Hundreds of people streamed onto Avenida Reforma from Mexico City's Museum of Anthropology --proof that Mexico's peace and justice movement still has the capacity to draw citizens out to protest the drug war. Protesters demanded that the Mexican Congress throw out proposed reforms to the National Security Law that would provide the legal underpinning for continuing the war on drugs strategy launched by President Felipe Calderon in December of 2006.
Movement leader, poet Javier Sicilia, marched alongside the relatives of victims in white t-shirts, followed by university students, indigenous groups, an especially lively group of jaraneros (playing a traditional, guitar-like instrument called a jarana), citizens and press. The trail of several thousand marchers snaked up the downtown avenues to the gates of the Presidential residence, Los Pinos. Several veterans of Mexico City demonstrations commented that security forces had never allowed them to approach the entry to Los Pinos, let alone with so little security.
But this is a movement that has defined itself as a interlocutor, rather than an adversary, to power. The congregation listened quietly to Julian LeBaron's warning against complacency, in his now-familiar, lilting Chihuahua accent. He recounted the events leading up to the kidnapping of his little brother, and the murder of his brother and his friend, addressing the crowd from atop a truck. His speech was followed by the customary moment of silence led by Sicilia. The usual jeers and anti-government slogans were absent.
The march then wound back down the hill and came to a stop in front of the Senate building, after being joined by hundreds of marchers from the "No Mas Sangre" movement. Both houses of Congress have approved the reforms "in general" (meaning specifics will still be debated). Since the reforms were the main subject of the dialogue with the movement, initial approval of the measures in the midst of dialogue was viewed as a betrayal of terms. However, Sicilia announced that a liaison committee will renew dialogue with the legislature this Wednesday.
The Movement stated its objections to the law in a flier:
1) It legalizes presidential decisions to attack insecurity with repressive measures that react to symptoms rather than address causes;
2) It is unconstitutional since it redistributes public security and national security functions among the Armed Forces and the police without adequately defining both.
3) The Armed Forces would be allowed to coordinate public safety activities when the constitution clearly only allows them to participate as auxiliaries in crisis situations.
4) The incorporation of military personnel in public safety opens the door to substitute local and state authorities for federal Armed Forces and security personnel, which affects states' rights and sovereignty.
5) Federal security officials can declare states of exception, which permit authoritarian government.
7) Military personnel could be tried in civil courts only when the the military decides it is appropriate.
My analysis of the National Security Law coincides with this analysis. I believe there are very serious flaws not just in the particulars of the reforms but in the entire framework. Experts within Mexico, including the National Autonomous University (UNAM), have been working on models of a law of citizen and human security that replaces the Bushian concept of national security, and takes a look at the causes of insecurity in communities and long-lasting solutions. By promoting Calderón's out-dated and repressive National Security law, with its obvious similarities to the Patriot Act in the suspension of civil liberties, the Congress has pre-empted the valuable efforts of the citizenry and academic experts to devise a more democratic alternative.
Most of the event in front of the Senate didn't focus on the legal reforms to the National Security Law, but told the stories of the victims, by the victims. This has come to be the hallmark and the moral strength of the movement. The cases of assassinations, disappearances and abuses reflect an almost even split between suspected cartel involvement and security forces' involvement, among a large number of unknown causes since most cases have never been investigated. The common denominators are pain and frustration with "a bunch of corrupt judges", a legislature that "doesn't know what it's like to lose a son or daughter to this absurd violence" and government negligence "that is just the new way to cover up corruption".
Diana Gomez, an analyst with the Americas Program and a victim whose father, Jaime Gomez, was disappeared and murdered in Colombia, spoke of the links between Plan Colombia and Plan Mexico, or the Merida Initiative, imposed by the U.S. government. Her father, she noted, was killed in the context of the "Democratic Security" plan of the U.S. and Colombian governments.
"Colombia is not the model to follow", she warned. She pointed out that militarization under the pretext of the drug war in Colombia led to the death of her father and thousands of others, including the "false positives" killed by the military, with many more disappeared and displaced.
Diana is a leader of the organization Sons and Daughters for Remembering and Against Impunity. Her words as a victim, as an academic expert and in solidarity with the Mexican movement brought into focus the larger picture of the drug war. This is a model that benefits powerful interests at the expense of the people, especially the poor and rebellious. And it is a model that is being actively promoted by the U.S. government despite evidence of its failure to achieve its stated objectives.
As the dialogue is renewed and part of the Mexican movement engages Congress in a new round of dialogue, others are organizing public education and protest events around the construction of the U.S.-funded international police academy in Puebla, a Forum Against Militarization, and student discussions.
It will be interesting to see where the many initiatives for peace lead in Mexico's unprecedented protests against the drug war.
For now, the explosion of debate in the public arena is a major victory. Giving victims a voice and a sense of collective identity and support is a major victory. Rousing people from the paralysis caused by violent images devoid of social context is a major victory. Revealing U.S. interests in fueling a drug war that is not in the interests of the Mexican citizenry is a major victory.
