Mexico and U.S. clash over Merida drug-fighting plan
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‘Billed as a way to strengthen bilateral ties, a proposed U.S. aid package for Mexican crime-fighting efforts has instead turned into a fresh reminder of the prickly dynamics that often drive the two nations apart,’ writes Ken Ellingwood of The Times’ Mexico City bureau.
At issue are human rights conditions that Congress attached to the so-called Merida Initiative, a three-year $1.4-billion proposal by the Bush administration to equip and train security forces in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean to combat drug trafficking.
Senior Mexican officials have called the provisions a form of U.S. interference and threatened to turn down the first-year installment if the conditions survive in a final version yet to be worked out by the House and Senate.The two chambers approved different first-year sums for Mexico, $400 million in the House and $350 million in the Senate. But both imposed requirements to guard against human rights abuses and corruption by Mexican officials.
-- Reed Johnson in Mexico City
