THE BORDER REPORT

Fresh from a trip to Mexico City to receive a "human rights" award, Tucson's Derechos Humanos co-chair Isabe Garcia is back home, taking a new stand, this time against the Mexican government. The award is a publicity stunt produced by the National Commission on Human Rights, a Fox-legacy commission that is supposed to take on abuses of power against Mexican nationals, but usually justifies its existence by generating headlines. This year, the human rights commission doled out its human rights award to Garica and to Humane Borders founder, the Rev. Robin Hoover. In an interesting aside, the award was actually supposed to go to Hoover this year but because he's not a Mexican citizen, the commission was prevented from handing him the award. Garcia, who is a Mexican citizen, was then chosen to receive the award last August. The commission then created a special award just for Hoover. An even more interesting aside: This is the kind of fiasco the commission usually engages in - the costs involved in the process to choose Hoover, then dump him for Garcia, then create a new award for Hoover, presumably could have created enough economic incentive in Mexico to have saved a few nationals the entire ordeal of crossing the desert in the first place. Pero bueno. The entire award ended in an even bigger desmadre after Garcia complained to the left-leaning newspaper La Jornada that she is being censored by the Mexican government. Apparently Garcia intended to fly down to Mexico and accept this award in order to blast President Felipe Calderon and the country, both countries unless I miss my guess, at the ceremony. From the article, Garcia intended to let loose with all her guns about militarization of the border and the deaths of hundreds of illegal immigrants who tried to cross the Pinacate. Somebody at the Ministry must have gotten wind of this and shut down her chance to speak, and so, taking her lesssons from Andrés Manuel Lopez Obradór, she held an alternative press conference where she expressed her views anyway, this time villifiying the new president's cabinet for "censorship." This is scandalous on so many levels. Mexico and the United States deserve their fair share of criticism for the deaths and exploitation of illegal migrants. But let's leave substance alone for a minute and focus on Garcia's reaction. She was so incensed that when she came back to Tucson, she let the local media know about this censorship. Who paid for the flight down to Mexico City? Who put Garcia and company up at a hotel, hosted a dinner, crafted the award and arranged for the meeting? From the KOLD-tv interview, I see that the biggest commitment she took on for this trip was attending the event. I don't see that Derechos Humanos or Garcia herself actually paid for the trip down. It seems to me that if one is going to be righteous in one's efforts against censorship, the proper gesture would be to reject the prizes of the censoring establishment. If you're going to sign on for the free plane trip and the fancy hotel, you don't have much room left to complain.