As criticism of the drug war grows deeper so does the possibility to build non-violent alternatives. If the Mexican peace movement succeeds in stopping the drug war and reversing trends toward rising violence and human rights abuses, its communities wills suffer less bloodshed. And the rest of the world will have an example to point to, of how to reject military/police states in favor of security based on the guiding principles of human rights, citizen participation and strong democracy.
The MexicoBlog of the CIP Americas Program monitors and analyzes international press on Mexico with a focus on the US-backed War on Drugs in Mexico and the struggle in Mexico to strengthen the rule of law, justice and protection of human rights. Relevant political developments in both countries are also covered.
Showing posts with label plan mexico. Show all posts
Showing posts with label plan mexico. Show all posts
Aug 16, 2011
May 7, 2009
Mexican Civil Society and NGOs Speak Out Against US Militarization
Monica Wooters On May 6, 67 Mexican human rights organizations (all non-governmental organizations) along with several other Mexican organizations and individuals, made a call to end US support to the Mexican military in the war on drugs. The letter was addressed to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-NY), Sen. Judd Greg (R-NH) and Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) as well as Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI), Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS), Rep. David R. Obey (D-WI) and Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and interim ambassador to Mexico, Leslie Basset.
The letter come following the approval of 2009 appropriations for the controversial three year Merida Initiative which provides US funds to aid Mexican president Felipe Calderón’s war on drugs and just as new talks begin in Congress to nearly double those funds through the FY09 Appropriations Supplemental Request. The signatories cite major human rights violations perpetrated by the Mexican military as it has taken on the drug cartels, a role that is normally performed by the police forces. The letter states:
“The deployment of the Mexican Army to carry out public security tasks that legally correspond to the civilian police has brought with it a significant increase in human rights violations in the last two years, including extrajudicial executions, torture, arbitrary detentions and rape. In fact, the number of complaints for human rights violations committed by members of the armed forces registered by the National Human Rights Commission has increased six-fold during the last two years, reaching 1,230 in 2008.”The letter also refers to the responsibility of the US government:
“We respectfully request that the U.S. Congress and Department of State, in both the Merida Initiative as in other programs to support public security in Mexico, does not allocate funds or direct programs to the armed forces. We believe that a change of paradigm is needed.”Specifically mentioned root causes of the problem include inequality as well as lack of access to education and job opportunities.
Appropriations for the Merida Initiative in 2010 will be discussed in Congress shortly. Human rights groups in the United States Mexico
For further analysis of the Merida Initiative:
A Primer on Plan Mexico
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5204
Plan Mexico: Uphill battle will continue against failed model
Resources on Plan Mexico (Merida Initiative)
Oct 6, 2008
Join us at the Americas Social Forum in Guatemala
Three events in Guatemala City this week at the FSA:
If you can be in Guatemala for the Americas Social Forum (www.fsaguatemala.org) please come see our events, and pass along the information to friends/colleagues that might be in Guatemala for the Forum.
Plan Mexico/Merida Initiative
Oct. 9, 2-5pm, Auditorio EFEPMHungry for Justice: The Food Crisis
Remapping Latin America's Future
Oct. 10, 11-1, S10-201Recent related materials from the Americas Program:
Re-mapping Latin America's Future
Hungry for Justice: How the World Food System Fails the Poor
Sep 10, 2008
Chronicles from the Drug War #1: Who are the good guys?
It's confusing trying to keep track of the good guys and the bad guys in Mexico's all-out war against organized crime these days. Consider two news stories from the past few days alone:
1. Lorena González Hernández was arrested on Monday in relation to the kidnapping and murder of Fernando Martí, the 14 year old son of the founder of a chain of sports stores. So who is Lorena González? According to press reports and government statements, she's a federal police officer, working in--you guessed it--the kidnappings department. Not only that, she worked for years in the Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI) as an Interpol agent.
Who better than an insider to design a bust-proof operation?
Unfortunately, we're not talking about a Scorcese film here. The case has shaken the entire country due to its brutality(the boy's decomposing body was found in the trunk of a car weeks after the ransom was paid). Gonzalez's family members deny the charges and contradictions have emerged in government statements. But "Comandante Lore" is implicated as the person who stopped the Martí family car at a false police checkpoint, capturing Fernando, the driver (also murdered) and the bodyguard on July 4.
2. A shoot-out between federal police and army, and local police in Torreón Monday left several dead. But aren´t the police supposed to be fighting the bad guys and not each other? National newspapers report that allegedly a number of police officers on the Torreón payroll moonlighted as protection for the Gulf Cartel. The shoot-out began when federal forces set up a roadblock and captured presumed drug traffickers along with several police officers. Other municipal agents then attempted to free their partners and the shoot-out ensued. Over 30 local officers are under arrest.
These news stories are nothing new here in Mexico. What's important about them is the conclusions we draw. They leave little doubt that Mexican police forces on all levels--local, state and federal--are a rat's nest of corruption. Nobody denies that. And yet a truly thorough and committed effort to change the structure of the organizations has not even been designed. Instead these forces will received huge amounts of money from the Mexican and U.S. governments, as well as training that will no doubt be useful when they cross over.
