Mérida Initiative: A Type of Failure

Rejecting that the Mérida Initiative is a failure, the spokesman for the U.S. Department of State, Mark Toner, reported yesterday that the agreement, signed by Felipe Calderon and George W. Bush in the aftermath of the second administration and supported by the government of Barack Obama, should be considered a success in many respects. He also confirmed that the implementation of this security agreement between the Mexican and American governments has strengthened the capabilities of justice agencies in Mexico and improved coordination and cooperation between both countries.

Such statements are a response to remarks made a day earlier by the president of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere in the House of Representatives, the Republican Connie Mack, who called the Mérida Initiative a failure that has not produced the expected results. He stressed that its implementation has until now lacked concrete dates, tangible goals or strategic guides. He also questioned the chronic delays and challenges in the implementation of the Mérida Initiative’s budget and called for a counterinsurgency strategy to combat the drug cartels that operate in Mexico. Such critiques were seconded by Republican Michael McCaul of Texas, who stated that the levels of extreme violence south of the border are consistent with the concept of terrorism.

The least of it is the inconsistency of Republican legislators in questioning an agreement designed and negotiated by their own supporters during the former American administration. While recognizing that identifying drug trafficking with insurgency and terrorism is inappropriate and risky, the critiques of the Mérida Initiative are accurate and indisputable. Judging by the results, the application of this plan has not only failed to reduce the activities of criminal gangs in Mexico, but has been a factor in the sustained deterioration in public safety and rule of law; it has also resulted in a loss of sovereignty and control of the state in the indispensable areas of security, intelligence, law enforcement and territorial control.

Furthermore, it has forced the Mexican government to work with an untrustworthy and hypocritical partner that on one hand arms and equips the authorities and on the other — like with Operation Fast and Furious, coordinated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms — facilitates the arrival of large quantities of arms to drug traffickers.

Nevertheless, these exchanges begin a debate over the sovereignty and security of our country, but one which takes place outside of our national territory and which stars foreign institutions and authorities. Prospects are even bleaker if you consider that the options defended until now by the U.S. government and opposition pose an undesirable dilemma for our country: the continuance of an ineffective agreement like the Mérida agreement that violates Mexican sovereignty, or a worse replacement that begins from a false vision of the crime phenomenon. The latter gives foundation, consequentially, to the criminalization of diverse social movements and expression with the pretext of combating drug cartels and paves the way for deepening the interventionist designs of our American neighbor in the formulation of security policy in Mexico.

Therefore, it is paradoxical and maddening that in the U.S. Congress the discussion of the future of the Mérida Initiative is more prevalent than in our own legislature: The evident failure is the current security strategy and the governments’ stubbornness in modifying. There should at least be a discussion involving the full spectrum of political forces to examine the convenience of a bilateral agreement that has served as a cover for Washington’s meddling in the military, police and intelligence realms, and supposes an unacceptable surrender of national sovereignty on behalf of our government.