Reuters
April 26, 2000

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's independent election body said on Wednesday the government is blocking the entry of foreign election observers, lending new weight to complaints from non-governmental organisations.

"It's worrying on democratic grounds," Jaime Cardenas, an advisor at the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE), told a news conference. Government agencies "are putting up obstacles to our work," he said.

Cardenas said IFE has provided observers with papers and documentation that are not being honoured by Mexican immigration authorities, locking the observers out of the country ahead of the July 2 presidential election.

The IFE allegations come on the heels of charges by U.S.-based NGO Global Exchange and Mexico's Civil Alliance that the Latin American nation is intimidating international observers by throwing up immigration snags.

Global Exchange Coordinator Ted Lewis said in a statement issued on Tuesday he was detained and deported from the airport in the western city of Guadalajara after entering the country to meet with IFE officials. Lewis added that the regulations from the IFE state that election observation visas can be obtained from inside Mexico after entering the country on a tourist visa.

The National Migration Institute, the government agency in charge of immigration issues, however, denied it was hindering election watchdog efforts.

"What foreigners do in Mexico will never be restricted for political reasons, if it's legal," said institute spokeswoman Angelica Rendon. "If the IFE says that (Lewis' deportation) is illegal it is because it doesn't have sufficient information on the issue."

Rendon said Lewis was trying to gain new entrance to Mexico, even though he had been deported on at least two previous occasions. "Ted Lewis is someone who performed on various occasions activities that are not permitted," she said.

Lewis' group has been accused by the Mexican government of promoting "revolutionary tourism," organising visits by foreigners to the southern state of Chiapas to meet with Zapatista Indian rebels, who took up arms in January 1994.

The government has expelled dozens of foreigners in the past two years for allegedly engaging in political activities while in the country on tourist visas.

Rendon said foreign observers who have registered their visits adequately have entered Mexico without problem.

The IFE expects some 1,000 foreign observers for the July elections, in which ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate Francisco Labastida is squaring off against the centre-right National Action Party's Vicente Fox for the nation's top job.

[*Note from Ted: I was never deported from Mexico prior to April 9, 2000. Also, the INM has never informed me of any activity I have performed in Mexico that was "not permitted".]