Activists Protest United States Role in Mexico's Drug War Violence Nidia Bautista - Truthout
go to original March 30, 2016

Members of School of the Americas Watch and Voces Contra El Olvido at the Centro Cultural Centroamericano in Los Angeles. (Olmeca)

As the US presidential front-runners consolidate their leads and inch toward nominations, the reality of what their foreign policies would look like in practice unnerves thousands of voters and activists. In particular, what would a Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton win mean for foreign policy with the United States' closest neighbor to the south? Whether the next president pursues a dystopian vision of a militarized border or an extension of the current track record of promoting militarization in countries like Mexico and Honduras, the 2016 presidential election will have a significant impact on US policy toward Latin America.

...When it comes to foreign policy, more of the same - if not much worse - is promised by a Trump or Clinton win. The leading candidates aren't offering solutions to mitigate the human suffering and violence caused by the US-sponsored war on drugs in Mexico. While Trump has proposed to seal off the US-Mexico border all together, Clinton is promoting President Obama's previous bilateral policies with Mexico, supporting the Merida Initiative and hyping up the war against heroin production in Mexico.

Also known as Plan Mexico, the Merida Initiative is a security package that has funded Mexican security forces directly responsible for human rights abuses like the globally recognized disappearance of students from the Normal Rural School Isidro Burgos of Ayotzinapa on September 26, 2014. This is a big concern for US activists and Mexicans directly affected by the violence still gripping the country.

Beginning in February of this year, Los Angeles-based activist Nansi Cisneros has teamed up with the transnational activist organization School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) to organize protests and public awareness campaigns about the negative effects of the drug war. SOAW is a US grassroots movement that seeks to close the military training school, now officially called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Founded in 1990, SOAW allies with people in Latin America and the Caribbean to demilitarize US foreign policy. In past years it has called to end the Merida Initiative.

Read the rest at Truthout

Related: Mexico Drug War: Impact of Violence on Children and Youth (Mexico Voices)

Related: Unprecedented Momentum to End the Drug War: Top Stories of 2015 (Alternet)

Related: Mexico War on Drugs "Useless"; More Drugs Produced Now (Aristegui Noticias)

Related: In Mexico's Drug War, United Movement for Our Disappeared Created (Mexico Voices)

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