Archive for the “plan mexico” Category
Arrest the Killers
When Brad was killed, the people photographed firing guns at the protesters were police, police commanders, and operatives and bodyguards for the PRI party, including Pedro Carmona, Abel Santiago Zarate aka “El Chino,” Juan Carlo Soriano aka “El Chapulin,” Commander Manuel Aguilar Coello, and Juan Sumano. They are directly linked to the corrupt Governor Ulises Ruiz, and we demand their arrest.
Drop False Charges, Release Political Prisoners
Since Brad’s death, Ulises Ruiz’ government has been attempting to bring charges for Brad’s killing against Brad’s friends, APPO people, witnesses, and those who risked their lives trying to get Brad to a hospital. We join the National Commission on Human Rights, and Reporters Without Borders in finding these attempts to be an absurd and outrageous attempt to divert attention from the real killers. We demand an end to this smokescreen and the punishment of innocent people including Juan Manuel Martínez Moreno, Hugo Colmenares Leyva, and Octavio Perez Perez.
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October 1st, 2008 - by Kristin Bricker: Military convoys patrol the streets. Soldiers kick down doors to carry out warrantless house searches, terrorizing families in the name of “security.” At military checkpoints, nervous, trigger-happy soldiers massacre families. Soldiers rape young girls with impunity. US-based private contractors teach police sadistic variations on waterboarding.
This is not occupied Iraq. This is Mexico. The “war” on organized crime is Mexico’s “war on terror.” President Felipe Calderón kicked this endless war into high gear when he deployed 25,000 federal soldiers into drug-cartel dominated states just days after he took office, thanks to widespread electoral fraud. He claims this exponential increase in the militarization of Mexican society is necessary to reclaim territory occupied and dominated by drug cartels. However, civil society organizations on both sides of the border see it as his attempt to bolster his weak presidency with a strong military alliance against an internal enemy - historically a popular strategy among dictators.
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 Plan Mexico, officially called the Merida Initiative, is a $1.4 billion U.S. aid package to Mexico in order to “fight drugs.” Mexico’s law enforcement is extremely corrupt; its members consume the drugs themselves and commit hundreds of human rights violations with impunity. This video shows a peaceful community in southern Mexico that was recently invaded and threatened by Mexican law enforcement, shortly after the U.S. House voted to approve Plan Mexico. Our tax dollars would be spent on these kinds of abuses. It’s important to urge the Senate to stop this initiative.
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 June 2008
As Congress enters the final stages to approve the Merida Initiative, an aid package to Mexico and Central America that seeks to further militarize the region under the guise of the U.S.’s “war on drugs/war on terror,” we find manifold reasons to stand in opposition:
1) Money for Central America through the Merida Initiative would mark a significant increase in funding for military/police equipment and training in the region at a time when the need is for anti-poverty and crime-prevention programs.
The Merida Initiative, also known as Plan Mexico, builds on the troubling model of Plan Colombia, which has poured billions of dollars into a failed military approach to combating drugs while doing little to address rural poverty and urban unemployment.
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by Stephen Lendman
It’s called “Plan Mexico,” or more formally the “Merida Initiative,” and here’s the scheme. It’s to do for Mexicans what Plan Colombia has done to that nation since 1999, and, in fact, much earlier. Since then, billions have gone for the following:
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Opposition growing to Bush’s Proposed “Merida Initiative”
Friends of Brad Will write: Opposition to the President’s ebbing “Merida Initiative”, a scheme to give $1.4 Billion in military aid to Mexico’s police and military forces implicated in widespread human rights violations, has led to an extraordinary 3rd oversight hearing by Congress. On May 1st, the AFL-CIO, the powerful U.S. parent union, sent letters detailing their opposition to the Merida Initiative to Democratic Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Congressman Delahunt Chair of a subcommittee on human rights, urging the Democratic Congress members to reject the Bush Administration’s request for military aid to Mexico. Yet critics questioned the witnesses Congress has called to testify before the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere as being uncritical boosters or vaguely indicating support under a pretense of concern and questions. Not a single opponent of the Merida Initiative has been called to testify.
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 Phil writes: April 21st, 2008, was the first day of the Security and Prosperity Partnership Summit, in which the presidents of Mexico and the United States, and the prime minister of Canada met to discuss security and trade, as well as the neoliberal and militaristic integration of North America. In protest, the local community organizers of New Orleans held the People’s Summit, in which visiting activists met with local organizers to discuss the history of racism, oppression and capitalism in North America and how to resist those things now and into the future.
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There will be several days worth of events surrounding the 
