Overkill in Mexico

The Mexican government of course can apply its laws as it sees fit. But it plainly overreacted in expelling from the country Father Michel Henry Jean Chanteau, a French priest in Chiapas, because he criticized military violence in the beleaguered southern state. The Roman Catholic pastor had administered to a poor village there for 32 years.

According to Mexican immigration authorities, Chanteau was sent packing because he told a reporter that last year’s massacre of Indian farmers at the town of Acteal was carried out by the government in an effort “to destroy the support base of the Zapatistas,” a guerrilla movement of Indians fighting against 500 years of oppression.

The priest may have been wrong and surely was simplistic. The Chiapas conflict involves centuries-old social and economic inequalities, religious intolerance and the absence of law and justice. To describe such a complex issue in naive terms does not help anyone. But it didn’t hurt anyone either, and that is why the swift ouster, without recourse to a legal defense, seems way out of proportion.

The article in Mexico’s Constitution that allows the government to expel foreigners deemed to be involved in internal political affairs is understandable. After all, throughout its history Mexico has suffered military invasions--the Americans and French head the list--and has seen no end of meddling foreigners. But who will believe that the opinion of a priest in the middle of nowhere can undermine the power of the government? The peremptory ouster of Chanteau is an intolerable response in this age of open societies, and it does not help Mexico’s image in the world.