The US House of Representatives voted 311-106 on June 10 to authorize $1.6 billion over three years for the Merida Initiative, a project ostensibly aiding the fight against drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America. The measure won't be finalized until the Senate passes its own version and the two chambers work out their differences and send the authorization on to President George W. Bush, who is expected to sign it. The House version authorizes spending $1.1 billion for Mexico, $405 million for Central America and $74 million for efforts by the US government to slow down the flow of illegal weapons from the US to Mexico. Mexico's share breaks down into $780 million for enforcement, including helicopters and new technology, and $330 million for programs to improve the rule of law and the Mexican judicial system. (La Jornada [2], June 11 from correspondent)
Many US unionists and human rights activists oppose the initiative, which they call "Plan Mexico" to point out its similarities to Plan Colombia, through which the US has heavily funded the Colombian military. Human rights advocates say the program will enrich US defense contractors—through the purchase of Bell helicopters, CASA maritime patrol planes and surveillance software—while endangering Mexican civilians, especially political dissidents. The project allocates no money for drug treatment and rehabilitation, which advocates say are necessary to address the root causes of drug use in the US. (Truthout [3], US, June 13) (Activists from the group Friends of Brad Will protested the measure at a congressional hearing in February; Brad Will was a New York-based independent killed while covering protests in Oaxaca, Mexico—see Update [4], Feb. 10.)
The New York Times also objects to the plan, but principally because the "timid assistance package proposed by the Bush administration and pared down by Congress" is "too small." "Both governments need to work, urgently, to salvage the aid package," an editorial warned. (NYT [5], June 4)
Mexican Congress members have raised objections to the Merida Initiative because of conditions the US Senate wants to impose requiring monitoring of human rights violations by Mexican security forces. At the 47th Mexico-US Inter-Parliamentary Meeting, which ended on June 8 in Monterrey in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, legislators from the ruling center-right National Action Party (PAN) and the formerly ruling centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) expressed concern that these conditions violated Mexican sovereignty. Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) had a letter from Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who heads the Senate Appropriations Committee's State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee, suggesting that the final version will be modified to address these concerns. (LJ, June 9)
Mexican activists also oppose the Merida Initiative, which was negotiated by the administrations of Bush and Mexican president Felipe Calderon Hinojosa of the PAN. The Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC) called the opposition in the Mexican Congress "an excellent signal that authoritarian initiatives between the executives of the two countries are in their death agony." Retired general Jose Francisco Gallardo, who served eight years in prison for criticizing the Mexican army, said the Merida Initiative was part of a "covert maneuver by the US so that through the militarization of the political and economic structures and the annexation of the army, it can appropriate the country's energy resources." (LJ, June 9)
From Weekly News Update on the Americas [6], June 15
See our last posts on Mexico's narco wars [7] and Plan Mexico [8].
