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Sunday, May 12, 2019

AMLO: Mexican president rejects U.S. "Merida" crime-fighting funds

Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat from The Colombian 

Analysts say Lopez Obrador seems to have a poor understanding of the Merida Initiative. Lopez Obrador’s strategy hasn’t brought much change. The number of killings has continued to rise, hitting a record 8,493 in the first quarter of this year.

For 11 years, the United States has tried to help Mexico fight narcotrafficking and other organized crime through a historic $3 billion plan called the Merida Initiative. Washington has sent helicopters, helped train police and helped redesign the justice system.

Mexico’s new president now says: Basta.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office in December as Mexico’s first democratically elected leftist president, says he’d like to “reorient” the program away from crime-fighting and toward investment in social programs.


“It hasn’t worked,” he said this week in Mexico City. “We don’t want cooperation in the use of force, we want cooperation for development.”

The surprise announcement has injected a note of uncertainty into Mexico’s relations with the Trump administration. Until now, Lopez Obrador has sought a cordial relationship with Washington even as Trump has regularly bashed Mexico on [ignoring] immigration.

“This comes perilously close to upsetting the apple cart and really aggravating the United States,” said Eric Olson, a Latin America expert at the Seattle International Foundation, who has studied the Merida program.

The U.S. Embassy downplayed Lopez Obrador’s comments, noting in a statement that the initiative had evolved under different Mexican governments, and saying the Trump administration looked forward “to continued dialogue.”

Lopez Obrador took office promising a new approach to tackling organized crime. He pledged to create social programs to draw young people away from lucrative work for drug gangs. Abrazos, no balazos — “Hugs, not bullets”– was the slogan.

He raised eyebrows by saying he didn’t want to pursue narco bosses — “there is no war” on drugs, he said in January — and would instead prioritize reducing the homicide rate. The U.S.-backed “kingpin strategy” of focusing on drug lords has been widely criticized for causing Mexico’s cartels to fracture into smaller groups, which have expanded into extortion, gasoline theft and other crimes.

Lopez Obrador’s strategy hasn’t brought much change. The number of killings has continued to rise, hitting a record 8,493 in the first quarter of this year.

Analysts say Lopez Obrador seems to have a poor understanding of the Merida Initiative. The Mexican leader, in his news conference on Tuesday, said “we don’t want armed helicopters, we don’t want resources for other types of military support.”

In fact, in recent years, much of the Merida Initiative funding has gone toward training police and prosecutors as Mexico tries to improve its security forces and build a more independent, professional justice system.

Lopez Obrador suggested the Merida money be shifted to his plans for economic development in southern Mexico 

36 comments:

  1. AMLO apparently has no idea how the initiative works...he doesn't get to use it for social programs...the initiative isn't a blank check he can use for whatever stupid ideas he comes up with...it doesn't work that way...smdh...

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  2. There were warnings about these poor results the Mierda Initiative would bring to Mexico, starting with the CIA AIRPLANES, one that crashed and one that was forced to land from Operation Mayan Jaguar (10 ton cocaine combined)...
    Operation mierda Initiativa degenerated into "El Condor Pasa por Mexico" with a false war like the SouthAmericans would never imagine, sustain Ed for 12 years of low intensity conflict, that resulted in about one million Mexicans disappeared or murdered and millions more victims, wounded and imprisoned coupled with torture and false positives... BASTA really applies, enough of a mexican blood bath financed by the US, this 36 BILLION DOLLARS experiment really fucked it all up.

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  3. "For 11 years, the United States has tried to help Mexico fight narcotrafficking..." The way Foreign Aid works is provisioned money is set aside to pay companies in the USA to provide services or goods to the given country which means the American companies get the money which according to a May 7th Associated Press news article is used for "law enforcement and border security". I wonder who's border is being secured precisely, and how is Mexico actually being helped?

    Decades upon decades putting money into muscle has not solved crime problems. If the USA put money into its own education system then their is a probable chance drug usage would decreas in the USA which would mean less of a market for Mexican drug cartels. Meanwhile, AMLO is saying money should be spent in areas that make it more attractive for people to work in non-criminal activity which means they need an education and job creation.

