Pubdate: Sun, 29 Jun 2008
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2008 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/IuiAC7IZ
Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82
Author: Clarence Page
Note: Clarence Page is a member of the Tribune's editorial board.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Merida+Initiative
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Mexico (Mexico)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Felipe+Calderon

THE DRUG WAR JUST ACROSS THE BORDER

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

Minuteman co-founder Jim Gilchrist suggested in recent radio 
interviews that the U.S. give Mexico 12 months to corral its criminal 
drug cartels and rising violence, particularly in border towns such 
as 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 last 
Thursday 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 earlier 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, such as the Friends of Brad Will, founded 
in the name of a freelance New York journalist who was shot and 
killed while shooting video of a teachers strike in Oaxaca two years 
ago. A native of Chicago's North Shore, Will was 36.

His final video shows protesters hurling rocks and captures the 
sounds of gunshots, along with a shout: "Stop taking photos!" A shot 
is heard whizzing toward Will. He was struck in the abdomen and once 
in the right side.

Within days, state authorities took two men into custody, a local 
town councilor and his security chief. But they were released less 
than two months later. A state judge ruled that they were not close 
enough to have shot Will.

No further suspects were brought in. Publicity eventually helped 
nudge federal authorities into taking the case over, but they have 
not made much more progress. Capturing his own killing on video did 
not save Will from becoming one of thousands of casualties related to 
drugs or politics in Mexico in recent years.

Twenty-one journalists have been killed in Mexico, seven of them in 
direct reprisal for their work, since 2000, according to the New 
York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, of which I am a board 
member. Seven others have disappeared in the last three years.

"Mexico is not at war," said Joel Simon, executive director of CPJ. 
"And yet it is one of the world's most dangerous countries for the press."

But that's only a sliver of the thousands of drug-related murders of 
non-journalists in Mexico. By various counts, more than 4,000 
people--including some 500 local, state and federal police 
officers--have been killed in the 18 months since President Felipe 
Calderon launched his campaign against the drug gangs.

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

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

Cases like his led to a meeting between President Calderon, who has 
sent federal troops in to bring peace to some towns, and CPJ board 
members, including me, in Mexico City June 9. Among other press 
freedom reforms, Calderon 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, Calderon had ample reason to speak in glowing 
terms about human rights reforms. Now he needs to follow his talk 
with action--and Americans need to keep an eye on how well our money 
is being used.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake