Jorge Castaneda Gutman

Jorge Castañeda Gutman (Mexico City, May 24, 1953) is a Mexican politician and commentator who held the post of Secretary of Foreign Relations from 2000 to 2003, the son of the Mexican diplomat Jorge Castaneda and Alvarez de la Rosa.

Academic activity

Son of Jorge Castañeda y Álvarez de la Rosa —diplomat and historian who also held the position of Secretary of Foreign Relations, during the six-year term of Vicente Fox—. He attended school at the Franco Mexican High School. He studied Economics at Princeton University and a Ph.D. in Economic History at the University of Paris (Pantheon-La Sorbonne). After completing his studies, he was a visiting professor at various universities, including: the Center for Economic Research and Teaching, CIDE, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Princeton University, New York University, and the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of more than a dozen books and a frequent editorial writer for the newspapers Milenio (Mexico), El País (Spain), Los Angeles Times and magazine. Newsweek (USA). He was married to the Chilean Miriam Morales and has a son, Jorge Andrés.

Political career

Castañeda began his political career as a member of the Mexican Communist Party. Presumably based on documents from the now dissolved Federal Security Directorate (DFS), El Universal published that he had been an agent of the Cuban regime between 1979 and 1985, the date on which he reportedly broke with them. Castañeda denied such allegations.

Castañeda was an advisor to the leftist Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas during his presidential campaign in 1988, and in 2000 he advised the candidacy of the rightist Vicente Fox Quesada, who after winning the elections appointed him Secretary of Foreign Relations.

Castañeda declares himself politically to the left. However, others maintain that he is located "in the conservative ideological and political path". Castañeda's supposed turn to the right, some allege, would be marked by the publication of La Utopia Disarmada, a work rejected by the Latin American left and the Cuban regime, due to Castañeda's harsh criticism and revelations. The work Life in Red, a biography of Che Guevara, outraged communist sectors for humanizing Che Guevara, a symbol of the left. In addition, in his column & # 34; Los 68 del 68 & # 34;, written in August 2006 for the newspaper Reforma , he asserts that the number of victims of the Tlatelolco massacre would have been & # 34; exaggerated & # 34; and that only 68 students were murdered.

He tried to be an independent candidate for the presidency in 2006, for which he promoted a judicial dispute that did not allow him, he tried again to promote an independent candidacy in 2016, with a view to 2018, which was also unsuccessful.

Secretary of Foreign Relations

He held this position from December 1, 2000 to January 2003, the date on which he decided to resign on the eve of the Iraq war, which placed him in an uncomfortable situation (supporting the war at the cost of losing popularity or oppose it and thus confront the United States government).

During his tenure, Mexico participated in the United Nations Security Council, organized the United Nations Summit for Financing for Development, the V Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization and obtained the venues for the APEC summit and the Special Summit of the Americas. In addition, for the first time in the history of bilateral relations, Mexico voted against Cuba in the OAS Human Rights Commission, which generated tension between the governments of both countries.

The 2006 elections

After resigning his position as Secretary, he toured the country as a lecturer. On March 25, 2004, he announced his presidential candidacy with a view to the federal elections of July 2006. Four days later, he filed an juicio de amparo to be able to run for the presidency without being nominated by a political party, but a district judge dismissed their arguments. After analyzing the ruling, Jorge filed an appeal for review based on the Amparo Law before a Collegiate Circuit Court in Administrative Matters, but said Court involved the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation to bring the case on April 7, 2005. However, the plenary session of the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence, based on the fact that said appeal is not appropriate in the case of electoral laws.

Unconformed, he denounced his case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, alleging that the Mexican State had cornered him defenseless, and accused the Fox government of taking steps to prevent his candidacy in order not to subtract votes from the candidate of the BREAD Felipe Calderón Hinojosa. The CNDH decided, in May 2007, to follow up on his case. On September 2, 2008, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights published a ruling in which it unanimously decided: "1. To dismiss the preliminary objections filed by the State, 2. The State violated, to the detriment of Mr. Jorge Castañeda Gutman, the right to judicial protection enshrined in Article 25 of the American Convention, in relation to Articles 1(1) and 2 of the same.

3. The State did not violate, to the detriment of Mr. Jorge Castañeda Gutman, the political right to be elected, recognized in Article 23.1.b of the American Convention on Human Rights, in relation to Articles 1.1 and 2 thereof. 4. The State did not violate, to the detriment of Mr. Jorge Castañeda Gutman, the right to equality before the law, recognized in Article 24 of the American Convention on Human Rights, in relation to Article 1(1) thereof". The Mexican government considered that the ruling was favorable to it, while Castañeda interpreted it as meaning that he was the winner.

