NAFTA Critics Seek Probe of Group’s Detention in Mexico

An incident in which Mexican immigration police detained a U.S. labor delegation touring this city’s border industrial zone has erupted into a political skirmish in the battle over the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement.

Sen. Donald W. Riegle Jr. and Rep. David E. Bonior, both Michigan Democrats and NAFTA opponents, called Thursday for an investigation of why Mexican authorities detained the visitors for three hours after intercepting them Tuesday at a plastics factory experiencing a labor dispute.

The group included U.S., Canadian and Dutch members of the International Assn. of Machinists and a Maryland state assemblyman.

“The Mexican government should provide an explanation for this apparent violation of international law,” the legislators said in a letter to Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

A spokesman for the Mexican Interior Ministry declined comment Thursday. But a Mexican government official said plainclothes immigration officers acted in response to a complaint that the delegation was passing out anti-NAFTA flyers in the Plasticos Bajacal plant, which the official called a recurring problem at the U.S.-owned company.

“It was explained that they could not conduct these kinds of activities without a permit,” said the official, who asked to remain anonymous. “No one was held against their will.”

The union officials reject that version and say their treatment strengthens charges that the Mexican government represses union activity. San Diego labor activist Jelger Kalmijn said: “It shows there is liberty for multinational corporations to cross the border freely, but workers can’t get off the bus without being arrested. This is a small mirror of the conflicts that will happen with NAFTA as U.S. unions try to join forces with Mexican workers.”

The delegation of about 40 visitors were surveying conditions in Tijuana’s maquiladoras --low-wage, labor-intensive assembly plants that are often foreign-owned and have dominated the free trade debate because of concerns about worker rights and industrial pollution.

About four hours into the tour, the bus arrived at Plasticos Bajacal, the scene of a labor dispute over alleged safety violations and harassment of union organizers.

Two carloads of federal officers arrived and took the bus to the Tijuana office of migratory services, also detaining a former factory employee who was talking to the visitors, Kalmijn said. Officials told the group they needed a special visa, he said.

The officers interrogated a tour leader and the Mexican laborer while refusing to allow the others to leave the bus or call the U.S. Consulate, labor activists said.

After about three hours, the Mexican authorities told the delegation that their conduct was not illegal but “irregular” and released them, according to labor activists.