Mexico's enduring resistance to foreign domination is unique in the western hemisphere, The names of Padre Hidalgo, Benito Juarez, Emiliano Zapata and Lazaro Cardenas inspire profound feelings in all Latin Americans who aspire to national independence and the rectification of social injustice. With its long history of self-determination and civil liberty, Mexico should continue to set an example for all the Americans, The recent arrest and imprisonment of Daniel Camejo Guanche and thirteen others seems to contravene Mexico's long established traditions. These men should not be persecuted for holding unorthodox political views. The charges brought against them should be examined scrupulously and impartially by an independent international commission. This commission should also investigate the defendants' countercharges of abusive treatment and the coercion of forced confessions, In the meantime all the defendants should have the elementary right to be set free on payment of a reasonable sum as bail, In those countries where the United States exercises its hegemony, political dissent is seldom tolerated, Latin America has become a continent of political prisoners, Mexico should not betray its own best traditions by conforming to this grim pattern.
2nd August 1967