The gall

The Mexican foreign minister talks about monitoring the newfangled presence of the US National Guard at the border for human rights abuses exactly the same week that a Human Rights Watch report expresses disappointment with the Fox government for its inability to curb the sheer impunity that operates in Mexico. Fox has not done squat to find and bring to justice whoever has been killing and torturing about 400 women in Ciudad Juarez, and the Mexican legal and judicial systems are barbaric and in urgent need of reform. The militarization of the border is a horrible idea and it will strain relationships between the two countries, but as long as Mexico remains a lawless land, ruled by corruption and impunity, where citizens are not protected inside their own borders, the Mexican government has some nerve kvetching about protecting the human rights of those who choose to leave.