miners under his leadership have clashed with powerful economic and political interests.
“They are false accusations, completely false, a bunch of lies,” he said when asked about the $61 million he is accused of stealing. “This is like a curtain of smoke they created in order to deflect attention away from serious problems.”
He says the money remains in union accounts, which have been frozen by the Mexican government.
In June, Gomez Urrutia met with several Canadian MPs. NDP leader Jack Layton subsequently sent a letter to the Mexican ambassador in Canada lending his support.
Canada’s United Steelworkers Union, which has a “strategic alliance” with Los Mineros codified in 2003, has passed a resolution in support of Gomez and sent formal letters of protest to representatives of Mexico in Canada.
Steelworkers national director Ken Neumann said Friday that the union is “hosting” Gomez Urrutia during his stay in Canada but has not accepted money from him “in any way, shape or form.”
Steve Hunt, Steelworkers Western and Northern Canada director, added that “the courts [in Mexico] have systematically thrown out these charges against [Gomez]” and that “the Mexican government has tried to discredit a union leader that has been able to go against the grain of the Mexican policy in regards to wages and benefits.”
Gomez Urrutia, who has been conducting union business, exercising, attending concerts and writing a book about his recent experiences during his Mexican standoff in the Lower Mainland, says he will return to his homeland only if it is safe to do so. He has not ruled out making a refugee claim as a political refugee if an extradition order is brought against him.
Gomez Urrutia’s threat to launch crippling strikes on Sept. 4 came on the heels of his call for the Mexican government to make good on a deal struck last Monday to end a violent, 141-day strike at Sicartsa, Mexico’s largest steel rebar plant.
The government-brokered settlement between plant owner Grupo Villacero and 2,300 Los Mineros members would have seen wages and benefits boosted by eight per cent for plant workers, two of whom were shot dead by federal police during the protracted strike.
The strike was lifted, union officials claim, on the condition that Gomez Urrutia be reinstated as the democratically elected head of Los Mineros and that “false” accusations that he masterminded a $61-million money laundering scheme be revoked, both within 15 days.
The Mexican Secretary of Labour has said that his government will not recognize him as head of the union nor retract its accusations he pilfered workers’ funds.
mroberts@png.canwest.com
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