Read: Plan Mexico Unveiled

Lunes~ Diciembre 3, 2007 ~ Greetings All My Gente ~

I for one appreciate the Latin America Working Group. We need a lot more writers and reporters expressing their opinions and sharing their analyses in these troubled times about complex conditions in Mexico and Latin America in general. The great giant herd rarely speaks when being slaughtered.

I believe we have a sacred responsibility to write, to express, to share our thoughts with each other ~ even if they may seem off the wall ~ so long as they are done with a true humane sincereity to help build bridges of understanding between us all. No one man, group or organization has a monopoly on the truth of the times.

We should not forget that Mexico is still a neo-colony of the U.S. Empire, not an independent nation. In fact, directly or indirectly, the U.S. Empire hovers over all nations and, directly or indirectly, controls and/or has great influence over all so-called national economies. Naturally I suspect the rich and powerful drug cartels are working with large globalwide corporate powers to keep the drug traffic moving. After all, it is thedemand by the American people that keeps it going.

What dynamics or geometry of power has really fundamentally changed in the last fifty years?!? The U.S. Empire still rules supreme over the roost!

It is corporate capitalism that must be confronted and transformed. The oppressed peoples must be liberated from their old oppressors and rid themselves of submissive servant mentalities bowing to the masters of corporate capital.

"In order for the oppressed to be able to wage the struggle for their liberation, they must perceive the reality of their oppression, not as a closed world from which there is not exit, but as a limiting situation which they can transform. This perception is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for liberation; it must become the motivating force for liberating action." ~Don Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Opressed.

Keep up the good work! Venceremos! ~Peta-de-Aztlan~
Sacramento, California. AmeriKa
Email: sacranative@yahoo.com

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Latin America Working Group <lawg@lawg.org> wrote:

Plan Mexico Unveiled Dear Border Advocates, Following months of rumors and media speculation on both sides of the border, President Bush announced in late October that he would be sending a sizeable counternarcotics and organized crime aid package to Congress. The package's stated intention is to combat the escalating violence associated with drug trafficking and organized crime with $500 million in aid to Mexico and $50 million to Central America. Popularly dubbed "Plan Mexico", this proposed plan piqued our attention as LAWG, along with countless grassroots activists, have long expressed strong concerns regarding past U.S. counternarcotics aid efforts that have compromised human rights, such as Plan Colombia. Plan Mexico (also known as the Merida Initiative) was developed behind closed doors so many specifics remain unclear. However, we wanted to send you this (below) article that we have written for an upcoming edition of LAWG's publication, "The Advocate". The article outlines what we know about the package as well as our initial concerns regarding the human rights implications of the plan. Although there is currently no specific point of action, we invite you to share our concern as we monitor the issue. As details are released in the coming weeks and months we will post updates and send action alerts as needed. With your help we can work to promote programs that strengthen rule of law and protect human rights. Best, Jenny & Ellen Latin America Working Group www.lawg.org LAWG Advocate: Plan Mexico Unveiled President Bush announced in a October 22nd press conference he was sending to Congress a counternarcotics and organized crime aid package that would include $50 million for Central America and $500 million for Mexico the first year. The plan refers to a total of $1.4 billion for Mexico over the course of the next three years. Officially titled the "Merida Initiative"â€"but with the Mexico portion already popularly dubbed "Plan Mexico" â€" this funding request forms a part of a controversial $46 billion supplemental budget request by the President primarily intended for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Congress will likely not consider this supplemental bill before the new year. Due to the extremely troubling precedent set by past U.S. counternarcotics programs, especially Plan Colombia, this aid package raises some red flags for us. Although specifics have been difficult to pin down, a State Department fact sheet details that helicopters, surveillance aircraft, inspection equipment, and communications technologies are included in the proposed aid to Mexico. According to a document obtained by the Washington Post and described in an October 27th article, the White House breakdown lists "counternarcotics, counterterrorism, and border security" as the largest segment of the package, accounting for $306.6 million. A positive part of the package, from our perspective, is its substantial funding to strengthen justice institutions in Mexico and to fund youth gang prevention activities in Central America. Human rights advocates have raised concerns regarding Mexican President Felipe Calderón's strategies for addressing drug trafficking and related violence, especially his extensive use of the military in counternarcotics efforts. Favoring a mano dura (strong arm) approach, President Calderón responded to the dramatic outbreak of drug-related violence by deploying 10,000 military and federal officers to Baja California and his home state of Michoacán within weeks of taking office. At the current time, there are over 20,000 troops engaged in joint counternarcotics efforts with police in areas hard hit by drug-related violence throughout Mexico. This funding could encourage further expansion of the military into inappropriate policing roles. The human rights implications of deploying soldiers to combat domestic drug cartels was highlighted by a September 2007 report issued by Mexico's National Human Rights Commission. This report cited cases of numerous human rights abuses perpetrated by the military in the course of counterdrug operations, including rape, torture, murder and robbery, including the June, 2007 incident in Sinaloa in which soldiers opened fire on a pick-up truck after it failed to stop at a checkpoint, killing three women and two children. Soldiers are not trained for domestic law enforcement and should not take over policing roles, even in cases where, as in Mexico, police are tainted by corruptionâ€"instead, this highlights the need for serious police reform and oversight. The continuing impunity surrounding the excessive use of force and human rights violations committed by federal, state and municipal authorities against those engaged in social protest in Oaxaca, San Salvador de Atenco and elsewhere underscores the critical need for substantial police reform and increased accountability. At the same time, there is a serious problem of drug-related violence in Mexico that the Mexican government must address and that human rights advocates cannot ignore. As noted in a January 22, 2007 Christian Science Monitor article, drug trafficking related homicides in Mexico have more than doubled in the past 5 years, increasing from 1,000 in 2001 to 2,100 in 2006. Therefore, it is important to distinguish in this package the counterdrug programs that might be effective and do not raise human rights objections, from those that we believe will have a negative impact on human rights. Members of Congress from both sides of the border have rightfully stated their unease over the secretive nature in which the Calderón and Bush administrations negotiated this package. The somewhat chilly reception that the Merida Initiative has met in the U.S. Congress could be heard at a recent hearing where Representative Delahunt (D-MA) suggested that the secretive negotiations "could delay the passage of this proposal." Other representatives asked if tackling drug-trafficking in Mexico would merely result in the cartels shifting trafficking routes to the Caribbean or elsewhere. Representatives questioned the utility of this funding without increased efforts to curb drug consumption in the United States. Western Hemisphere subcommittee chair, Representative Engel (D-NY), noted that "the defeat of Mexican cartels will not end drug use in the U.S." In the coming weeks, advocates in the United States, Mexico and Central America will press for concrete details so as to evaluate the human rights implications of the proposed plan. As we have in Colombia, we will call for strategies that strengthen rule of law, protect human rights, and oppose the use of the military for law enforcement. Moreover, we will encourage attention to the "balloon effect" of U.S. counterdrug policy, in which cracking down on one geographic area just sends the problem of drug production and drug trafficking to another area, with all the violence and human suffering that follows. We will reiterate the need to expand drug treatment and prevention programs both abroad and at homeâ€"the most effective and humane counterdrug strategy.

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Come Together and Create!
Peter S. Lopez ~aka:Peta
Sacramento, California, Aztlan
Email: sacranative@yahoo.com

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C/S

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