VZCZCXRO2568
PP RUEHCD RUEHGD RUEHMC RUEHNG RUEHNL RUEHRD RUEHRS RUEHTM
DE RUEHHO #0100 0671955
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 081955Z MAR 06
FM AMCONSUL HERMOSILLO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1320
INFO RUEHME/AMEMBASSY MEXICO PRIORITY 0392
RUEHXC/ALL US CONSULATES IN MEXICO COLLECTIVE
RUEHHO/AMCONSUL HERMOSILLO 1685

UNCLAS HERMOSILLO 000100 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR WHA/MEX, EMBASSY MEXICO FOR POL, MCCA DONAHUE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV ELAB ECON MX
SUBJECT: PRESIDENT FOX IN HERMOSILLO FOR SECOND RECENT VISIT 
 
REF: HERMOSILLO 0095 
 
¶1. (U) Summary:  President Vicente Fox returned to Hermosillo on 
March 7, his second visit in four days.  He engaged briefly with 
miners demonstrating for his assistance outside the Government 
Palace.  The President told reporters that he had no intention 
of firing the Secretary of Labor and that legal action against 
union leader Napoleon Gomez Urrutia would continue.  End Summary. 
 
¶2. (U) President Fox visited Hermosillo March 7, his second 
visit in four days (reftel), to inaugurate Sonora Forming 
Technologies, an automotive stamping and assembly plant and 
major supplier for the huge Ford Company operation here.  He 
attended a private (i.e. closed to the press) luncheon with 
prominent Sonoran businessmen hosted by Governor Eduardo Bours, 
and a separate ceremony at which he accepted a pledge for 13 
thousand wheelchairs to be given to the Federal government for 
distribution throughout Mexico.  The Governor's wife, working 
with the International Wheelchair Foundation, had arranged for 
this donation. 
 
¶3. (U) The President's advance team had kept demonstrators away 
from him during his stop in Sonora last week (reftel), but on 
this visit a crowd of about 100, dozens of them miners from 
Cananea, was waiting at the Government Palace when he arrived. 
Fox consulted briefly and privately with miners' representatives 
after seeing posters supportive of the government's position on 
Napoleon Gomez Urrutia, General Secretary of the Miners Union. 
Afterwards, he told reporters that his Administration was not 
interfering with internal union affairs with its investigation 
of Gomez Urrutia for alleged corruption.  The investigation 
would proceed, he said, as a matter of compliance with the law 
in accordance with allegations of fraud, including several filed 
by miners.  He said he had no intention of firing Labor 
Secretary Francisco Salazar. 
 
SIPDIS 
 
¶4. (U) The President said that his government had always 
respected the autonomy of unions, and that it had been the 
unions themselves which had first moved to suspend Gomez 
Urrutia.   He added that a democratic Mexico has no room for 
authoritarian enclaves ("enclaves autoritarios") which benefit 
themselves at the expense of ordinary workers.  (Note:  The 
allegations against Gomez Urrutia are in connection with 
suspected irregularities in distribution of funds paid by mining 
company Grupo Mexico as part of a 1990 privatization of some 
copper mines.  Gomez Urrutia's backers claim the investigation 
is actually retaliation for his role in blaming Grupo Mexico for 
the tragedy last month that killed 65 miners in Coahuila state, 
and for his opposition to labor reforms proposed by the 
government.  End Note.) 
 
¶5. (SBU) Comment:  Governor Bours was as attentive to President 
Fox as before, and provided a private opportunity for him to 
interact with some of Sonora most influential business leaders. 
Overall press coverage of  Fox's visit this time, however, was 
notably less warm than that of the previous week.  Reporters 
complained about heavy security arrangements and ran stories 
about how closely prominent local officials had been screened to 
get into events.  El Imparcial Sonora reported that the 
President generally looked tired and grim, and said that his 
public remarks at the business inauguration focused only on his 
Administration's accomplishments and seemed to forget the 
problems of Sonorans.  End Comment. 
 
CLARKE