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 Americas & Beyond | June 2008 
Bush Urges US Congress to Strip Conditions on Mexico Aid
 Jens Erik Gould & Hugh Collins - Bloomberg
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| | New Mexico's Gov. Bill Richardson reacts during an interview with The Associated Press in Mexico City, Thursday, May 29, 2008. Richardson said that Latin America has been neglected by U.S. President George W. Bush, and that Democrat Barack Obama in contrast would strengthen the relationship, particularly with countries like Argentina and powerhouse Brazil. (AP/Alexandre Meneghini) | | |
President George W. Bush urged Congress to quickly approve an anti-drug aid package for Mexico without putting "unreasonable" conditions on President Felipe Calderon's government after Mexican officials called the terms unacceptable.
The U.S. House and Senate have each passed versions of the initiative known as Plan Merida that require the Mexican government to certify law enforcement authorities fighting drug cartels aren't involved in corruption or human-rights abuses.
Mexico is seeking assistance from the U.S. to help curb a wave of drug-fueled violence that includes the assassination of the country's acting federal police chief last month. Calderon has said that demand from U.S. drug users is the root cause of violence that has killed 1,576 people this year, according to an estimate by newspaper El Universal.
"The American Congress will never take any responsibility for the drug issue," said Riordan Roett, a professor of Latin America Studies at Johns Hopkins in Washington. "When anybody in Latin America asks them to step up and provide greater support, the Americans become very defensive."
Interior Minister Juan Camilo Mourino said June 2 his country will reject "unilateral measures" that "put conditions on the spending of resources."
Bush proposed last year a three-year, $1.4 billion package to fight organized crime in Mexico and Central America, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The Senate appropriation calls for a total of $450 next year while the House aims for $461 million for one year.
Narco-Traffickers
"We've encouraged nations threatened by narco-traffickers to cooperate in protecting their people," Bush said today in Washington, according to a White House statement. "I asked Congress to approve the request quickly in the supplemental without putting unreasonable conditions on the vital aid."
Calderon has sent military special forces to battle cartels instead of relying on local police, a policy that has provoked criticism from groups including the United Nations high commissioner on human rights. Army personnel tortured and unlawfully killed at least five people during operations last year, according to Amnesty International.
Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who chairs the foreign operations subcommittee, has said Congress must make sure U.S. money doesn't abet the very drug traffickers it is meant to fight, as U.S.-trained Mexican police forces have already ended up working for cartels.
"Abusive police"
"Since when is it bad policy, or an infringement of anything, to insist that American taxpayer dollars not be given to corrupt, abusive police or military forces in a country whose justice system has serious flaws and rarely punishes official misconduct?" Leahy said in a statement last month.
Calderon's approach to drug crime contrasts with that of his predecessor Vicente Fox, who focused on arresting leaders of large cartels. That strategy led to turf wars between the gangs without reducing the flow of drugs into the U.S. Seizures and arrests have jumped since Calderon took office in December 2006.
Mexican drug traffickers are the biggest suppliers of cocaine to the U.S., which they transfer from South American growers, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Calderon's government opposes accepting U.S. aid with conditions because of nationalist sentiment that dates back to the Mexican-American War in the 1840s, when Mexico lost territories including California and New Mexico, said George Grayson, professor of government at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.
"The whole idea of accepting assistance from the United States raises the hackles of many of Mexico's elites," Grayson said. "What was already an awkward position for the Mexicans has now become untenable."
To contact the reporter on this story: Jens Erik Gould in Mexico City at jgould9(at)bloomberg.net; Hugh Collins in Mexico City at hcollins8(at)bloomberg.net |
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