Pubdate: Mon, 07 Jul 2008
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2008 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact:  http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117
Author: Clarence Page
Note: Clarence Page is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Mexico (Mexico)

WE CAN'T AFFORD TO FORGET THE WAR NEXT DOOR

Let's keep watch on how Mexico spends our money, warns Clarence Page

As if our military forces didn't have their hands full in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, the head of the Minuteman Project border security group 
seems to think they might also make good narcotics cops.

Minuteman co-founder Jim Gilchrist suggested in recent radio 
interviews that the United States give Mexico 12 months to corral its 
criminal drug cartels and rising violence, particularly in border 
towns like Juarez and Tijuana - or deploy the U.S. Army to do the job.

That's the Minutemen. Their remedies for the drug war next door sound 
simplistic, but at least they're paying attention.

While most of us north of the border have been absorbed with our 
presidential sweepstakes and other happenings, our southern neighbor 
has exploded into the full-scale drug violence previously associated 
with Colombia or Peru.

For now, we're not sending troops, just money. The Senate recently 
approved a $1.6 billion, three-year package of anti-drug assistance 
to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Known as the "Merida 
Initiative," it includes $400 million for military equipment and 
technical assistance for Mexico's anti-drug fight. The bill was 
passed by the House, and President Bush is expected to sign it.

Mexico's government cheered the bill, because it waters down proposed 
restrictions that would have required Mexico to change the way it 
handles allegations of human rights abuses by its military. Mexican 
leaders threatened to reject the money if there were too many 
restrictions on their sovereignty.

But the omission brought jeers from Amnesty International and other 
human rights organizations. By various counts, more than 4,000 people 
have been killed in the 18 months since President Felipe Calderon 
launched his campaign against the drug gangs.

Gang wars have escalated over smuggling routes to the U.S. and over 
control of local police forces. Among other particularly grisly 
touches, drug gangs in the state of Durango recently have left 
severed heads with warning notes attached in coolers by the side of the road.

Journalists like Francisco Ortiz Franco, co-editor of the Tijuana 
newsweekly Zeta, have been killed for aggressively covering 
corruption and drug trafficking. At age 50, he was fatally shot in 
front of his children on a downtown Tijuana street.

Mr. Ortiz is among 21 journalists who have been killed in Mexico 
since 2000, seven of them in direct reprisal for their work, 
according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, of 
which I am a board member. These tragedies led to a June meeting in 
Mexico City between board members and Mr. Calderon, who has sent 
federal troops in to bring peace to some towns. Among other press 
freedom reforms, he agreed to work toward laws that would protect 
speech and press freedoms at the federal level, not just the states, 
where corruption is more rampant.

With hundreds of millions of Washington anti-drug dollars still 
pending at the time, Mr. Calderon had ample reason to speak in 
glowing terms about human rights reforms. Now he needs to follow his 
talk with action - and Americans needs to keep an eye on how well our 
money is being used.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom