BARRED BY ALL THE WORST ATTRIBUTES OF MAN; EFFORT TO HELP OUT MEXICANS TURNED BACK.

Byline: Dennis McCarthy 

It was late Sunday night when the disaster relief truck pulled back into Los Angeles, still loaded with eight tons of rice, beans, fresh water and blankets for the poor people of Oaxaca, Mexico, hit hard by Hurricane Pauline last month.

After a 2,000-mile, three-day trip, the truck had been stopped by Mexican guards at the border with Brownsville, Texas, where it was barred from crossing into Mexico by bureaucratic red tape, greed, power, and stupid pride.

Barred by all the worst attributes of man.

How an innocent relief attempt from the people of Los Angeles to thousands of homeless, destitute people in Oaxaca was blocked at the border is a behind-the-scenes look at a side of a riff over the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement.

The story begins in the San Fernando Valley where Charla Pereau, and her husband, Charles, a retired Los Angeles fire inspector, offer their help to the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles after reading about the utter devastation Hurricane Pauline has caused.

The Pereaus are very active in Mexican relief efforts through their Arleta ministry, the Foundation For His Ministry. In 1966, the couple opened an orphanage in Mexico for the homeless children of Tijuana they found eating out of garbage cans and sleeping in back alleys.

``The consulate officials were very gracious and happy that we wanted to help, and they put us in touch with the agency in Los Angeles that was handling the relief efforts,'' Charla said Monday.

That agency was Comite De Beneficencia Mexicana, located in downtown Los Angeles. Its president is Hortensia Magana, who said Monday that both she and local consulate officials are ``very angry'' that the relief truck the Pereaus provided to transport donated supplies to Oaxaca was turned around at the border by Mexican officials.

``We have all the papers and videos of what went on there, and when the big people from Mexico come to visit us later to say thank you for helping, we will show them (the video), and say, `This is what you do in Mexico when people try to help you?' '' Magana said.

``We donate our time and our efforts, and this is what happens? It's very, very disappointing,'' she added.

Calls to the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles for comment went unanswered Monday.

Very disappointing, maybe, but definitely not new. Charla Pereau is more than a little familiar with all the worst attributes of man found at the border.

Last Christmas, I wrote a column about one of their trucks - loaded then with toys from American and Canadian kids bound for poor kids in Mexico - being stopped at the Otay Mesa border (the spot where all trucks are checked going into Mexico from Tijuana) by Mexican border officials.

The reason then, as now, is so silly and rife with pride that it's almost laughable. Except now, some poor people trying in need of immediate supplies are being hurt by it.

``Basically, it boils down to the size of the truck,'' Charla says. ``Under NAFTA, we don't allow Mexico's big trucks to cross the border into the United States, so they won't allow ours into their country.

``Even trucks loaded with toys and disaster relief supplies are turned back.''

To finally get the toys across the border last Christmas, the Pereaus and their volunteers had to unload their big truck on the U.S. side, drive the toys across the border in smaller vans, and then reload them into a big Mexican truck that would deliver the toys.

Aware there could be the same problem this time, Charla warned Magana that the ministry's drivers would need the right papers from high-level officials or they would be stopped at the border. Again.

At 4 a.m. Oct. 23, her relief truck loaded with eight tons of supplies pulled out of Los Angeles headed for the Texas-Mexico border.

In the possession of the drivers was a personally signed letter of passage from Jose Angel Pescador Osuna, Mexico's consul general in Los Angeles.

At 6 a.m. Oct. 25, the truck arrived at the border. ``The guards looked at the papers, and told our drivers they needed papers from Mexico City, not Los Angeles, to cross the border,'' Charla said. ``They told our drivers to come back Monday morning.''

It was the first of a long week of ``mananas'' from Mexican border officials. Meanwhile, faxes flew back and forth from Los Angeles to Mexico City and Oaxaca, trying to get the Pereaus' truck across the border.

``We finally called Rotary International, which does a lot of disaster relief, and the International Red Cross to see if they could help,'' Charla said.

Nothing and nobody could help. Pride was playing a game of tit-for-tat. You don't let our big trucks in your country, we don't let your big trucks in our country.

``We were finally told to unload the supplies, and they'd try to find somebody to take it down to Oaxaca,'' Charla said. ``But the governor of Oaxaca told us not to do it, that they'd never see any of it.''

So, that's why a disaster relief truck pulled back into Los Angeles late Sunday night still loaded with eight tons of rice, beans, fresh water and blankets earmarked for the poor, homeless people in Oaxaca, Mexico.

It got stopped at the border by red tape, greed, power and pride - all the worst attributes of man.

Magana said Monday that the supplies will now be put on a cargo ship headed for the seaport town of Manzanilla, Mexico, and then trucked to Oaxaca. With luck, they'll get there in a few more weeks.