Militarization of Mexico’s anti-narcotics program having negative effect on indigenous communities
9 June 2009
Ever since the mid-1980s, when increasing amounts of Colombian cocaine began to be trans shipped to the United States, Mexico has been experiencing increasing corruption of the country’s police and government institutions.
Since taking office Mexico’s President Calderon has made it his priority to eliminate the cartels and received a $1.4 billion military-based aid package from the Bush Administration as part of the Merida Initiative or Plan Merida. This is aimed at breaking the power of criminal organizations and curtailing gang activity.
However, as of early 2009, it appears the first installment of the fund had done little to stem the cycle of violence, the availability of narcotics or the growth in gang activity. According to Mexico's Federal Attorney General, since early 2008, 7,300 people, including police and soldiers, were killed in the anti-cartel conflict.
Far from bringing the problem under control, a 2009 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report indicates that between 2007 and 2008 net cultivation of opium and cannabis in Mexico increased along with the production of opium gum, heroin, and cannabis. Drug use among Mexican youth is also rising and in cities like Monterrey, gang membership rates in the poorest neighbourhoods have more than doubled since 2006.
On the other hand, indigenous organizations and NGOs, such as the Chiapas-based Centre of Political Analysis and Social and Economic Investigations, and the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Centre, are now reporting that this is having a negative effect on indigenous rights. This includes what appears to be a new “government onslaught” against Zapatista indigenous communities, the reactivation of anti-Zapatista paramilitary groups and efforts to dispossess autonomy oriented Zapatista families from their lands and territory.
According to CAPISE, under the pretext of narcotics eradication, the Mexican army has built as many as 56 permanent military bases in indigenous Zapatista regions and surrounding communities in the Costa Chica, where Zapatista support is high. It also regularly uses low level aircraft flyovers, and is providing aid to anti-Zapatista organizations. Meanwhile autonomy minded indigenous communities have continued to reject government subsistence financial aid programs, and refuse to relinquish any land they acquired after the 1994 uprising.