When the lines between the good guys and the bad guys are as blurred as they are in the Mexican drug war, it's important to proceed with caution and an integral, long-term plan. This does not exist--not in the Merida Initiative or in the Mexican government's many rhetorical declarations of force. The Mexican budget includes an increase in the security budget of over 30%, mostly to confront traffickers while leaving many of the root causes of the violence untouched. Pouring weaponry and resources on the problem may only blur the lines further and accelerate the violence.
1. Lorena González Hernández was arrested on Monday in relation to the kidnapping and murder of Fernando Martí, the 14 year old son of the founder of a chain of sports stores. So who is Lorena González? According to press reports and government statements, she's a federal police officer, working in--you guessed it--the kidnappings department. Not only that, she worked for years in the Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI) as an Interpol agent.
Who better than an insider to design a bust-proof operation?
Unfortunately, we're not talking about a Scorcese film here. The case has shaken the entire country due to its brutality(the boy's decomposing body was found in the trunk of a car weeks after the ransom was paid). Gonzalez's family members deny the charges and contradictions have emerged in government statements. But "Comandante Lore" is implicated as the person who stopped the Martí family car at a false police checkpoint, capturing Fernando, the driver (also murdered) and the bodyguard on July 4.
2. A shoot-out between federal police and army, and local police in Torreón Monday left several dead. But aren´t the police supposed to be fighting the bad guys and not each other? National newspapers report that allegedly a number of police officers on the Torreón payroll moonlighted as protection for the Gulf Cartel. The shoot-out began when federal forces set up a roadblock and captured presumed drug traffickers along with several police officers. Other municipal agents then attempted to free their partners and the shoot-out ensued. Over 30 local officers are under arrest.
These news stories are nothing new here in Mexico. What's important about them is the conclusions we draw. They leave little doubt that Mexican police forces on all levels--local, state and federal--are a rat's nest of corruption. Nobody denies that. And yet a truly thorough and committed effort to change the structure of the organizations has not even been designed. Instead these forces will received huge amounts of money from the Mexican and U.S. governments, as well as training that will no doubt be useful when they cross over.
When the lines between the good guys and the bad guys are as blurred as they are in the Mexican drug war, it's important to proceed with caution and an integral, long-term plan. This does not exist--not in the Merida Initiative or in the Mexican government's many rhetorical declarations of force. The Mexican budget includes an increase in the security budget of over 30%, mostly to confront traffickers while leaving many of the root causes of the violence untouched. Pouring weaponry and resources on the problem may only blur the lines further and accelerate the violence.
Jul 16, 2008
Back to Oaxaca
I was in Oaxaca City last week for a workshop on the Security and Prosperity Partnership, Plan Mexico, privatization reforms to Social Security, and job insecurity. That sounds like a wide range of issues, and it is—especially considering the complexity of each one.
But that was the point—to give workers from the state a broad picture in which to understand what´s happening to them. It turned out to be one of those very fruitful gatherings where those of us who analyze “broad pictures” got a chance to work together with those who experience the worst consequences on a daily basis. The workshop was sponsored by the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras and Mujeres Sindicalistas (Women Union Members), bringing together Oaxaca maquiladora workers, state employees from the Health and Transportation departments, and teachers.
Being back in Oaxaca was a strange experience in itself. I had been back since the uprising but still the images burned into my mind were from late 2006 when federal troops were sent in to put down the teachers’ strike that spread into a popular uprising.
Then it was a city occupied by machine guns and fear. Where you’d turn a corner on a quaint colonial street and run into a row of shield-yielding, riot-geared cops. Where groups playing music or selling crafts shared the sidewalk with heavily armed federal police looking like they didn’t quite know what they were supposed to be doing.
If those images are burned into my memory, they’re branded into the flesh of the participants of the movement. But despite lingering trauma from the torture, repression, assassination and imprisonment they faced, Oaxacans continue to fight back. Now the tourists have returned en force and the hated Governor Ulises Ruiz repeats ad nauseum that everything is back to normal. The crimes committed during and after the uprising have gone unpunished and in most cases the government has failed to carry out even a pretense of an investigation. Given the lack of response from the state government, the Mexican Supreme Court agreed to form a commission to investigate what happened. Oaxaca will be yet another test case of the highest court’s commitment to justice when entrenched political interests are involved.
Apparently “normal” in Oaxaca means a fresh onslaught of offensives. The women workers discussed the way privatization of social security is cutting back their hard-earned pensions and benefits, intensification of work in the maquiladoras means obligatory overtime under the threat of closure, President Calderon’s labor reform—on his checklist of neoliberal “reforms” after social security and privatization of PEMEX—would create “flexible” working conditions and further erode job security and working conditions. The Plan Mexico discussion was lively as participants asked about the plan and discussed the already dire situation of human rights violations in the state.
We just put up a new Human Rights section of the website that contains a series on Oaxaca. These are papers presented at the “After the Barricades” conference sponsored by Simon Fraser University a few months back. They cover many aspects of the conflict and its aftermath: the viewpoint of surrounding rural communities, the linkage between freedom of expression and rights the breakdown of the social compact in Mexico and the dynamics of the conflict.
We’ll be posting more there over the next few days, so check back in as documents from the Oaxaca Women’s Coalition, Section 22 of the Education Workers Union and the Human Rights Commission report go up.
