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 Editorials | Issues | October 2007 
Mexico's Drug-Control Initiative Reflects More Trust In US
 Chris Hawley - USA Today
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| | Mexico's Patricia Espinosa outlines the drug plan last week. (Luis Acosta/AFP) |
Mexico City — When Mexico's foreign minister laid out her proposal for a U.S.-Mexican military and police alliance against drug lords last spring, veteran U.S. diplomats in the room realized it was a break from the past.
"We all immediately grasped the historic nature of the moment," said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon, the State Department's point man for Latin America. "It represented a dramatic departure in our bilateral relationship."
Experts say the $1.4 billion "Mérida Initiative," made public last week, is a major change for Mexico, which has historically been suspicious of U.S. meddling in its affairs. U.S. officials hope it could open the door to more cooperation on immigration, terrorism and other issues.
Five months after Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa first outlined the plan in a meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington, the first $500 million of aid is being debated by Congress. It would include money for surveillance aircraft, police training, high-tech communications gear and weapons.
Though the money would be used to help modernize Mexico's crime-fighting abilities, some left-leaning Mexican politicians say the pact would give U.S. agents access to state secrets and erode Mexican sovereignty. The United States "wants to make our country submit to it, in order to eventually get our oil and natural resources," Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the 2006 presidential candidate of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, told supporters Friday.
President Felipe Calderón's government has responded by saying the aid would be in equipment and training — and that Mexico would not be flooded by U.S. agents.
"There is no need to have (U.S.) advisers, nor troops, nor civilians, nor soldiers dressed like civilians," Mexico's assistant attorney general for international affairs, José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, said in a radio interview.
There has been little public opposition to the plan, reflecting a change in how Mexicans view the United States, analysts said.
"Society in general wants security. It wants institutions that are more committed to peace and order," said Antonio López Ugalde, a law professor at Ibero-American University in Mexico City. "Being backed by a country like the United States in this fight against crime is appealing to people."
The Mexican government's distrust of the United States dates to the 1846-48 Mexican-American War, when Mexico lost half of its territory to its northern neighbor.
The Mexican military has long refused most U.S. aid. It won't participate in joint exercises with U.S. forces or allow U.S. bases on its soil. For decades, it sent aircraft mechanics and other technical personnel to the USA for training rather than allow U.S. military trainers to work in Mexico.
That began to change under President Vicente Fox, who studied in the USA and whose grandfather was American. During Fox's 2000-06 term, U.S. military and police aid to Mexico nearly tripled from $15.7 million in 2000 to $45.8 million in 2006, according to the Center for International Policy, a Washington think tank.
Fox also extradited more alleged drug smugglers to the United States for trial, handing over a record 63 suspects in 2006.
In 2003, Mexico began permitting U.S. military trainers to give classes in Mexico City and expanded the training from purely technical subjects to counterterrorism and intelligence. Some students were also trained at Fort Huachuca in Arizona.
Calderón has taken the anti-drug fight further by sending troops into violence-plagued Tijuana, Nuevo Laredo and Michoacán state. He has handed over to the United States key drug suspects, including the alleged leader of the Gulf Cartel.
Calderón first suggested a joint drug-control strategy at a March summit with President Bush in Mexico. It wasn't until Espinosa proposed a dollar figure on May 22 that U.S. officials learned how ambitious Calderón's plan was, Shannon said.
At $500 million, the initial U.S. aid package is equivalent to more than half of the Mexican Justice Department's 2007 budget of $846 million.
U.S. officials hope the aid, which must be approved by Congress, will help Mexico patrol its southern border better, cutting the number of Central American migrants who reach the USA, Shannon said.
"Ultimately the kinds of organized crime networks that move drugs and weapons also move people," he said.
Though the Bush administration has stressed that U.S. personnel will not join Mexican police on missions, Shannon said the two countries are still discussing maritime security agreements that might allow better anti-drug coordination.
He said the surveillance planes the United States will provide to Mexico are the same model that the Coast Guard flies, raising the possibility of joint anti-drug missions in the future.
Hawley is Latin America correspondent for USA TODAY and The Arizona Republic |
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