Mexico accuses U.S. of meddling in drug war

MEXICO CITY: Few slights irk Mexican politicians so much as when Washington treats Mexico like a backward country in need of outside guidance, and that anger raged full throttle in the past week as top Mexican officials threatened to walk away from a major U.S. aid package to help defeat drug traffickers.

The reason: Democrats in the U.S. Congress have tied the aid to guarantees that the police and military will not violate human rights. Officials from President Felipe Calderón on down have assailed the idea that the United States would withhold a quarter of the aid for Mexico if it did not meet human rights standards, calling it an attack on their sovereignty.

"The bills approved by both chambers of the U.S. Congress contain some aspects that make them, in their current versions, unacceptable to our country," Interior Minister Juan Camilo Mouriño said Monday.

A day later, Calderón said, "My government will defend at all times its national sovereignty and the interests of Mexicans and we will act strictly in accordance with the Constitution, and, of course, we will not accept conditions that simply are unacceptable."

A chorus of similar protests arose through the week from Mexican lawmakers, prosecutors and law enforcement officials, who called the bills insulting and reeking of Yankee arrogance. Some said the United States had no room to talk about human rights, considering its prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Others said Mexico had asked not for unilateral aid from the United States but for a partnership in fighting crime.

Some politicians complained that drug consumption in the United States, along with the sale of arms to Mexican drug dealers by U.S. merchants, were driving the violence here. "The only thing we need is for them to stop selling arms to narcotics traffickers," said Javier González Garza, leader of the leftist opposition party in the Chamber of Deputies.

Democratic leaders in the U.S. Congress, however, stand firm. They are refusing to approve $350 million to $400 million in aid, including Black Hawk helicopters, to military and police forces with a checkered history of human rights unless they get assurances that abuses will be prevented or prosecuted. Similar laws apply to aid to other nations, like Colombia.

In 2007, five people were reported to have been arbitrarily arrested, tortured and killed by Mexican soldiers, according to Amnesty International. In addition, soldiers killed two children and three adults last year at a checkpoint, apparently by mistake, according to news reports.

President George W. Bush and his aides say the Democrats are wrong to insert human rights conditions into an aid package that the administration thinks is vital for a government in a death struggle with drug cartels.

Another objection being raised here is that the version of the bill before the U.S. Senate would require Mexico to try its soldiers in civil court. Such an action would violate the Constitution.

Beyond the substance of the debate is a historical touchiness among Mexican officials about what they view as preaching on human rights, democracy and other ideals from the superpower that invaded them in the 19th century. Put bluntly, they hate it.

Since Calderón came to office in December 2006, he has sent thousands of federal police officers and troops to reclaim cities and states where traffickers controlled local officials through bribes and threats.

The offensive has unleashed a war among different cartels that has killed more than 4,000 people, among them about 450 soldiers, police officers and public officials, the authorities here say.

The Mexican attorney general, Eduardo Medina Mora, said in an interview that his government was committed to stopping abuses by the police and soldiers who have intervened in areas once controlled by drug dealers.

"Mexico is the one most interested in human rights," he said. "If we lose the general public's respect, we lose the ability to fight this war."

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