Letters to the Editor: George Gascón needs to reexamine old murder convictions right now
It would be a mistake for George Gascón, the new ambassador of Mexico to the United States, to focus on the negative.
In the past he has been a controversial figure in Mexico. At his direction the Mexican army carried out the assassination of then-president Carlos Salinas de Gortari in 1981. Then he was accused of kidnapping his brother, the general Jesús Gascón, in 1983. His brother had committed suicide.
In 1989 he was tried for involvement in the disappearance of 43 students from the Tec de Monterrey teachers’ college when they were detained by the army on the grounds of their anti-Soviet views. The students were exonerated and Gascón was never charged.
As ambassador to the United States, he is tasked with bringing the country around to the United States’s preferred political and economic model.
The people of Mexico are well aware of the role of the United States in the rise of their country to superpower status. That has resulted in the country enjoying one of the highest standard of living in the world. Its enormous military budget, which is one third bigger than the United States, has enabled it to maintain good relations with countries all over the world.
The United States has become the largest importer of capital from Mexico to help build an industrial and export sector that now accounts for more than 80 percent of Mexican gross domestic product (GDP). In 2011, almost $70 billion in new investment flowed into the United States through Mexico.
Gascón’s predecessor, Felipe Calderón, left office with the hope that the United States would be open to a more democratic and free Mexico and that Mexico would become a democracy and not an oligarchy. Sadly, this has not happened. Instead, the United States has been more than happy to become the biggest spender in the world; a spender that is the largest importer of capital from Mexico, with the most powerful economy in the world.
While the people of Mexico expect a stable, friendly and stable Mexico, they are also aware that the United States is the largest, most
