borderlandbeat.com: Stop Arming the Mexican Military, Kill the Mérida Initiative [Pics NSFW]

Under The Mérida Initiative, the U.S. has sent more than $2.6 billion to Mexico to pay for its anti-drug efforts. The program has been continued and expanded since its 2007 debut. Last year, Congress kicked-in $300 million in new aid. As wikipedia.org reveals (in an entry that’s hasn’t been updated since 2009, suspiciously enough):

Much of the funding will never leave the United States. It will go toward the purchase of aircraft, surveillance software, and other goods and services produced by U.S. private defense contractors. While this request includes equipment and training, it does not involve any cash transfers or money to be provided directly to the Government of Mexico or its private contractors. According to U.S. State Department officials, 59% of the proposed assistance will go to civil agencies responsible for law enforcement, and 41% to operational costs for the Mexican Army and Mexican Navy. While the initial cost for equipment and hardware that the military required is high, it is expected that future budget requests will focus increasingly on training and assistance to civil agencies.

The self-serving Mérida Initiative has a human rights clause: a fifteen percent withholding “tax” on rape, murder, torture, extra-judicial killings etc. Guess what? It’s been invoked. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Nor should you get to thinking that this “penalty” will affect the business-as-usual business of using U.S. taxpayer cash to provide the unaccountable Mexican government with the money it needs to maintain their power dare I say it tyranny over the Mexican people.

In the article below from borderland beat.com, the author argues that it’s time to kill the Mérida Initiative. Time for the U.S. to stop funding Mexico’s vicious and corrupt military and police. I’m not o sure . . .

If the U.S. didn’t prop-up the Mexican government with lawyers, guns and money, what then? The so-called Arab Spring didn’t work out that well for the U.S.; I don’t think a “real” Constitutional Republic would emerge from the resulting chaos. The drug lords might take over. Or the military. Which, at this point, is probably the same thing. What a mess.

One thing’s for sure: U.S. gun store guns are not playing a major role in tying this Gordian knot. And official U.S. gun sales are.

borderlandbeat.com reporter Lucio writes:

Reforma is reporting the United States has again blocked a portion of funds due to be given to Mexico through the Merida Initiative. The initiative was established to support Mexico in funds and equipment, in its fight against drugs. The U.S. with withhold 15 percent ($5m) of the total annual budget allocated, until the State Department issues a certification that Mexico has met the human rights standards.

The U.S. decided on this action in part based on the Iguala case of the killing and kidnapping of 49 persons on September 26-27, 2014.  43 of the 49, mostly normalistas, are missing and presumed dead.

It’s also based on other prominent cases of extrajudicial killings, such as the 22 slaughtered in Tlatlaya. And the 16 murdered in Apatzingán, Michoacán where police were heard saying “mow them down like dogs” when killing or injuring the unarmed citizens including children. Some photos reveal a few of the citizens, with the only weapon they had in their vehicles, sticks. (Citizens reported that the federal police planted the few weapons shown in photos.)

The US government significantly strengthened its partnership with Mexico in combating organized crime in 2007 when it announced the Merida Initiative, a three-year $1.6 billion US “security assistance package” for Mexico.

In the years since the initiative began, human rights groups have chastised Mexico for human rights violations.Critics have of the human rights rider claim it hasn’t been effective; the 15 percent funding freeze was hardly harsh enough. The U.S. threatened to withhold more money unless cases of violations by military elements and Federal Police were prosecuted in public court, instead of military court. That hasn’t happened.

In 2010, U.S. congress set forth the following requirements to be met by Mexico. Astonishingly, in the same year, a State Department report to Congress claimed that Mexico was meeting the Merida Initiative’s human rights requirements. It paid out roughly $36 million in security assistance that had been withheld from the 2009 supplemental and the 2010 omnibus budgets.   

Research conducted by human right organizations, including Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, and the State Department’s own reports, demonstrated conclusively that Mexico has failed to meet the human rights requirements set out by law. They are . . .

1) Ensure that civilian prosecutors and judicial authorities investigate and prosecute members of the federal police and military forces who have been credibly alleged to have violated human rights.

The State Department’s own report states that Mexico’s military justice system continues to “systematically claim” jurisdiction over the investigation of these cases. “Information on military prosecutions is difficult to obtain,” the “limited information on military prosecutions and complaints filed suggest that actual prosecutions are rare.”

Mexican military courts have only sentenced one soldier for a human rights violation since 2007. Up to 2015, not a single soldier has been prosecuted in civilian courts since the Merida Initiative came into effect in July 2008. To date, no bill has been introduced in the Mexican Congress to amend this practice.

2) Enforce the prohibition on the use of testimony obtained through torture

Although Mexico claims to have addressed this practice, the police and military continue to use torture to obtain “confessions.” This is a critical issue; most often confessions are the sole or primary evidence in criminal conviction. Amid the tactics documented in forced confession abuses: electric shocks, beatings, water boarding and suffocation with plastic bags. The practice of “arraigo” – in which a suspect may be detained for up to 80 days before being charged – creates an environment that, facilitates torture.

4) Improve the transparency and accountability of federal police forces and work with state and municipal authorities to improve the transparency and accountability of state and municipal police forces.

Mexico has agreed to changes that would create effective accountability and transparency, it does not provide clear guidelines for human rights complaints nor does it provide mechanisms that ensures transparency in the investigation, court hearings and disciplinary actions

5) Conduct regular consultations with Mexican human rights organizations and civil society on recommendations for the implementation of the Merida Initiative.

Mexico has restricted meetings with human rights groups to only a few select groups of representatives. By holding the meetings with only a few days’ notice, holding the majority behind closed doors, and setting the agenda for the meetings, the government has ensured that the “consultations” remain low-profile and ineffective.

Dr. John Ackerman,  professor at the Institute of Legal Research of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and vice president of the International Association of Administrative Law puts it this way in speaking about the Merida Initiative: “Through two United States presidents, and 3 billion dollars later, Mexico is more unsafe, chaotic and authoritarian than ever.”

In consideration of these facts, the U.S. Congress should not release Merida funds. In doing so and liberating previously withheld funds, the Obama administration has sent a clear message to Mexico. The United States will not react punitively to grave human rights violations. In effect, the United States will tolerates human rights violations that include torture, rape, murder and disappearance.

The once promising treaty should have been terminated long ago, either permanently, because of Mexico’s non-compliance, or temporarily, to enact adjustments. Mexico has been treated as a spoiled child knowing the punishment will be short-lived and without meaningful consequence, especially during the Obama administration. Funds should have never been diverted from security to social programs.

Spending U.S. taxpayer money to fund U.S.-sourced guns, helicopters and other military equipment for a nation deep-rooted in corruption – without stringent oversight – is tantamount to throwing money at a windstorm, where at least, it would have better odds at landing where it could do some good.