Anti-Drug Assistance Approved for Mexico

The Washington Post-- A U.S. plan to provide Mexico with a major anti-drug aid package has received congressional approval, following months of negotiations in which Mexico proved itself to be a far more assertive neighbor than in the past, according to current and former high-ranking officials in both nations.

The U.S. Senate approved the aid -- known as the Merida Initiative -- late Thursday after stripping conditions that Mexican officials said would have infringed on their sovereignty, particularly on the issue of human rights. The measure includes $400 million for Mexico -- the bulk of which would be spent on equipment and training -- and $65 million for Central American nations.

"The approval by the U.S. Congress of funds for the Merida Initiative is a testament to the level of maturity that dialogue between Mexico and the United States has reached, and the mutual trust we have achieved," Mexican Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mouriño said Friday at a news conference here.

Previous U.S.-Mexican aid packages are generally thought to have been failures. In the mid-1990s, the United States sent dozens of aging helicopters to Mexico. Mexico was barely consulted, according to U.S. and Mexican officials involved in the process. The helicopters did not meet Mexico's needs and were returned in the late 1990s.

"It's a different ballgame now," Jeffrey Davidow, U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 1998 to 2002 and now president of the nonprofit Institute of the Americas, said in an interview. "It is a question of Mexico asserting itself as a partner and not as a supplicant."

The Merida Initiative, proposed by Bush in October, had appeared to be on the brink of failure this month after Mexican officials voiced opposition to the terms of the agreement.

Ruth Zavaleta, president of the lower house of the Mexican Congress, had suggested throwing out the proposal and coming up with a new one. Manlio Fabio Beltrones Rivera, president of Mexico's Senate, said, "We have to throw the old forms of conditioned collaboration in the garbage, as well as the taboos of the past that have impeded the two countries from having a common strategy to fight their common problems."

The Mexican legislators had myriad complaints. For instance, the U.S. Senate had wanted to require the Mexican military to send cases of soldiers accused of human rights violations, including rape and torture, to the civilian courts -- a move that was considered an affront by Mexican generals and could have required Mexico to change its constitution.

Responding to Mexican complaints, U.S. lawmakers changed the wording of the bill to say Mexico should ensure that civilian authorities approached such cases in accordance with Mexican law, which some scholars say may actually allow soldiers to be transferred from military to civilian courts.

U.S. lawmakers also reduced the amount of the package that would be withheld until a State Department review from 25 percent to 15 percent. Under the measure, the money would be turned over only after U.S. officials determine that Mexico is improving the accountability and transparency of its police forces, establishing regular consultation with Mexican human rights groups and enforcing a ban on the use of testimony obtained through torture.

The changes quieted complaints from Mexican officials who weeks earlier had been vowing to reject the aid.

In an interview, Zavaleta said she and other Mexican leaders "felt hurt" because they thought the United States was infringing on their sovereignty, a particular point of sensitivity here because Mexico lost almost half its territory to the United States after the 1840s Mexican-American War.

"It's bothersome that on one side they wanted to . . . 'certify' the actions we are taking as if they did not trust us," she said.

In an interview, José Miguel Vivanco of New York-based Human Rights Watch said he was "quite disappointed in the government" of President Felipe Calderón.

"There was a huge overreaction by the government," Vivanco said.

The ice began to thaw, it seems, on June 8 when Mexican and U.S. lawmakers met in Monterrey, Mexico, for a binational conference. U.S. Rep. Brian P. Bilbray (R-Calif.) said in an interview that the lawmakers found common ground in Monterrey by "trashing their own executive branches" for not consulting with them when the measure was being drawn up.

After hearing the complaints about sovereignty firsthand, Bilbray and other U.S. lawmakers were more inclined to loosen conditions that had offended Mexicans.

"This is a national pride issue," Bilbray said.

Bilbray, whose district includes parts of the San Diego area, noted that the drug war in Mexico is now threatening his constituents. More than 1,800 people have been killed in Mexico this year in drug violence, and Mexican cartels are increasingly crossing the border to kidnap people in the United States.

"I think we're beyond conditioning," Bilbray said in the interview, the day before the bill passed the Senate. "There's got to be a degree of faith here. If a fireman is going to take your child out of a burning room, you don't stop him to ask for his credentials."

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