Wearing a multi-colored headband, peace activist and Vietnam veteran Brian Willson criticized the United States government for allegedly helping the Mexican government mistreat the indigenous peoples of Mexico.
Speaking to a crowd of more than 30 professors and students in the Rockefeller Center, the former Air Force captain blamed American interests and the "neo-liberal economy" for what he feels are threats to the native population.
Willson, wearing prosthetic legs painted in a leopard skin design, lost his legs when he was run over by a munitions train in 1987 while kneeling on the train tracks in protest of U.S.-supported wars in Central America.
Willson was visibly upset about the treatment of the Zapatista rebels and other native peoples by the Mexican government, and he claimed the United States intervened in the situation for its own economic benefit. He said the United States government shipped billions of dollars of arms to Mexico "under the pretext of the drug war."
Wilson called the Mexican government corrupt, saying it participates in drug-trafficking. "It's just kind of accepted by everybody," he said.
Willson lambasted President Clinton and his Cabinet, listing ways that the Executive Branch allegedly skirted Congress to sell arms to the Mexican government. According to Willson, Clinton found ways to sell highly technical weapons to Mexico without Congressional control -- through the Fort Benning "School of the Americas," often known for training assassins, through commercial sales -- which have to be approved by the president himself -- and by selling arms which had already been paid for in previous fiscal years.
Reactions to Willson's speech varied. Some members of the audience clearly cringed at his criticisms of the U.S. government.
Before Willson's speech, Melissa Burch, a student at Goddard College who has done extensive study in Mexico, particularly among indigenous peoples, spoke about the history of the internal struggle in Mexico. Burch spoke as a representative of the Native Forest Network.
