"Statement Regarding BINACOM's Participation in the Corto Creativo 07 Film Festival."

BINACOM is dedicated to fostering communication and intercultural understanding in the border region.  We condemn the use of our name to promote propaganda.  During the second week of June, BINACOM participated in the Corto Creativo Festival in Tijuana, devoted to the screening of short films.  We coordinated a panel of student films from member institutions, seeing this as an opportunity for students to share work on the big screen. Though we had viewed a preliminary program in advance, we were unaware that an additional panel featured surprise guest, Bradley Smith, a holocaust revisionist.  We are outraged that Mr. Smith is attempting to use this conference and our participation in it to legitimatize his attempts to deny the crimes of the Nazis against Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, political leftists and other groups.

 Having learned of his participation at the last moment, during our session we addressed the difference between debate and propaganda.  We explained that while we uphold the principle of academic freedom, that an individual has the right to voice opinions that are unpopular, this concept of free speech can only be exercised within the context of mutual respect, academic honesty and academic integrity.  There can be no debate when one side deliberately falsifies information in the support of ideology.  The facts of the Nazi holocaust are well-established and not subject to  debate among serious  historians.  Denial of those facts is widely recognized around the world as a form of hate speech, highly offensive to those groups who were victims of Nazi genocide, and indeed to all who believe in a humane society. 

We are dedicated to building academic ties between the US and Mexico, to strengthening the production and research capabilities of students and faculty in member institutions.  We deplore efforts to spread propaganda in an academic setting. If we do not wish to repeat the horrors of the past we must learn from a full understanding of history not from blind ideological denial of what occurred.