23 March 2009
Mexican Drug Violence a Shared Regional Challenge
Official briefs lawmakers on Mérida Initiative
Washington — Mexico’s struggle against drug trafficking and organized crime is a shared challenge for the United States and the wider region, says a top U.S. official.
“Working together to meet the unprecedented threat represented by the criminal organizations is at the top of our bilateral agenda, and the Mérida Initiative is critical to our collaboration and success,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson told a congressional panel March 18.
Jacobson briefed member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee for Western Hemisphere Affairs on efforts to support the Mexican government under the Mérida Initiative — a partnership with Mexico and several nations in Central America and the Caribbean aimed at fighting the drug trade in the Western Hemisphere. (See “Mérida Initiative Takes Aim at Transnational Crime.”)
Drug trafficking and criminal organizations in the region have grown in size and strength over the last decade, fueled by a northward flow of illegal drugs and human trafficking and a southward flow of money and weapons. As a result, many cartels can outgun police and intimidate judges, while drug money further corrupts institutions and reduces public trust in the authorities.
Drug violence has escalated since Mexican President Felipe Calderón took office in 2006 and vowed to fight corruption and drug cartels. Mexican drug trafficking organizations generate between $17 billion and $38.3 billion in annual sales from Colombian-produced cocaine and Mexican heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center.
The cartels, already fighting each other over territories near the U.S.-Mexico border, have responded to the government’s reform efforts with unprecedented violence, which claimed more than 6,000 lives in 2008 and 1,000 more so far in 2009.
Jacobson, who serves in the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, said the United States has delivered $1.4 billion in aid to Mexico under Mérida, cementing a powerful new regional partnership against the violent drug trade and organized crime.
The United States is providing equipment and training for counternarcotics teams and other law enforcement officers. The plan also provides technical assistance for the judicial system in Mexico. (See “Mexican Cooperation Is at Heart of Mérida Initiative’s Success.”)
But long-term success, said the subcommittee chair, Representative Eliot Engel, will also require a redoubled effort to curb illegal trafficking of firearms from the United States to Mexico, as well as renewed efforts to reduce domestic demand for illicit drugs.
More than 90 percent of firearms seized in drug-related violence in Mexico come from the United States, Engel said. He called on the Obama administration to reinforce a ban on imported assault weapons previously enforced by Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Engel said such a ban, the subject of a February 12 letter he wrote to President Obama signed by 52 fellow lawmakers, “requires no legislative action and would be a win-win for the U.S. and Mexico.”
Engel also called for the United States to build up the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ operations along the border and to improve drug prevention and treatment programs that would cut back the demand for drugs.
Democratic and Republican members called for continued full support of the Mérida Initiative. Engel also called for increased funding of the plan and outreach to more countries of the Caribbean and Central America to further strengthen the partnership.