    As the old adage goes, "Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime", and the parallel is precise because there will always be another uneducated, unemployed youth to fill the shoes of the killed or incarcerated criminal. What help Mexico needs is opportunities for the unemployed, and a proper education to be prepared for opportunities.

    Can anyone imagine what Mexico would look like after 11 years of job creation investment along with other societal reforms? Or does everyone just want to see bullets and blood?





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    1. Good comment.
      America's strategy should have been focused on rehab treatment rather than incarceration. A cost effective solution and an effective method to curtail drug demand In the US.

      E43

      Delete
  4. Well hes right! Its not working neither is the"war on drugs"! Why not try a different stategy!

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    1. U are correct. He should just kill himself.

      Delete
  5. Maybe if bribes weren't the issue. Along with government collaborators with cartels then maybe a different scenario would have transpired.
    Moreover, faced with a drug problem now than ever before like its neighbors (US) for permitting this to have continued.
    I think we can agree that drugs are an epidemic not only to ones country. But also the financial burdensome upon communities and societies.
    The kingpin strategy may have caused more harm than good to a certain degree. However, these splintering of such powers (cartels) have resulted into a controlled environment. Where once the powers that be were untouchable. Dictating to all with a fierce hand.
    Killing indiscriminately those who oppose with impunity and buying electoral officials. Along with favorable judiciary outcomes and decisions.
    This is clearly not democratic ideology.

    So I say to AMLO ; CLEAN HOUSE FIRST from all those who have deprived democracy from its citizens. Maybe then the Merida Initiative can be effective for Mexico. Along with a sober social society.

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  6. Wow, he really is a fool. Poor Mexico. I say pull those funds, put it on border security. Good people of Mexico, so sorry.

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    1. 5:57 YES! PUT THOSE FUNDS where the sun don' shine, unconditionally agreed.

      Delete
  7. “Lopez Obrador’s strategy hasn’t brought much change. The number of killings has continued to rise, hitting a record 8,493 in the first quarter of this year.” Yeah can’t undo a decade long war I’m a few months fucktard analyst emphasis on anal

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    Replies
    1. In fairness he has only been in office a couple of months, any stats are residual from former administration

      Delete
    2. Change will take decades for a country to align itself to be civil again.
      The disintegration of moral values from a narco culture will be a tedious process.

      Time will tell.

      Delete
  8. I like what he's trying to do

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  9. México says that everything they have done in the past aint working. What have they done is take money from carteles and let them run wild like animals the only time they have hit any cartel hard was when a rivial pays them to.how is it that every one but the goverment knows were the cartel bosses are.What a joke the time to be all nice and non violent has passed es a Long time ago violence has to be answerd with the same thing oh they treaten your family lets say mencho does you treaten his son in jail or snatch his wife Up lets see if things dont change just ask Pablo Escobar exactly my point i know it sounds wrong and violence aint the answer but what other choice those México have things are getting worse and more kids are getting killed daily

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    1. 9:30 as soon as Pablo Escobar hired Alvaro Uribe Velez, his world started turning to caca, and that was OK, but then el uberrimo started doing his crimes, killing his own daddy, forming his own desth squads and guerrillas and autodefensas and manufacturing of Falsos Positivos... End result, the murdering and drug trafficking got 100 times worse under the pious murdering drug traffickeing narco presidente Uribe Velez, More than 2 000 bodies in la Macarena mass grave are witnesses to Uribe and his melitary murdering, and there are thousands more.
      Frankly, Pablo was a better person.

      Delete
  10. Finally!!! A president that sees the light...fuck the u.s!! Them bastards do what's best for their ego while Mexicos people are being slaughtered and terrorized...

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Mexicans are slaughtering themselves. Americans are not the culprits here. Rather, greed from all those politicos who are not content with what they already have.

      Truth

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    2. 11:43 if Americans have been financing the war on drugs, and they have bad murdering and drug trafficking results in spite of all the genocide, well, then it is their baby...