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5364
Jul 9, 2008
Mexican Torture Training Raises Questions About U.S. Military/Police Aid
Two videos of a torture-training session with the police force of León, Guanajuato shocked the Mexican public last week and raised serious questions about human rights under the Calderon offensive against organized crime. For readers with strong stomachs, the videos can be found here.
The videos leaked by the local paper El Heraldo de León hit the media just one day after President Bush signed into law a $400 aid package to support President Felipe Calderon’s war on drugs and organized crime. The tapes show graphic images of torture techniques used on victims who city officials claim were volunteers from the police force. In one, a debilitated victim is insulted and dragged through his own vomit. In another, a victim receives shots of mineral water up the nose and has his head forced into a pit of “rats and excrement.”
It´s old news that torture exists in Mexico. The videos were especially shocking in a society relatively inured to human rights violations for two reasons: they prove without a doubt that torture is not an anomaly in the country, but an institutionalized practice; and they reveal the role of foreign private security companies.
1) The graphic images led to public outcry throughout the country and made it into the international press. Compounding the outrage at the torture scenes, Leon officials responded by defending the training program and refusing to suspend it. As people across the country watched in horror, the mayor and police chief claimed the practices do not violate human rights and are necessary to fight organized crime.
When reminded that torture is prohibited under Mexican law, the officials backtracked and claimed they were teaching specialized police officers to withstand torture techniques rather than dish them out. But it’s obvious watching the video that this is a Torture 101 course. Trainers bark orders at police officers on how to humiliate and “break” the victims.
What has many people worried is that the war on drugs launched by Felipe Calderon--and explicitly endorsed and supported by the U.S. government through aid to the Mexican police and military--is sending a message to Mexican security forces that “anything goes.” These tactics are reprehensible, yet they are being presented as acceptable in the context of a war mentality.
2) The second point of concern is that the video clips show foreign private security companies teaching torture interrogation techniques to Mexican security forces. Kristin Bricker, an investigative report from the online newspaper NarcoNews, uncovered evidence that indicates the trainers are from a Miami-based private security company called “Risks, Incorporated.”
The company, incorporated in London, boasts “Psychological torture is the main tactic used in professional interrogations, it works and leaves no physical marks. We do this interrogation technique and others in some courses to show how easy it is to break a hostage and we're being nice!”
The images raise serious questions about the direction of U.S. aid under Plan Mexico (Merida Initiative). The Plan includes an unspecified amount for contracts to U.S. private security companies. As the webpage of Risks Incorporated shows, these kind of courses are the dead opposite of human rights training.
We don’t know if other companies carry out similar courses. But private security companies under contract from the State Department and the Dept. of defense have come under heavy fire since the massacre of 17 Iraqi civilians in which Blackwater employees were involved and the lawsuits against security firms for torture in Abu Ghraib. Even Department of Defense officials have complained that they have “quick trigger fingers,” “act like cowboys” and “lack accountability.” A military intelligence officer referred to them as “essentially mercenary forces”--the term commonly used throughout Latin America to describe U.S. private security forces.
To make matters worse, these firms seem to operating in an international legal void. A CRS report to Congress states “It is possible that some contractors may remain outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, civil or military, for improper conduct in Iraq.” This lack of legal accountability extends to their actions elsewhere as well. The UN Mercenaries Working Group has noted the lack of regulation worldwide of these growing forces.
In Mexico, despite legal reforms that no longer allow testimony obtained through torture as evidence, the practice is widespread. When we took testimonies in Chiapas, Oaxaca and Atenco in February as part of the International Civil Commission on Human Rights, I heard many cases of beatings, scaldings and sexual abuse in police custody. These cases, and these victims, remain beneath the radar of the press and public opinion, and were ignored by U.S. legislators quick to please Latino voters.
The Mexican government recognized only 72 cases for the entire period 2001-2006. When torture cases are prosecuted at all, they often wind up being prosecuted as lesser charges. According to its website, the Human Rights Commission has issued only three recommendations regarding torture since 1995. Many victims who have suffered torture at the hands of the authorities are understandably reluctant to report the violations to the same governments whose security forces or agencies were responsible for the incidents.
Mexican human rights groups report that violations have been on the rise in Mexico since the drug war sent over 25,000 soldiers out into the streets and emboldened police forces. In its annual report, the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center notes “a regression in respect and protection of fundamental rights.” Since most of the aid from Congress goes to the police and military, with another large chunk for domestic spying operations, it’s fairly easy to predict that instead of cleaning up Mexican security forces in their fight against organized crime, we will see the empowerment of impunity.
Women, indigenous peoples and opposition leaders are the most common targets. Since Plan Mexico also funds equipment for tracking Central American migrants in Mexico and further militarizing the Mexican border, it can be assumed that migrants will also be the victims of increased human rights violations.
Some Washington human rights groups have claimed that Plan Mexico will help Mexico reform and eliminate illegal practices such as torture. But the aid package funds the same forces that commit those atrocities with virtual impunity.
The problem for Mexico in reaching a higher level of respect for human rights is a political--not a legal or economic--problem. All indications show that the Calderon model of militarized control, supported by the Bush model of counter-terrorism security embodied in Plan Mexico, will only make it worse.
