$400 million in aid OK'd as yet another police official is slain

June 27, 2008, 11:13PM
$400 million in aid OK'd as yet another police official is slain

By MARION LLOYD
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Foreign Service


MEXICO CITY — In a country where drug-related violence has killed nearly 2,000 people this year, including four police commanders, a beleaguered Mexico cheered U.S. congressional approval of a record $400 million to help it battle narcotics gangs.

In a 92-6 vote late Thursday, the U.S. Senate authorized a three-year, $1.6-billion package to combat drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America. The bill includes $65 million in anti-narcotics assistance for Central America this year.

President Bush, who originally proposed $1.5 billion in aid for Mexico and Central America under the provisions of the Merida Initiative, is expected to sign the measure into law.

"The United States is finally recognizing that this is a joint problem, a bilateral problem, and that it has a responsibility in this fight to work with the Mexican government," said Juan Camilo Mouriño, Mexico's interior minister, who oversees internal security.

The news came as another top police official was gunned down in the capital Thursday night. Igor Labastida, a federal police commander who was investigating corruption within the force, was eating tacos when a hit man opened fire with an Uzi submachine gun. Labastida and one of his bodyguards were killed and another one was wounded.

Labastida was the fourth top police commander killed in the capital in just two months. The most senior was Edgar Millan, who coordinated the civilian wing of the anti-narcotics effort. He was shot to death in May at the door to a Mexico City condo where he sometimes stayed.

"It's part of the battle that the Mexican state is waging against organized crime and it's their way of responding," said Mouriño.

However, he and other top officials have conceded that Mexico's security forces are outmatched. Of the more than 4,000 slain since President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug gangs in January 2007, some 450 are police, soldiers or government officials.

The new anti-narcotics aid package — which is more than 10 times the $37 million disbursed to Mexico last year — is in the form of equipment, not cash. It would enable Mexico to buy more military transport planes, beef up border security to stem the flow of illegal weapons, and equip its inspectors with high-tech computer detection equipment.

However, about $57 million is contingent upon the government meeting human rights conditions.

"The United States wants to work with Mexico on these issues, including the need to hold accountable members of the military and the police who violate human rights," said a U.S. Senate aide who helped draft the bill. "This is not a blank check."

The plan calls for $73.5 million to be spent on judicial reform, institution-building and other activities aimed at strengthening the rule of law and combating corruption in Mexico. It also allocates $3 million to help Mexico create a national police registry.

However, some human rights activists said the $116 million earmarked for buying military equipment and technology was excessive.


Language watered down
That funding "strengthens the armed forces' hand at a time when the United States should be encouraging Mexico to develop its civilian police capabilities," the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights advocacy group, said in a statement Friday. "These imbalances — military over police, hardware over the hard work of reform — are all reflections of fundamentally skewed priorities in the Mérida Initiative."

Mexico's National Human Rights Commission has documented more than 600 cases of alleged abuse by the security forces since Calderon dispatched more than 20,000 troops to battle the drug gangs in the initial months of his administration.

The original bill had even more stringent conditions, including requiring Mexico to create a civilian watchdog agency to report human rights violations and to hand cases of military abuses over to civilian courts. But that language was watered down after the Mexican government protested, claiming violation of its sovereignty.


U.S. to help with training
The Senate aide argued that the content of the bill remains essentially the same. The U.S. State Department, he said, will evaluate whether Mexico is upholding its commitment to prosecute human rights abuses by the military before releasing the remainder of the funds.

Mexican officials downplayed the conditions on the bill, saying they have every intention of upholding human rights.

Unlike Colombia, which has accepted billions of dollars in U.S. anti-narcotics aid over the past decade, Mexico has long resisted letting Washington take an active role in its drug war. But that attitude has shifted under Calderon.

Arguing that U.S. consumers are largely fueling the demand for illicit drugs, he has sought to shame the U.S. government into paying a share of the war costs.

Still, Mexican officials emphasized that the U.S. military would only help in training Mexican soldiers and police.

"Mexico will not accept the presence of U.S. troops in our national territory," said Espinosa.

Meanwhile, Mouriño argued the U.S. government also needed to do more to stop the flow of illegal weapons across the border, mostly from Texas.

"Are we totally satisfied with what they're doing? No," he said. "But we're satisfied to have been able to make the U.S. government aware of the degree of the problem, what it means to our country and the need for them to take action."

marionlloyd@gmail.com