      Delete
  11. Mexico needs this money. The Merida Initiative provides the Mexican military funds to buy loyalty among its highest ranks and obviously it helps pay the salary of many young soldiers. Sadly we will see Mexico return to where it was in the 70s-90s, where the military was underfunded and under armed. The US government has little to no interest in funding social programs for Mexico. They(US) haven't done it for South American and Middle Eastern nations and they definitely won't do it for Mexico.

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    Replies
    1. Mexico has money. They want more!

      Delete
  12. The United States helped create train and equip the mexican marines who work very closely with American agencies and their elite train amongst some american elite even earning their badges and patches, look it up. Yes the Army often get in shootouts yet many times if the criminals dont die they get away and it has almost always been these Marines who show results who kill or capture the big ones

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  13. Lopez Obrador is really senile and lost. Of course there is no outcome, because the money the US sends to combat the war on drugs, is being stolen by the currupted government. In which makes it a lawlessness country. Yet he says no results.

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    1. Not senile nor lost.
      What we are witnessing is the legitimacy of a narco government for profit.
      Ruled by narcos and controlled by those same interests who created this epidemic.
      Saw it coming from the start.

      It's a shame to say that Americans will be the forefront for their fortunes made. Continuing to feed the fires that rage in our communities and societies.

      E42

      Delete
  14. The war on drugs is a joke, no such thing. If government wanted to really s ty op drugs they would start in Colombia and Peru and burn ALL the coke. Never will happen

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  15. Imagine blaming America for mexico's rampant corruption, it's almost insulting how ignorant the people who say stupid shit like that on here are. The only thing I agree with that amlo had to say was that what they are currently doing isn't working. The better half of the Mexican government doesn't want real change, they will continue to accept bribes and allow criminals to run around with impunity. Until the corruption problem is addressed things will remain in chaos. Allow all Mexican's with a clean record to carry a gun than you can be taken serious.

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    Replies
    1. Why is it Americans think their shit don't stink? America is the user of narcotics. Even American companies push drugs to their own population for bigger profits per pill than a kilo of whatever.

      Delete
  16. Thers only one way México will and can change no ammont of money no presidente no cartel can help or change México tell they get rid of all or most of the greedy corupt goverment,milatry,and police then replace them with real mexicanos that want a better country for ther family and people then you got a chance fuck who am i kidding that will never happend thats like asking the united states to stop buying drugs.

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  17. i say stop all funding and let mexico drown in its own shit. true Basta with the funding all its doing is getting spread out among all mexican corrupt officials. BASTA means STOP the funding. go AMLO now you are making sense

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    1. You know Me Mexico needs the funding. If in reality funding was stopped, Russia would step in..Obrador would accept Putin with open arms. Missile installions pointed at USA.

      Delete
    2. Expect a first strike upon Mexico by the US if any indication of such were to happen.
      AS AN AMERICAN, MY PRIORITY IS AND WILL ALWAYS BE TO SECURE MY COUNTRY. WHATEVER THE COST WILL BE.

      TRY US.

      Delete
    3. You make laugh 12:47 PM. Russia could let park missiles in Canada and Mexico, and Donald Trump would say, "We got them right were we want them."

      Delete
  18. I rarely comment but for those saying he’s a fool or whatever, let me tell you that the only fools are yourselfs. Have you not learned who the big pushers are? That’s right the US the only reason they want to keep operating in Mexico is “help with the war on drugs” lmao idiots they only care about drugs making it to the US and money. You guys need to open your mind and figure out who the real enemy is. The US trains the same ppl who train cartel members the US has made every drug and showed others how to make them then they place it in poor neighborhoods and it get passed around till it gets to the richest. They make connections they make bust to make it look like your tax money is being put to use lol but a lot of you fucks think that tax payer money is for your hometown roads and schools🤣 gullible

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  19. Amlo sucks ass, the war on drugs is LOST ....if only white gringo americanos would stop doing the shit then the mexicanos would have no one to sell it to .....the USA is the one to blame for the cartels and the corruption, weak ass americanos got to stay drugged up just to survive, weak ass anglos

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  20. sorry but i must wonder,does this man have an education past the sixth grade

    ReplyDelete

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