A Primer on Plan Mexico
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5204
Drug Trafficking, Violence and Repression in Chihuahua
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5218
The videos leaked by the local paper El Heraldo de León hit the media just one day after President Bush signed into law a $400 aid package to support President Felipe Calderon’s war on drugs and organized crime. The tapes show graphic images of torture techniques used on victims who city officials claim were volunteers from the police force. In one, a debilitated victim is insulted and dragged through his own vomit. In another, a victim receives shots of mineral water up the nose and has his head forced into a pit of “rats and excrement.”
It´s old news that torture exists in Mexico. The videos were especially shocking in a society relatively inured to human rights violations for two reasons: they prove without a doubt that torture is not an anomaly in the country, but an institutionalized practice; and they reveal the role of foreign private security companies.
1) The graphic images led to public outcry throughout the country and made it into the international press. Compounding the outrage at the torture scenes, Leon officials responded by defending the training program and refusing to suspend it. As people across the country watched in horror, the mayor and police chief claimed the practices do not violate human rights and are necessary to fight organized crime.
When reminded that torture is prohibited under Mexican law, the officials backtracked and claimed they were teaching specialized police officers to withstand torture techniques rather than dish them out. But it’s obvious watching the video that this is a Torture 101 course. Trainers bark orders at police officers on how to humiliate and “break” the victims.
What has many people worried is that the war on drugs launched by Felipe Calderon--and explicitly endorsed and supported by the U.S. government through aid to the Mexican police and military--is sending a message to Mexican security forces that “anything goes.” These tactics are reprehensible, yet they are being presented as acceptable in the context of a war mentality.
2) The second point of concern is that the video clips show foreign private security companies teaching torture interrogation techniques to Mexican security forces. Kristin Bricker, an investigative report from the online newspaper NarcoNews, uncovered evidence that indicates the trainers are from a Miami-based private security company called “Risks, Incorporated.”
The company, incorporated in London, boasts “Psychological torture is the main tactic used in professional interrogations, it works and leaves no physical marks. We do this interrogation technique and others in some courses to show how easy it is to break a hostage and we're being nice!”
The images raise serious questions about the direction of U.S. aid under Plan Mexico (Merida Initiative). The Plan includes an unspecified amount for contracts to U.S. private security companies. As the webpage of Risks Incorporated shows, these kind of courses are the dead opposite of human rights training.
We don’t know if other companies carry out similar courses. But private security companies under contract from the State Department and the Dept. of defense have come under heavy fire since the massacre of 17 Iraqi civilians in which Blackwater employees were involved and the lawsuits against security firms for torture in Abu Ghraib. Even Department of Defense officials have complained that they have “quick trigger fingers,” “act like cowboys” and “lack accountability.” A military intelligence officer referred to them as “essentially mercenary forces”--the term commonly used throughout Latin America to describe U.S. private security forces.
To make matters worse, these firms seem to operating in an international legal void. A CRS report to Congress states “It is possible that some contractors may remain outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, civil or military, for improper conduct in Iraq.” This lack of legal accountability extends to their actions elsewhere as well. The UN Mercenaries Working Group has noted the lack of regulation worldwide of these growing forces.
In Mexico, despite legal reforms that no longer allow testimony obtained through torture as evidence, the practice is widespread. When we took testimonies in Chiapas, Oaxaca and Atenco in February as part of the International Civil Commission on Human Rights, I heard many cases of beatings, scaldings and sexual abuse in police custody. These cases, and these victims, remain beneath the radar of the press and public opinion, and were ignored by U.S. legislators quick to please Latino voters.
The Mexican government recognized only 72 cases for the entire period 2001-2006. When torture cases are prosecuted at all, they often wind up being prosecuted as lesser charges. According to its website, the Human Rights Commission has issued only three recommendations regarding torture since 1995. Many victims who have suffered torture at the hands of the authorities are understandably reluctant to report the violations to the same governments whose security forces or agencies were responsible for the incidents.
Mexican human rights groups report that violations have been on the rise in Mexico since the drug war sent over 25,000 soldiers out into the streets and emboldened police forces. In its annual report, the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center notes “a regression in respect and protection of fundamental rights.” Since most of the aid from Congress goes to the police and military, with another large chunk for domestic spying operations, it’s fairly easy to predict that instead of cleaning up Mexican security forces in their fight against organized crime, we will see the empowerment of impunity.
Women, indigenous peoples and opposition leaders are the most common targets. Since Plan Mexico also funds equipment for tracking Central American migrants in Mexico and further militarizing the Mexican border, it can be assumed that migrants will also be the victims of increased human rights violations.
Some Washington human rights groups have claimed that Plan Mexico will help Mexico reform and eliminate illegal practices such as torture. But the aid package funds the same forces that commit those atrocities with virtual impunity.
The problem for Mexico in reaching a higher level of respect for human rights is a political--not a legal or economic--problem. All indications show that the Calderon model of militarized control, supported by the Bush model of counter-terrorism security embodied in Plan Mexico, will only make it worse.
