[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 84 (Wednesday, May 21, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4613-S4614]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE MERIDA INITIATIVE

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the fiscal year 2008 supplemental 
appropriations bill provides $450 million for the Merida Initiative, 
including $350 million for Mexico and $100 million for Central America, 
Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. This is the first installment of an 
ongoing commitment to help our neighbors to the south respond to the 
growing violence and corruption of heavily armed drug cartels. It 
represents a tenfold increase in assistance for Mexico in a single 
year.
  The Merida Initiative is a partnership, and we recognize that 
achieving its goals presents an extraordinarily difficult challenge. 
The United States is the principal market for most of the illegal drugs 
coming from Mexico and Central America. We are also the source of most 
of the guns used by the Mexican and Central American cartels. Each 
country contributes to this problem, and we each have to be part of the 
solution.
  President Calderon and President Bush deserve credit for the Merida 
Initiative. Better and more cooperative relations between our countries 
are long overdue.
  It is unfortunate, however, that neither the Mexican or Central 
American legislatures, nor the U.S. Congress, nor representatives of 
civil society, had a role in shaping the Merida Initiative. There was 
no refinement through consultation. I first learned of it from the 
press, as did other Members of Congress.
  As we have come to expect from this administration, the White House 
reached a secret agreement with foreign governments calling for 
hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars, and then came to 
Congress demanding a blank check.
  I support the goals of the Merida Initiative, and this bill provides 
a very generous downpayment on what I believe will be a far longer 
commitment than the 3-year initiative proposed by the administration. 
It will take longer than 1 year just to obligate and expend the $350 
million for Mexico in this supplemental bill, and the President has 
requested another $477 million for Mexico in fiscal year 2009.
  In addition to appropriating the funds, most of which may be 
obligated immediately, we require the Secretary of State to determine 
and report that procedures are in place and actions are taken by the 
Mexican and Central American governments to ensure that recipients of 
our aid are not involved in corruption or human rights violations, and 
that members of the military and police forces who commit violations 
are brought to justice.
  This is fundamental. For years we have trained Mexican and Central 
American police forces, and it is well known that some of them have 
ended up working for the drug cartels. It is common knowledge that 
corruption is rampant within their law enforcement institutions--the 
very entities we are about to support.
  It is also beyond dispute that Mexican and Central American military 
and police forces have a long history of human rights violations--
including arbitrary arrests, torture, rape and extra-judicial killings 
for which they have rarely been held accountable. Examples of army and 
police officers who have been prosecuted and punished for these heinous 
crimes are few and far between. Mexican human rights defenders who 
criticize the military for violating human rights fear for their lives.
  Some, particularly the Mexican press, argue that conditioning our aid 
on adherence to the rule of law is somehow an ``infringement of 
sovereignty,'' ``subjugation'' or ``meddling,'' or that it ``sends the 
wrong message.'' I strongly disagree.
  Since when is it bad policy, or an infringement of anything, to 
insist that American taxpayer dollars not be given to corrupt, abusive 
police or military forces in a country whose justice system has serious 
flaws and rarely punishes official misconduct? This is a partnership, 
not a giveaway. As one who has criticized my own government for failing 
to uphold U.S. and international law, as has occurred in Guantanamo, 
Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere, I believe it is our duty to insist on 
respect for fundamental principles of justice. I am confident that the 
Mexican and American people agree.
  Mr. President, like Senators Dodd, Reid, Menendez and many others 
here, both Democrats and Republicans, I

[[Page S4614]]

have long urged closer relations with Mexico. We have much in common, 
yet throughout our history U.S. policy toward Mexico has been far more 
one of neglect than of mutual respect and cooperation.
  Whether it is trade and investment, immigration, the environment, 
health, science, cultural and academic exchange, human rights, drug 
trafficking, weapons smuggling and other cross border crime and 
violence--our contiguous countries are linked in numerous ways. We 
should work to deepen and expand our relations.
  The Merida Initiative is one approach, and while I and many others 
would prefer that it encompassed broader forms of engagement, it is a 
start. Most of the funds are for law enforcement hardware and software, 
which is necessary but insufficient to support a sustainable strategy. 
As we have learned from successive costly counterdrug strategies in the 
Andean countries that have failed to effectively reduce the amount of 
cocaine entering the United States, we need to know what the Merida 
Initiative can reasonably expect to achieve, at what cost, over what 
period of time.
  Senator Gregg as ranking member, and I as chairman of the State and 
Foreign Operations Subcommittee had to make difficult choices among 
many competing demands within a limited budget. We had to find 
additional funds to help disaster victims in Burma, Central Africa, 
Bangladesh and elsewhere, whom the President's budget ignored. We had 
to find additional funds for Iraqi refugees and for crucial 
peacekeeping, security, and nonproliferation programs. We could not 
have funded virtually any program at the level requested by the 
President without causing disproportionate harm to others, and we 
sought to avoid that.
  Considering the amount we had to spend, the Merida Initiative 
received strong, bipartisan support. Again, this is not simply a 3 year 
program as the administration suggests. It is the beginning of a new 
kind of relationship, and we need to start off prudently and with solid 
footing.
  That means the direct participation of the Congress and of civil 
society and attention to legitimate concerns about human rights, about 
monitoring and oversight, about rights of privacy, due process, and 
accountability. How these issues are resolved is critical to future 
funding for this program, and we need to work together to address them.

                          ____________________