Castañeda called for winning over the leftist candidate for the presidency Andrés Manuel López Obrador "the good way, the bad way and in all possible ways". In an article in Reforma of April 12, 2006 openly invited Mexican television stations to contribute to the "strategy of fear" to harm the latter. Faced with the impossibility of competing for the Presidency of the Republic, Castañeda began approaches with the PAN to be a candidate for the Head of Government of the Federal District, but the nomination was won by the also independent politician Demetrio Sodi de la Tijera.

At the end of November 2007 La diferencia came to light, a book by Castañeda and Rubén Aguilar Valenzuela, former spokesperson for Fox, in which a series of events are narrated from the perspective of the authors of the six-year term, including interviews with the former president himself, as well as allegations and accusations from various political figures.

Also in November, but in 2014, Jorge Castañeda published his autobiography, entitled Amarres Perros, in which he narrates the history of the last half century in Mexico, Latin America and the Central American region, as well as the sustained relationship with the United States; all from the perspective of his own life. In the book, Castañeda describes many of the national and international personalities with whom he had relationships throughout his public career.

Disputes

Jorge Castañeda was part of the advisory committee of Stanford Financial Group, an American firm accused of defrauding thousands of investors, hundreds of them in Latin America and including Mexico. Allan Stanford, owner of the company, was charged by the United States with fraud and evasion for nine billion dollars through the sale of certificates of deposit. The firm used the names of different "prestigious" advisors to "open doors" in several countries, as is presumably the case with Castañeda. The newspaper The Sunday Times linked the fraud scandal with operations of laundering of the Gulf Cartel with that financial group.

During the diplomatic conflict with Cuba, caused by the unfortunate declaration of Vicente Fox towards Fidel Castro with the "Comes y te vas", Castañeda was pointed out as the main saboteur of relations with Cuba, and the one who orchestrated Fox's disputes that damaged Mexican foreign policy, in particular Castañeda was accused by diplomatic officials of wanting to transfer his personal rupture with Cuba to the level of relations between Mexico and Cuba. Ricardo Pascoe said that Castañeda wanted to promote a failed and senseless strategy to erode the diplomatic relations between Mexico and Cuba, to seek that the United States would support his presidential aspirations. Later Castañeda would say that the Cuban government was "sensible, fiery and upset", breaking with decades of respect for the Mexican doctrine of non-intervention in internal affairs from other states.

Given the imminent invasion of Afghanistan by the United States in 2001, the then foreign minister said that Mexico should not haggle its support for the neighboring country to the north, and it should be "unconditional", comments that generated controversy in Mexico.

He was part of the Mexican presidential entourage that traveled to China, and he is remembered for being the one who invited the attendees to “play” among the statues of the Terracotta Museum, which was about to unleash a new diplomatic conflict, now with China.

Castañeda would say that these diplomatic frictions were not the reason for his resignation and, according to his team, before presenting his resignation to Fox from the cabinet, he said: "I don't mind continuing in the Foreign Ministry."

During his tenure, he was attributed the failure of the Fox government to reach an immigration agreement with the United States, and he also had some friction with the Mexican press, which he described several times as "ignorant."

His controversial statements caused controversy, in an attempt to defend Rosario Robles, prosecuted for various crimes of corruption, when he stated that: "The custom is to steal, it's fine, it's okay." On social networks, his comments were related with the contractual benefits that Castañeda has received from previous PAN and PRI governments.

In June 2020, during a Televisa opinion program, Jorge Castañeda referred to the municipality of Putla, in the state of Oaxaca, as a “horrible town” and “slum”, expressions that were described as “discriminatory, offensive and complacent” by the National Human Rights Commission in a public appeal. intervention of the Conapred to sanction the attacks that they considered racist by Castañeda.

Posts

• Nicaragua: Contradictions in the Revolution (1980)
• The last capitalism. The financial capital: Mexico and the "new industrialized countries" (1982)
• Mexico: the future at stake (1987)
• Limits of friendship: United States and Mexico (1989)
• The house through the window (1993)
• Mexican shock (1995)
• Utopia disarmed (1995)
• The United States Affair. Five essays on an oblique love (1996)
• Life in red, a biography of Che Guevara (1997)
• The inheritance. Archaeology of presidential succession in Mexico (1999)
• We are many: ideas for tomorrow (2004)
• The difference, x-ray of a sexenium (written with Rubén Aguilar) (2007)
• Ex Mex: From Migrants to Immigrants (2008)
• Tomorrow or last. The Mystery of Mexicans (2011)
• Yellow dogs. An autobiography (2014)
• Just like this: For an independent citizen agenda (2016)