A Primer on Plan Mexico
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5204
Drug Trafficking, Violence and Repression in Chihuahua
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5218
Jun 30, 2008
Plan Mexico: Uphill battle will continue against failed model
On June 26, after months of intense manoeuvering in Washington, the U.S. Senate passed the final version of the “Merida Initiative” and the President subsequently signed it into law.
The date will be remembered as a turning point in the U.S.-Mexico relationship, not just because it increases U.S. aid to Mexico ten-fold but because it militarizes the bilateral relationship just when sensitive issues had a chance to be worked out through political and diplomatic channels. Given the security paradigm of Plan Mexico—to the exclusion of other aspects of the bilateral relationship--, the State Department will take a backseat following presentation of a report that attests to Mexico’s efforts to obey its own laws, and the Pentagon will take the reins.
The human rights conditions that were first added by Congress and then mostly withdrawn when the Mexican government rejected them, sent up a smokescreen that prevented real analysis and debate on what is popularly known as Plan Mexico. That ultimately futile discussion also sidelined the voices of organizations that urged Congress to oppose the measure: the ten-million strong AFL-CIO and its 1.7 million-person Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, non-governmental organizations including CIP Americas Policy Program and Global Exchange, religious organizations including Witness for Peace, Tikkun and the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, and grassroots activist organizations including the Latin American Solidarity Coalition, Alliance for Democracy, CISPES and Friends of Brad Will.
Much has been made of the $73.5 million appropriated for institutional reform of the justice and penal systems. This compares to $112 million allocated for 2008 under the original Bush proposal. But as I stated in the Primer on Plan Mexico, even this section raises serious questions of efficacy and appropriateness. Mexico doesn’t need U.S. training to increase “rule of law” so much as it needs political will and pressure from Mexican civil society. If Mexican grassroots leaders who have traditionally exercised this pressure feel threatened by repercussions from empowered security forces, instead of progress we will see regression.
Mexican legislators and jurists have a point in noting that the U.S. government has few credentials to establish it as the sole arbitrator of reform in Mexico. Laws are different and the United States faces serious problems with its own justice and penal systems, especially in the area of drug enforcement where racial discrimination and police extortion and brutality continue to be common. If the Plan had included an extension of sharing “best practices” between police forces based on actual experiences, this section might make sense. As it is, it imposes U.S. equipment and notions with no proven track record.
Part of the strategy for approving Plan Mexico was to portray it as merely a bilateral counter-narcotics plan. This was never the case. The Plan betrays its much more ambitious aims. Note the words of John Negroponte to the OAS General Assembly: “With full funding, the Merida Initiative will provide substantial support over several years to train and equip Mexican and Central American law enforcement. We are committed to this initiative because no country in the hemisphere can be safe from organized crime, gangs, and narco-terrorism unless we are all safe.”
The use of the phrase “narco-terrorism” is not surprising but it constitutes a bad omen for Mexico. When drug trafficking is considered synonymous with terrorism, it opens the door to suspension of civil liberties, pulls the country into the Bush counterterrorism strategy, and obscures the real nature and roots of the problem. Negroponte’s remarks also reflect the removal of the security locus from the national to the regional realm, where the United States calls the shots. In this context, fears of violation of national sovereignty are not exaggerated.
While accusing the opposition of being insensitive to drug-related violence, proponents of Plan Mexico paved the way for an aid package that will likely increase violence and bring it closer to home as the drug war extends to opposition targets like it did under Plan Colombia. It will also fail, just as other applications of the drug war model have failed.
I would like to be wrong on this, but the signs are already there—human rights violations have increased precipitously since President Calderon launched the militarization of Mexican society in response to the violence of the drug cartels. The Merida Initiative applauds this strategy and explicitly aims to reinforce and broaden security measures. It adds U.S. espionage equipment and firepower while providing no significant funding or role for civil society measures or protection of civil liberties. Violence fought with violence has led to nearly double the drug-related deaths this year alone and multiple attacks on grassroots leaders, unarmed civilians, Zapatista communities and women by security forces.
The media focused all of its attention on the counter-narcotics “shared responsibility” aspect of the plan. Most reporters apparently never bothered to read the entire plan and eagerly accepted the spoon-fed connection between the violence on the border they had been covering and the ostensibly benevolent response of the U.S. government embodied in Plan Mexico.
Since its passage, they have reacted with mixed messages and contradictions. The New York Times titled its May 28 article “U.S. Includes Rights Language in Mexico Anti-Drug Aid” as if the final military/police aid package were a major advance for human rights. The Washington Post noted just the opposite, sub-titling its article “U.S. Lawmakers responded to Counterparts’ Objections” and stating that “The U.S. Senate approved the aid--known as the Merida Initiative--late Thursday after stripping conditions that Mexican officials said would have infringed on their sovereignty, particularly on the issue of human rights.” The Mexican press nearly unanimously agreed that Mexico had “won” the conditions battle, with headlines like “Mexico Beats Back U.S. Congress” (El Universal, the largest daily). The El Universal article went on to quote Mexico’s ambassador to the United States Arturo Sarukhan stating, “There is no type of explicit restriction or limitation on the transference of resources and military equipment.” (We’ll talk more about the controversial conditions in this blog tomorrow).
