http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laura-carlsen/mexican-torture-training_b_111784.html

Mexican Torture Training Raises Questions About U.S. Military/Police Aid
by Laura Carlsen published at the Huffington Post.

Excellent piece! Carlsen raises troubling questions on the role of human rights organizations in supporting funds for institutions which have and continue to abuse Mexican and Latin American people with impunity!

She writes: “Some Washington human rights groups have claimed that Plan Mexico will help Mexico reform and eliminate illegal practices such as torture. But the aid package funds the same forces that commit those atrocities with virtual impunity.”

Add your comments at Huffington Post to get that important discussion continued! Help provide attention to the campaign we’ve been working on:

Demanding accountability for Brad Will’s murder and the murder of many other innocent people by the Mexican security forces;

Exposing u.s.g. support for right-wing human rights abusing governments and institutions in Mexico and El Salvador;

Amplifying how popular movements for human rights and against corruption are at risk from the Bush/Leahy Merida Initiative;

Exposing the role of some d.c.-based ‘human rights’ organizations in legitimizing the ‘drug war’ as a pretext for increasing militarization under Merida!

From article: “Two videos of a torture-training session with the police force of León, Guanajuato shocked the Mexican public last week and raised serious questions about human rights under the Calderon offensive against organized crime. For readers with strong stomachs, the videos can be found here.” (link at Huffington Post).

An altar to Brad Will, created by artist Tanyth Berkeley, whose work has been featured at the Museum of Modern Art will be on display at the world renowned BELLWETHER gallery.

July 10th - August 8th, 2008 Opening Reception: Thursday, July 10th, 6-8PM

Vanessa Albury, Tanyth Berkeley & Todd Chandler, Tammy Rae Carland,
Patricia Cronin, Amrita Das, Leela Devi, Rob Hauschild, Paa Joe,
Joss paper effigies, Roy Kortick, Lisa Ross, Victorian hair
wreaths, Marc Swanson & Joe Mama-Nitzberg

Curated by Becky Smith

If Love Could Have Saved You, You Would Have Lived Forever is an
exhibition of art and objects that reference the aesthetics, material
culture, and traditional gestures surrounding death and remembrance.
(more…)

MEDIA ADVISORY
http://www.americaspolicy.org/

CIP Americas Policy Program: “Plan Mexico” Likely to Backfire

For Immediate Release — June 30, 2008

On June 26, the U.S. Senate approved the “Merida Initiative,” an aid package that provides $400 million dollars to Mexican security forces and other agencies for use in counterterrorism, counternarcotics and border security measures. The bill now goes to President Bush for signature.

Congress approved the initiative, more commonly known as “Plan Mexico,” after first adding then removing some human rights conditions that the Mexican government rejected as a violation of national sovereignty. (more…)

Great piece by journalist Clarence Page. One mistake: his implication that Amnesty International opposed the Merida Initiative. They didn’t; they supported it on ‘condition’ that it included notoriously inadequate human rights safeguards. Even though the final bill did not have even these safeguards, Amnesty refused to issue a statement of opposition to the Merida Initiative.

Sad testament to that human rights organization.

RJ

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080629/OPINION03/806290306

Drug wars next door

As if our military didn’t have its hands full in Iraq and Afghanistan, the head of the Minuteman Project border security group seems to think they might also make good narcotics cops.

Minuteman cofounder Jim Gilchrist suggested in recent radio interviews that the U.S. give Mexico 12 months to corral its criminal drug cartels and rising violence, particularly in border towns like Juarez and Tijuana — or deploy the U.S. Army to do the job. (more…)