Posted on 09/10/2010 4:41:57 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
WASHINGTON — San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro will be part of a White House delegation selected by President Barack Obama to attend Mexico's 200th anniversary of its independence from Spain in Mexico City, officials said Friday.
Mexico also is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution this year.
Castro said he was honored to be part of the official U.S. delegation commemorating the two events “that shaped the course of history, not only in Mexico, but in the United States and the world.”
“By virtually any measure — trade, culture or common history — the relationship between our two nations is inextricably linked,” Castro said.
The other U.S. dignitaries attending events in Mexico City are Labor Secretary Hilda Solis; U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual; and Maria Otero, the State Department undersecretary for democracy and global affairs, according to the White House.
The San Antonio mayor is the only member of the White House delegation not serving in the Obama administration.
San Antonio played a role in the 1910 revolution.
Francisco I. Madero, a political opponent of Mexican President Porfirio Diaz, fled to San Antonio, where he wrote the Plan of San Luis Potosí, the revolution blueprint to dethrone Diaz and re-establish a democracy.
In addition to cultural and economic ties, the United States and Mexico are linked in a battle against transnational narcotics cartels smuggling contraband into the United States and threatening Mexico's rule of law.
Nearly 23,000 people have died in Mexico since Mexican President Felipe Calderón launched his military assault on drug traffickers in 2006.
The United States has pledged $1.3 billion in military hardware, helicopters, communications equipment and training to help the Mexican military fight the cartels.
In addition, the Obama administration has stepped up measures to thwart smuggling of drug-profit cash and weapons in the United States headed south to the cartels and drug gangs.
The ongoing drug war in Mexico has claimed the lives of three mayors from border states in recent weeks, and a massacre of 72 Central and South American immigrants who were trying to enter the United States from Mexico illegally.
The massacre was carried out by people linked to the Los Zetas cartel.
Anniversary celebrations in several northern Mexican border towns have been canceled due to the escalating violence.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton angered Calderón administration officials this week when she said Mexico is “looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago.”
Still, Obama and administration officials have praised Calderón for taking on the cartels to stop the trafficking of narcotics into the United States, where an appetite for illicit drugs fuels the violence.
And officials from both administrations have sought to portray the bilateral relationship between the two countries as one that is as strong as it has ever been in recent times.
Castro will travel to Mexico City on Monday to take part in events scheduled for Tuesday, which will conclude with a dinner with Calderón and dignitaries from around the world.
Yipes! For a moment, I thought that Fidel was going!
Of course, now that Fidel has mentioned the dirty little secret, which is that Communism doesn’t work, maybe he’ll be persona non grata too.
Mexican mayor? I thought they went extinct in the last month.
I too thought that Fidel Castro was so beloved by the White House, that they were going to send him to Mexico. Ha ha.
As long as they are celebrating anniversaries, how about this one?
It’s the first anniversary of 26,000 people being killed in Mexico in one year.
That’s a good one. Don’t you think they ought to celebrate That one?
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