The task we have before is to monitor impact and stop the plan in the next appropriations round. Not condition it, not tweak it, but end it. There are many constructive ways in which an aid package to Mexico could be designed that would increase security and long-term development and human security. Many people were working on drafting legislation that responds to these needs from a civilian point of view until the process was so tragically detoured by Plan Mexico.
It will be an uphill battle to defeat later stages of Plan Mexico. The plan has no clear benchmarks for evaluation. In the case of Plan Colombia, even though studies demonstrate its failure in decreasing the production and flow of illegal drugs it continues to be funded. In both Mexico and Colombia, support has to do with creating a strong U.S. military presence in these countries—a misguided strategy for increasing U.S. influence in the context of Latin America’s widespread rejection of the Bush national security strategy and free trade agreements. Also, defense companies and information technology companies that benefit handsomely from the allocations will lobby heavily.
Moreover, at the recent meeting of Plan Puebla-Panama (PPP)—supposedly a “development and integration project”--President Calderon praised the Merida Initiative and announced he will work to “build mechanisms that broaden the aid to Central American and Caribbean nations…” Backed up by Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe, Calderon’s inclusion of Plan Mexico and the security agenda as the first point in his statement on the renewed PPP made it clear that the rightwing governments in the hemisphere have every intention of “securitizing” the hemispheric agenda, applying military models to public security problems with the generous help of U.S. taxpayer dollars. This path follows the evolution of NAFTA into a “White House-led” regional security plan under the Security and Prosperity Partnership. In its wake, the root problems facing Mexico—increased drug use, poverty, the fall of real wages, loss of rural livelihoods and emigration, corruption and erosion of the rule of law—have been pushed aside.
For more information:
Resource Page on Plan Mexico: http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5118
The date will be remembered as a turning point in the U.S.-Mexico relationship, not just because it increases U.S. aid to Mexico ten-fold but because it militarizes the bilateral relationship just when sensitive issues had a chance to be worked out through political and diplomatic channels. Given the security paradigm of Plan Mexico—to the exclusion of other aspects of the bilateral relationship--, the State Department will take a backseat following presentation of a report that attests to Mexico’s efforts to obey its own laws, and the Pentagon will take the reins.
The human rights conditions that were first added by Congress and then mostly withdrawn when the Mexican government rejected them, sent up a smokescreen that prevented real analysis and debate on what is popularly known as Plan Mexico. That ultimately futile discussion also sidelined the voices of organizations that urged Congress to oppose the measure: the ten-million strong AFL-CIO and its 1.7 million-person Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, non-governmental organizations including CIP Americas Policy Program and Global Exchange, religious organizations including Witness for Peace, Tikkun and the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, and grassroots activist organizations including the Latin American Solidarity Coalition, Alliance for Democracy, CISPES and Friends of Brad Will.
Much has been made of the $73.5 million appropriated for institutional reform of the justice and penal systems. This compares to $112 million allocated for 2008 under the original Bush proposal. But as I stated in the Primer on Plan Mexico, even this section raises serious questions of efficacy and appropriateness. Mexico doesn’t need U.S. training to increase “rule of law” so much as it needs political will and pressure from Mexican civil society. If Mexican grassroots leaders who have traditionally exercised this pressure feel threatened by repercussions from empowered security forces, instead of progress we will see regression.
Mexican legislators and jurists have a point in noting that the U.S. government has few credentials to establish it as the sole arbitrator of reform in Mexico. Laws are different and the United States faces serious problems with its own justice and penal systems, especially in the area of drug enforcement where racial discrimination and police extortion and brutality continue to be common. If the Plan had included an extension of sharing “best practices” between police forces based on actual experiences, this section might make sense. As it is, it imposes U.S. equipment and notions with no proven track record.
Part of the strategy for approving Plan Mexico was to portray it as merely a bilateral counter-narcotics plan. This was never the case. The Plan betrays its much more ambitious aims. Note the words of John Negroponte to the OAS General Assembly: “With full funding, the Merida Initiative will provide substantial support over several years to train and equip Mexican and Central American law enforcement. We are committed to this initiative because no country in the hemisphere can be safe from organized crime, gangs, and narco-terrorism unless we are all safe.”
The use of the phrase “narco-terrorism” is not surprising but it constitutes a bad omen for Mexico. When drug trafficking is considered synonymous with terrorism, it opens the door to suspension of civil liberties, pulls the country into the Bush counterterrorism strategy, and obscures the real nature and roots of the problem. Negroponte’s remarks also reflect the removal of the security locus from the national to the regional realm, where the United States calls the shots. In this context, fears of violation of national sovereignty are not exaggerated.
While accusing the opposition of being insensitive to drug-related violence, proponents of Plan Mexico paved the way for an aid package that will likely increase violence and bring it closer to home as the drug war extends to opposition targets like it did under Plan Colombia. It will also fail, just as other applications of the drug war model have failed.
I would like to be wrong on this, but the signs are already there—human rights violations have increased precipitously since President Calderon launched the militarization of Mexican society in response to the violence of the drug cartels. The Merida Initiative applauds this strategy and explicitly aims to reinforce and broaden security measures. It adds U.S. espionage equipment and firepower while providing no significant funding or role for civil society measures or protection of civil liberties. Violence fought with violence has led to nearly double the drug-related deaths this year alone and multiple attacks on grassroots leaders, unarmed civilians, Zapatista communities and women by security forces.
