20.05.2008
May 11, 2008 (the date of publication in Russian)
Alexei Chichkin
TEXAS AFTER ANNEXATION
Mexicans have to smuggle themselves to their native land, lost 160 years ago
Today, the United States is especially worried about territorial integrity of the republic of Georgia, allegedly threatened by the imperial Russia. Meanwhile, almost one fourth of the territory of today's United States is comprised of lands once annexed from the neighboring Mexico. Today, these lands are being cordoned off with a "great American wall" in order to prevent thousands of Mexicans from re-settling to regions that once belonged to their forefathers.
160 years ago, in 1848, the United States forced Mexico to sign the Guadalupe-Hidalgo treaty that legitimated annexation of over 2mln square kilometers – over one half of that time's Mexico. The annexed land today comprises the states of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, California, and partly Colorado and Wyoming. In exchange, Mexico received a humiliating compensation of 15 million dollars (see. e.g. "Treaties, conventions, international acts, protocols and agreements between the United States of America and other powers", vol. I., Washington D.C., 1910).
The territories, once alienated from Mexico, contain most precious deposits of gold, copper, cobalt, rare metals, along with oil and coal, not speaking of vast grasslands and highly fertile agroindustrial holdings.
The Mexicans have never resigned themselves to this injustice. Pancho Villa, leader of the Mexican revolution of 1920s, demanded that Washington return the annexed land. Similar claims were raised by Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico's President in 1930-1940s. During World War II, he even proposed a joint military effort for this purpose to Germany and Japan.
The annexation of over a half of Mexico was a result of a war initiated by the United States. In order to annex the lands, Washington originally instigated an autonomist movement in Texas. This state, like Abkhazia and South Ossetia today, was regarded as an unrecognized sovereign republic for ten years, between 1836 and 1846. However, its second president, politician and poet Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, actually dreamed of independence of Texas. Moreover, he was planning to extend the unrecognized republic to the West, reaching California. Thus, Washington actually cracked upon two states in 1846, putting an end to the movement for Texan independence. In 1861, most of the Texans voted for independence from Washington. However, the defeat of the Confederates in the Civil War became a pretext for a final crackdown on the separatist sentiment.
Some English-speaking conservative Texans stand for sovereignty of this state until today. A movement named The Republic of Texas us bombarding American courts with legal suits on behalf of "victims of occupation". In mid-1980s, the National Guard of the United States used weapons against separatist demonstrators in Fort Worth and Houston. Still, the underground movement exists until today. On February 14 and March 2 separatists mark respectively the Day of Solidarity with Texan Fighters and the Day of Texan Independence.
A group named Big Star I, operating in Texas, reports of possessing a whole division of armed sympathizers. Similar claims are heard from the Texan Constitutional Militia.
In their turn, a part of Texan Hispanic population expresses the intention to return Texas to Mexico. This sentiment is shared by thousands of Mexican immigrants.
Campaigners for restitution of Mexican borders accuse Washington of imposing "economic serfdom" on their people. They claim that US officials and business circles extract high profit from exploitation of cheap Mexican labor, thus saving millions on salaries and allowances. Meanwhile, Mexican leftists demand that Washington pay adequate reparations for the annexed territories.
Thus, the bill on construction of a "Berlin wall" separating the US territory from Mexico, introduced by George W. Bush in late October 2006, was actually motivated not only with efforts to prevent smuggle and illegal immigration but also with securing the border. In accordance with this legislation, the Congress earmarked $1.2 billion for construction of the wall along one third of the US-Mexico border.
Meanwhile, Mexicans comprise 65% of the 11 million of illegal immigrants to the United States (according to Mexican statistics, this share reaches 75% of 13 million). Most of these immigrants have settled in the historically Mexican lands in Texas, California, and New Mexico.
The Government of Mexico has repeatedly expressed its negative attitude towards Bush's bill, arguing that it actually won't guarantee security as well as control of immigration. It also emphasized that the "wall" can only deteriorate the political relations between the United States and Ibero-America as a whole. Large-scale demonstrations of protest took place in Mexico in this year.
The political situation in Mexico is unstable. The leftist opposition, led by former presidential contender Luis Manuel Lopez Obrador, known as "the Chavez of Mexico", has not recognized the victory of Washington's protégé Fernando Calderon who managed to win with a narrow margin of 0.5 per cent. Some of Mexican provinces are actually controlled by the leftists. The construction of the wall that has started in Rio Grande is likely to spark new territorial tensions in the nearest time.
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