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New Alliances, Same Dirty War: The Real Cost of the Merida Initiative
DEVELOPMENTSThe governments of the United States and Mexico established the Merida Initiative as a bilateral agreement designed to combat drug-trafficking, initially funding $1.6 billion USD for Mexico and Central America. Established in 2007, the agreement was fundamentally oriented toward supporting a process of militarization that allowed Mexican President Felipe Calderón to carry out a war against drug cartels operating in Mexico. Unfortunately, this alliance against organized crime has come at a high price for basic due process and human rights in Mexico, reinforcing military operations that attack both and respect neither.The real cost of deploying the Mexican military across the country to carry out anti-drug-trafficking and public security roles is visible in Mexico’s southern states, where the military has been present for forty years. Indigenous and rural communities’ experiences with the Mexican military in these southern states have been grim, including a decade-long Dirty War against any movement to improve their lot, and the new alliance today is regrettably making many of the same mistakes. From excluding civil society at the outset, to being used as a pretense to undermine civilian assemblies and associations, the new Mexico-U.S. alliance is having an enormous impact on Mexican society as the war is carried out in Mexican towns and streets.As we see a hardening of both governments’ positions, seeking to justify a war that has left more than 30,000 dead in the four years since Calderón took office, innocent persons are falsely accused and human rights defenders are again targeted. While President Obama has made modifications to Merida that inch toward a more nuanced U.S. approach – one that prioritizes cooperation with Mexican civilian institutions – the U.S.-Mexico partnership is today far from improving either security or due process in Mexico.