Hundreds To Protest Carlos Slim At George Washington University Commencement Ceremony (VIDEO)

On Sunday, nearly one thousand protesters are expected to join George Washington University's (GW) students and their parents at a commencement ceremony on Washington D.C.'s National Mall to voice concerns about the honorary degree the school plans to confer on Mexican billionaire businessman Carlos Slim.

Protesters have already begun gathering in the streets around GW. Many of the demonstrators are members of "Two Countries One Voice", a coalition of activists dedicated to "exposing Carlos Slim" for amassing, "his wealth on the backs of the Mexican people and how his practices continue to corrode Mexico’s economic development," according to the coalition website.

Slim, a Mexican telecom magnate, is the world's richest person, with a personal fortune larger than those of Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. He is the first person from a developing nation to top the global wealth list, according to Forbes magazine.

Slim's core company, Telmex, was once a state-owned asset. His conglomerate, Grupo Carso, purchased Telmex in 1990, according to Forbes. The purchase gave Slim control of 80 percent of Mexico's land line telephone market. A second Slim-owned company, Telcel, controls 70 percent of the country's mobile phone business.

Slim's Grupo Carso also has significant holdings in the retail, technology and finance sectors. Critics say Slim's empire has choked off competition, the jobs that smaller companies may have created and contributed to elevated unemployment in Mexico.

"People are in awe of this man and his wealth while ignoring how he's acquired it. He has crippled the Mexican economy through his business practices and has single handedly kept millions in poverty, all while lining his own pockets," said Andres Ramirez, a Two Countries spokesperson according to Market Watch.

Protesters are calling on this year's GW commencement speaker, NBC's correspondent Brian Williams, to publicly oppose GW's plans to honor Slim.

"We want to make sure that GW knows that this guy's not a humanitarian, not a philanthropist, he's a corporate monopolist whose taken advantage of people in Latin America," said one of the protesters according to the video above.

In June of 2009, Slim received the President's Medal from GW in recognition of his philanthropic work in Mexico and the region, according to the university's website.

MORE ON CARLOS SLIM:

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• Carlos Slim

  Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim smiles attends to a meal with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Mexican President Felipe Calderon at the National Palace in Mexico City on April 18, 2012. Rajoy is now in an oficial visit to Mexico after attending a meeting of the World Economic Forum on Latin America in the Pacific resort of Puerto Vallarta. AFP PHOTO/Yuri CORTEZ (Photo credit should read YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images)

• With Larry David and Garcia Marquez

  (L-R): US television host Larry King, Mexican president Felipe Calderon, Margarita Zavala de Calderon, Mexican tycon Carlos Slim and Colombian writer and Nobel Prize recipient Gabriel Garcia Marquez are pictured during the opening of the Soumaya Museum in Mexico City on March 1, 2011. AFP PHOTO / Alfredo Estrella (Photo credit should read ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP/Getty Images)

• Mexican Telecom Magnate

  Mexican telecom magnate Carlos Slim speaks during the 2011 Clinton Global Initiative meeting on September 20, 2011 in New York. AFP PHOTO/STEPHEN CHERNIN (Photo credit should read STEPHEN CHERNIN/AFP/Getty Images)

• With Alberto Moreno and Bill Gates

  Co-Chair of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates walks behind Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim (R) and the Inter-American Development Bank president Alberto Moreno during the launching of Middle America Health Initiative 2015 at the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City on June 14, 2010. AFP PHOTO/Alfredo Estrella (Photo credit should read ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP/Getty Images)

• At The Louise Blouin Foundation

  NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 19: Entrepreneur and award recipient Carlos Slim Helu attends The Louise Blouin Foundation Presents The Fifth Annual Blouin Creative Leadership Summit - Awards Ceremony and Gala at the Metropolitan Club on September 19, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by Thos Robinson/Getty Images for The Louise Blouin Foundation)

• In His Famil's Hometown in Lebanon

  Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim (2nd L) visits the Virgin Mary statue at the entrance at his family's homwtwon Jezzine in southern Lebanon on March 15, 2010. Slim, who has knocked Bill Gates from the top of the Forbes list of the world's billionaires, is on a visit to the country of his ancestors, Lebanon. The 70-year-old son of a Lebanese immigrant took the top spot for the first time in the Forbes list published on March 10, 2010, pushing the Microsoft founder out as he rose from third place on the success of America Movil, Latin America's biggest mobile phone operator. AFP PHOTO/MAHMOUD ZAYAT (Photo credit should read MAHMOUD ZAYAT/AFP/Getty Images)

Comments

[Rob Paterson1]

04:20 PM on 05/21/2012

m-chancleta said that hes richer than CARLOS SLIM#1, lame buck.

[holyghostie]

02:28 PM on 05/20/2012

Finally a media outlet points out that the Mexican Govt and the Mexican elites are foisting their largely unskilled indian populations on the US taxpayer by forcing them to migrate illegally into this country.

The Mexican elites know that the liberals will pay the freight for their poor people so they don't have too.

Huffpo :Latino should write one article a day pointing out how if Mexico would allow increased foreign investment and home ownership it would help their peasants get ahead more than the 12 or so Spanish heritaged families that control 85% of Mexico's wealth.

[Rocari Deejay]

01:40 PM on 05/20/2012

so you know, my dear fellow gringos, the PRI, the longest ruling party in the world, who ruled Mexico for 71 years, left, in 2000, 50 million people in poverty (24.1 million in extreme poverty) but created the richest man in the world ¿something is not right? ¿eh? Slim deserves no recognition!

[Fran Jaime]

03:29 PM on 05/20/2012

I thought you might find this interesting and somehow, I don't think it's going to be here on HP. Yesterday, there were massive demonstrations in several parts of Mexico against the PRI's candidate Enrique Peña Nieto, the "leader" in the polls. The demonstration was organized through social media. http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/05/20/ It was also against Televisa and TeleAzteca's manipulation of the polls.

[libertad2012]

05:03 PM on 05/19/2012

The problem is not Carlos Slim, the Mexican government should collect a higher tax on the electromagnetic spectrum used by Telmex to provide services, and promote competition in the sector.

[lightbulb10]

12:36 PM on 06/16/2012

Why don't they?

[freemex]

03:00 PM on 05/19/2012

Congratulations to Mr Carlos Slim, He and his father are an example of entrepreneurship and industriousness, through his common sense and results focused philanthropic initiatives he has improved the lives of many, his existence should be celebrated and followed

[mira chancleta]

07:26 PM on 05/19/2012

Congratulations?
For what?
Doing NOTHING to help his country as it flushes 1/3 of its population into the US to scrub toilets and mow lawns?
Oh yeah, he's a regular Gandhi!
You need to look beyond someone's bank book for their measure of humanity.

[Fran Jaime]

08:54 PM on 05/19/2012

You need to check the foundations he supports.

[Royce09]

09:37 PM on 05/18/2012

Go slim, I wish everyone were as lucky, God bless you.

[Fran Jaime]

06:51 PM on 05/18/2012

Does anyone one have information on this organization? I went to their site but it doesn't really explain much. It gave me the impression it's all around opposing Carlos Slim.

[Dario Gonzalez Arquieta]

03:54 PM on 05/18/2012

As a Mexican GW student I have to say that Carlos Slim is not the problem. Yes, it sucks that I can only get reliable phone service one company, but he should not be held accountable for that. It is the Mexican government that through corruption allows companies to grow beyond what economic theory dictates. Carlos Slims has done what any other business man would do. It's analogous to the Occupy Wall Street movement, it is not Wall Street, it is the government who has failed to act as a referee in an economy that demands efficiency and competition.

[Fran Jaime]

01:11 AM on 05/19/2012

I'm Mexican, living in Mexico and I'm not getting this organization at all. It's called two countries one voice but it's actually people from the US, 1 Mexican organization in the US and a couple of Salvadorean and Honduran organizations. I also don't get why they blame the whole economic situation on him when it's not only corruption but NAFTA that have demolished it. I wonder who these people REALLY are.

[mira chancleta]

07:28 PM on 05/19/2012

YOU don't get it?
Oh my god, is it December 21st already?
Quick let me call out for more Mayan Pizza!

[MexicanDude]

12:02 PM on 05/18/2012

Carso's 10 management principles, from http://www.carlosslim.com/act_empresarial.html

- Set up simple structures with minimum hierarchy. Develop your own people and promote internally to executive management. Be fast and flexible in your decision making. These are the small company values that make large companies large.
- Stay thrifty in the good times; it will capitalize you and accelerate your company development, and it avoids bitter adjustments in lean times.
- Stay modern, grow, teach, improve quality, simplify and constantly improve productive processes. Reduce expenses.
- Don't feel "big" in your small pen. Don't limit your company to the needs of current management. Avoid investing in non-producing assets.
- Work together, keep objectives clear, know your available resources.
- Any money that leaves the company evaporates. Reinvest dividends.
- Be optimistic, firm and patient.
- Every time is a good time if you know how to work and have the tools to do so.
- Always keep in mind that we'll leave this world naked anyway. We can only do things while we're alive; the businessman is just a temporary manager of wealth.

[Sonia Vivar]

01:32 PM on 05/18/2012

Impressive... to bad he doesn't operate his business that way !

[MexicanDude]

04:54 PM on 05/18/2012

Have you worked at any of the companies he manages directly? Last I knew he only managed the holding company anymore, and no longer even directly. Each of his managers has more or less full range of their own operations, and I'm sure they are variably successful at accomplishing the vision.

Not defending him, just wondering if you have any first-hand information, and which company you were familiar with. Very large companies can be like cities, with good and bad neighborhoods.

Note as well that he said very little about customer service. ;-)

[UnspoiledGenYer]

10:49 AM on 05/18/2012

Cue The O'Jays "For the Love of Money". Generally sums it up pretty nicely smh no matter whose fault it is, it's DISGUSTING.

[ItsJustLo]

10:47 AM on 05/18/2012

As a student graduating from GW during this weekend's ceremony, I'm disappointed that a day I've worked 4 years for could possibly be overshadowed by protesters. This is supposed to be a day of celebration!

[mira chancleta]

07:34 PM on 05/19/2012

...you are right but your lament would be better directed at the thoughtless, pc-fixated graduation activities committee that dreamed up the UNINSPIRED idea to bring someone of this ilk to smear your graduation rather than someone who could lay REAL claim to a life lived with integrity and humanity to inspire you into the future...GW needs some real administrative adjustments before next graduation...who knows next year, mayb OJ will be there to lecture on "Social Justice"...

[iamwhateva]

10:43 AM on 05/18/2012

So a pro capitalist country is opposing a guy who made money through capitalism. I think they are just angry that he is not American.

[Wolfie77]

08:09 PM on 05/18/2012

Who is the "pro capitalist country" you're referring to?

[Judane]

09:54 AM on 05/18/2012

So why aren't the 1%ers calling on the Mexican gov't to 'confiscate' his money to pay Mexican citzens so they won't have to cross the border into the US to work?

[Fran Jaime]

04:07 PM on 05/18/2012

He once offered to pay the complete Mexican National debt.

[mira chancleta]

07:36 PM on 05/19/2012

...and what happened his hookers needed more Botox?

[KaliKross]

12:45 AM on 05/19/2012

He's too busy turning a profit from the phone cards purchased by illegals.

[truth ideas]

09:12 AM on 05/18/2012

Carlos Slims is not his fault to be rich, it is the Mexican government and the politics that support the Mexican government, those are the ones who supports monopolies, there are plenty of examples of monopolies in mexico, thanks to the government and the rich people who support them

[Eddie Martinez]

09:00 AM on 05/18/2012

Trickle Down Theory???

[Sonia Vivar]

01:39 PM on 05/18/2012

Trickle down......are u kidding ,not with this guy. He's going after the lint in peoples pockets, which he'll use to make pillows.

[Eddie Martinez]

09:14 AM on 05/19/2012

You must be referring to the people on 'Wall Street'

[mira chancleta]

07:36 PM on 05/19/2012

...down the leg of your pants?