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CONTACT: Human Rights Watch (HRW) Tel: +1-212-216-1832 Email: hrwpress@hrw.org |
Mexico: US Should Withhold Military Aid
Rights Conditions in Merida Initiative Remain Unmet
The US Congress mandated that 15 percent of funds to be provided to Mexico under the Merida Initiative, a multi-year regional aid package to help address the increasing violence and corruption of heavily armed drug cartels, should be withheld until the secretary of state reports to Congress that the Mexican government has met four human rights conditions. They include the requirement that military abuses be investigated and prosecuted by civilian rather than military authorities.
"The Merida Initiative provides the Obama administration with an important opportunity to strengthen US-Mexican drug enforcement and human rights cooperation," Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said in the letter. "To capitalize on this opportunity, however, the Obama administration should vigorously enforce the human rights requirements included in the aid package."
The letter expresses concern over the rapidly growing number of serious abuses committed by the Mexican military during counternarcotics and public security operations, including rapes, killings, torture, and arbitrary detentions, and the failure to bring those responsible to justice.
In the past 10 years, Mexican military courts - which routinely take over the investigation of military abuses against civilians - have not convicted a single member of the military accused of committing a serious human rights violation. The country's military prosecutors and judges lack the independence necessary to ensure that these cases are brought to justice, Human Rights Watch said.
"When soldiers commit human rights crimes, they damage their image as a professional force that is respectful of civilians, and contribute to the climate of lawlessness and violence that is part of what is fueling Mexico's public-security problem," Roth said in the letter.
Human Rights Watch recommended that Clinton issue a written report certifying Mexico's compliance with the Merida Initiative's human rights requirements only if and when she can determine that Mexico has effectively reformed its military justice system to ensure that alleged serious human rights abuses will by law be tried before civilian authorities, and are in fact being investigated and prosecuted by civilian authorities.
2 Comments so far
Show Allit is great that HRW is calling for a stop to the merida initiative, aka plan mexico, but the laudatory language roth uses is gross. it is not a good thing, it is terrible, like plan colombia, it should be opposed outright. these certification schemes are a distracting scam to help hr groups raise $. stop plan mexico outright!!!
saw this:
MEDIA ADVISORY * MEDIA ADVISORY * MEDIA ADVISORY
PROTEST AT MEXICAN CONSULATE!
FRIENDS OF SLAIN U.S. JOURNALIST BRAD WILL RESPOND TO RAILROADING OF
OAXACA ACTIVIST JUAN MANUEL MARTINEZ MORENO!
WHAT: Protest against Mexican judicial corruption and the practice of impunity
WHERE: Mexican Consulate in New York City, 27 East 39th Street.
WHO: Friends of Brad Will (http://friendsofbradwill.org)
July 13th, NYC--On Wednesday, July 8th, Judge Rosa Perez reversed
course from her January ruling. She now accepts hearsay testimony
previously determined to be “deficient” as factual evidence in the
case against local activist Juan Manuel Martinez Moreno for the 2006
murder of U.S. journalist Brad Will. It was also ruled that Moreno
will remain indefinitely imprisoned pending a verdict in his case.
The case is being closely monitored by international human rights
organization such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and
was even singled out by the U.S. Congress when they passed the funding
bill for the Merida Initiative in July 2008, calling in that bill for
“progress in conducting a thorough, credible, and transparent
investigation to identify the perpetrators of this crime and bring
them to justice.”
Despite an independent report from Physicians for Human Rights
debunking the government’s case against Moreno, and a condemnation of
the case by Mexico’s own National Commission for Human Rights, the
government has refused to investigate the most likely suspects—Mexican
government officials who were videotaped and photographed openly
firing on protesters, including Will. Instead, the judge has accepted
the testimony of two “witnesses” that, according to their own words,
were not present at the murder of Brad Will. These two “witnesses”
are the heart of the case against Moreno.
“The Mexican government has to come up with a conviction in Brad’s
case because the U.S. Congress told them they had to,” says Mark Read,
a friend of Will’s. “If they want those U.S. taxpayer dollars, they
have to put somebody away, but the real killers walk around with
impunity while the government proceeds with this bogus case against
one of the people that Brad was there trying to report on, an activist
who rose up against corrupt government rule. This recent reversal
makes it pretty clear that the Mexican government intends to railroad
Moreno despite all the best evidence. It’s corruption, pure and
simple.”
Oh, god.
Human Rights Watch is so disgusting.
They don't call for all of the military aid care of u.s. taxpayers to Mexico to be stopped! Just 15%. Wow!
Even though it's going to security forces widely known (IN THEIR OWN REPORTS) as corrupt, heavily involved in narco-trafficking, and recividist human rights abusers! And the US is sending surveillance equipment which can - like was done in Colombia under Plan Colombia (which HRW also approved of)- be used to monitor, harass, track, and kill judges, human rights defenders, labor and other activists, etc. by the Mexican government.
Hey Plan Colombia worked so well to decimate the ranks of thousands of labor and human rights activists, Human Rights Watch obviously wants it to be replicated in Mexico and throughout Latin America.
So HRW whines about civilian trials of military officials accused of human rights abuses while accepting on its face that 85% of this anti-corruption "aid" is being sent with no strings attached.
Is HRW dedicated to returning Latin America and the Caribbean to Reagan Era death squads?
They don't even mention that the bill has no benchmarks by which it can be evaluated (like even Plan Colombia had them - and came up a flat F when evaluated by the GAO in November).
Human Rights Watch: we watch and rake in the donations while human rights are flushed down the toilet.