The media focused all of its attention on the counter-narcotics “shared responsibility” aspect of the plan. Most reporters apparently never bothered to read the entire plan and eagerly accepted the spoon-fed connection between the violence on the border they had been covering and the ostensibly benevolent response of the U.S. government embodied in Plan Mexico.
Since its passage, they have reacted with mixed messages and contradictions. The New York Times titled its May 28 article “U.S. Includes Rights Language in Mexico Anti-Drug Aid” as if the final military/police aid package were a major advance for human rights. The Washington Post noted just the opposite, sub-titling its article “U.S. Lawmakers responded to Counterparts’ Objections” and stating that “The U.S. Senate approved the aid--known as the Merida Initiative--late Thursday after stripping conditions that Mexican officials said would have infringed on their sovereignty, particularly on the issue of human rights.” The Mexican press nearly unanimously agreed that Mexico had “won” the conditions battle, with headlines like “Mexico Beats Back U.S. Congress” (El Universal, the largest daily). The El Universal article went on to quote Mexico’s ambassador to the United States Arturo Sarukhan stating, “There is no type of explicit restriction or limitation on the transference of resources and military equipment.” (We’ll talk more about the controversial conditions in this blog tomorrow).
The task we have before is to monitor impact and stop the plan in the next appropriations round. Not condition it, not tweak it, but end it. There are many constructive ways in which an aid package to Mexico could be designed that would increase security and long-term development and human security. Many people were working on drafting legislation that responds to these needs from a civilian point of view until the process was so tragically detoured by Plan Mexico.
It will be an uphill battle to defeat later stages of Plan Mexico. The plan has no clear benchmarks for evaluation. In the case of Plan Colombia, even though studies demonstrate its failure in decreasing the production and flow of illegal drugs it continues to be funded. In both Mexico and Colombia, support has to do with creating a strong U.S. military presence in these countries—a misguided strategy for increasing U.S. influence in the context of Latin America’s widespread rejection of the Bush national security strategy and free trade agreements. Also, defense companies and information technology companies that benefit handsomely from the allocations will lobby heavily.
Moreover, at the recent meeting of Plan Puebla-Panama (PPP)—supposedly a “development and integration project”--President Calderon praised the Merida Initiative and announced he will work to “build mechanisms that broaden the aid to Central American and Caribbean nations…” Backed up by Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe, Calderon’s inclusion of Plan Mexico and the security agenda as the first point in his statement on the renewed PPP made it clear that the rightwing governments in the hemisphere have every intention of “securitizing” the hemispheric agenda, applying military models to public security problems with the generous help of U.S. taxpayer dollars. This path follows the evolution of NAFTA into a “White House-led” regional security plan under the Security and Prosperity Partnership. In its wake, the root problems facing Mexico—increased drug use, poverty, the fall of real wages, loss of rural livelihoods and emigration, corruption and erosion of the rule of law—have been pushed aside.
For more information:
Resource Page on Plan Mexico: http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5118
Mar 4, 2008
Defeat Plan Mexico
Defeat Plan Mexico is now a group on Facebook.
Much concern about U.S. military assistance to Mexico has arisen surrounding the Merida Initiative, widely known as Plan Mexico. Find out more about this plan and how you can urge your congressional representatives to speak out against human rights violations in Mexico that go unpunished.
Listen to an informative talk by Laura Carlsen here to learn more about it:
http://www.radio4all.net/pub/files/knash@igc.org/123-1-20080302-planmexicontl.mp3
Anyone can become a member of Facebook and search the group to become a member and receive updates, or stay tuned to this blog.
Related Americas Policy Program Articles:
Plan Mexico and the Billion-Dollar Drug Deal
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4611
Plan Mexico
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4684
Friends of Brad Will Plan Mexico site (has a great video)
http://www.friendsofbradwill.org/category/plan-mexico/
If you are interested in a speaking engagement on the topic to educate the public, contact us (202) 536-2649 or americas@ciponline.org and we can arrange phone interviews and personal appearances.
Much concern about U.S. military assistance to Mexico has arisen surrounding the Merida Initiative, widely known as Plan Mexico. Find out more about this plan and how you can urge your congressional representatives to speak out against human rights violations in Mexico that go unpunished.
Listen to an informative talk by Laura Carlsen here to learn more about it:
http://www.radio4all.net/pub/files/knash@igc.org/123-1-20080302-planmexicontl.mp3
Anyone can become a member of Facebook and search the group to become a member and receive updates, or stay tuned to this blog.
Related Americas Policy Program Articles:
Plan Mexico and the Billion-Dollar Drug Deal
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4611
Plan Mexico
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4684
Friends of Brad Will Plan Mexico site (has a great video)
http://www.friendsofbradwill.org/category/plan-mexico/
If you are interested in a speaking engagement on the topic to educate the public, contact us (202) 536-2649 or americas@ciponline.org and we can arrange phone interviews and personal appearances.
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