<i> Terrorist--</i> a Case Lost in Translation : Mexico Let Morales Go on Principle, Risking U.S. Anger

Mexico’s denial of the United States’ request for the extradition of William Morales, a Puerto Rican nationalist, is creating a major flare-up in U.S.-Mexican relations. The State Department and the White House have issued strongly worded statements condemning Mexico’s actions. The U.S. ambassador was recalled to Washington for consultation, and he will return to Mexico this weekend bearing a letter about the subject from President Reagan to President Miguel de la Madrid.

American indignation stems from the denial of the extradition request itself, as well as from the fact that Morales was freed and subsequently put on a plane to Cuba, where evidently he will be out of the United States’ grasp.

There is a certain logic to Mexico’s action, at least from a strictly legal and formal standpoint. In 1979 Morales was convicted in New York for possession of explosives and related crimes, and he fled the country. The United States requested his extradition from Mexico in 1983, but it could not be considered because he was serving an eight-year sentence for crimes committed here.

On March 12 of this year Morales’ sentence came to an end, because of time off for good behavior, his work in the prison and so on. At that point the extradition request had to be taken up and approved or denied. This happened at the end of May. Mexico’s Foreign Ministry, the only agency constitutionally allowed to resolve extradition matters, reviewed the American request and turned it down. In doing so it acted in keeping with Mexican, Latin American and even European tradition (as shown by U.S. difficulties in obtaining the extradition of Palestinians from Germany and Italy, for example). That tradition is to deny extradition when there is an indication that political considerations are involved in the purported crimes.

A similar problem arose in 1982, when a Colombian guerrilla was arrested in Mexico. The United States and Colombia successively requested his extradition on the ground that he was involved in drug trafficking. Mexico responded that there was sufficient political motivation in the case for extradition to be denied.

The problem lies clearly in the different concepts behind each country’s view of what constitutes political activity. In the United States any political activity that implies violence is viewed with suspicion at best; most often lately it is considered terrorism. This is not the rest of the world’s way of looking at things, particularly in countries where the only possible forms of political action are of a violent nature.

The debate over the Morales case is not dissimilar (though not identical) to the issue of the Palestine Liberation Organization having an office at the United Nations. The U.S. Congress and the Justice Department contend that the PLO is simply a terrorist organization that commits, or is responsible for, violent crimes. The rest of the international community, with the exception of Israel, regards the PLO as a political organization that legitimately represents the Palestinian people, and while it may resort to means that other nations do not approve of, they cannot dismiss them simply as crimes with no political content.

The Morales case is no different from those that could have surfaced (and many did) if South American dictatorships or brutal regimes in Central America had requested the extradition from Mexico, say, or France, of opposition leaders who belonged to organizations that advocated violence, or even who committed violent acts themselves. The issue has to be resolved in principle, since it would be impossible for another nation to pronounce judgment as to whether conditions in the United States for the Puerto Rican independence movement are radically different from those of, say, the Manuel Rodriguez Front in Chile. (Of course, they are different, but that is not for the Mexican government to judge.) Nor can each case be dealt with on the basis of the merits of the cause; Puerto Rican independence is one cause that perhaps is not of the same import or nobility as Chilean democracy and respect for human rights, but those are distinctions of a political, not legal, nature.

There is general agreement in Mexico about the correctness of the government’s attitude in refusing to grant Morales’ extradition. If questions are asked--and they are--they refer to the timing (10 days before national elections) and the simultaneity of the government’s actions (denial of extradition, Morales’ release and his deportation to Cuba), which were boundto provoke a strong U.S. reaction.

No satisfactory explanation has been provided by Mexican authorities. They could have accepted that Morales’ Mexican sentence had come to an end but prolonged the study of the extradition request for several months without releasing him, or they could have freed Morales but kept him under house arrest pending the extradition review, or they could have deported him to a “neutral” third country.

If the tensions between the two nations truly heat up, if a nationalist defensive reaction to American indignation develops in Mexico, if the U.S. press’ attention to the Morales case begins to be perceived once again as an instrument of a “Mexico- bashing” campaign, then a motive for the Mexican government’s apparently inexplicable actions begins to emerge.

Mexico’s course seems sound on principle, however distasteful those principles may appear to American eyes. But it is questionable on tactics, which seem to have added insult to injury. One can only hope that the worst fears about motives are merely unfounded suspicions.