NY Times, November 19, 2003 Mexico Dismisses Its U.N. Envoy for Critical Remark About U.S. By TIM WEINER
MEXICO CITY, Nov. 18 — Mexico's ambassador to the United Nations has been dismissed after saying the United States regards Mexico as a second-class country, government officials said Tuesday.
The ambassador, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, was forced out under pressure from his government and from Washington, the officials said, after refusing to retract his criticisms of the United States at a face-to-face confrontation Monday night with Mexico's foreign minister, Luis Ernesto Derbez.
Mr. Derbez issued a terse statement overnight saying the ambassador "will be relieved of his post on Jan. 1." He announced no replacement. Mr. Aguilar Zinser said by telephone that he had no public comment on his dismissal, which came a week after a speech he made at a Mexico City university.
In the speech, Mr. Aguilar Zinser said Washington wanted a "relationship of convenience and subordination" with Mexico.
"It sees us as a backyard," the ambassador said.
While those are widely held views in Mexico, they are rarely voiced in the discourse of diplomacy. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell strongly rejected them last week
"We never, ever, in any way would treat Mexico as some backyard or as a second-class nation," Mr. Powell said. "We have too much of a history that we have gone through together."
Then President Vicente Fox blasted his ambassador over the weekend while at a conference in Bolivia. "I totally reject that statement," Mr. Fox said. "It was the wrong thing to say."
Relations between the two nations were exceptionally warm during the first months of President Bush's administration. Mr. Bush called the relationship as important as any the United States enjoyed.
But it fell into a freeze after the Sept. 11 attacks, and has since barely thawed. The biggest issue dividing the countries is the question of according some form of legal status to the millions of Mexican migrants in the United States. But the governments also have unresolved differences on matters of trade, energy, water and the management of their 2,000-mile common border.
Mexico has held a seat on the 15-nation Security Council this year and last, giving Mr. Aguilar Zinser a prominent podium in international affairs. But with the United States so strongly focused on issues of war and terrorism, Mexico has made little progress with its binational agenda.
Mr. Zinser, a Harvard-educated liberal, was the last left-leaning figure of prominence in Mr. Fox's center-right government. He joined it three years ago as the national security adviser, supposedly overseeing all security agencies. After a year, his post was abolished, a decision perceived as a setback for efforts to establish civilian control over Mexico's military and police forces.
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