Halt Military Aid to Mexican Security Forces

Despite nearly 34,000 drug-related homicides, a huge increase in human rights violations by the armed forces and growing citizen opposition to the bloody “war on drugs,” the U.S. Congress is once again considering the allocation of U.S. public funds to Mexico to support the failed counter-narcotics policy. President Obama’s proposed Fiscal Year 2011 budget contains $410 million for the Mérida Initiative, a security aid package to fight the drug war in Mexico, Central America and the Dominican Republic. 

Existing U.S. aid to Mexico under the Mérida Initiative does not include necessary safeguards to ensure it's not contributing to systematic human rights violations. Only 15% of the funding may be withheld pending a State Department report on Mexico’s progress toward meeting human rights conditions of the bill.  Furthermore, the Mérida Initiative (also called “Plan Mexico”) includes no benchmarks for effective evaluation.

The Mérida Initiative is a reckless strategy that has caused massive bloodshed in Mexico and has failed to achieve its goals of reducing illicit drug flows, assuring public safety or significantly weakening cartels. With 45,000 troops in the streets as the core feature of this military strategy, the Mexican armed forces have been implicated in murders, rapes and other violations of human rights—the vast majority of which have never been prosecuted.
 
The U.S. government has the responsibility to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not used in the violation of human rights.  Instead of providing training and funding to the military, police and civil institutions that allow and facilitate impunity, the U.S. government should focus on attacking the root causes of drug trafficking:  high demand in the U.S., increased rates of poverty and unemployment in Mexico post-NAFTA, the lack of opportunities for youth, etc.

As such, we call on President Obama and Congress to: