Video: Plan Mexico threatens peaceful Mexican communities

June 8, 2008
Repression

Plan Mexico, officially called the Merida Initiative, is a $1.4 billion U.S. aid package to Mexico in order to “fight drugs.” Mexico’s law enforcement is extremely corrupt; its members consume the drugs themselves and commit hundreds of human rights violations with impunity. This video shows a peaceful community in southern Mexico that was recently invaded and threatened by Mexican law enforcement, shortly after the U.S. House voted to approve Plan Mexico. Our tax dollars would be spent on these kinds of abuses. It’s important to urge the Senate to stop this initiative.

Plan Mexico is part of a larger plan called the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), which corporate and government leaders have been putting together for years without public knowledge or input. It’s a plan to expand failed “free” trade policies like NAFTA, so that corporations have free access to resources and a large source of cheap labor. Corporations export jobs to countries like Mexico, wages get pushed down, poor people lose land, workers are abused, and desperate Mexicans flee to the north to escape such conditions. Plan Mexico is the first step to militarize the nation so that those who resist can be punished as so-called drug dealers.