The Merida Initiative: A “Trojan Horse” for Mexico and Central America

The Merida Initiative: a “Trojan Horse” for Mexico and Central America

With the alleged objective of fighting drug trafficking and organized crime, two evils which are severely affecting several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, the U.S. government took the first concrete steps of a project which will end up intensifying its interference in the region: the Merida Initiative, a version of the Colombia Plan directed at Mexico and Central America.

It is true that this area has become one of the most used drug corridors for those drugs produced in the south of the continent, and which go to the lucrative and growing U.S. market.

The “cartels”, as the transnational mafia organizations which prepare and distribute drugs are called, are genuine parallel powers which have already exceeded the U.S capacity of fighting them.

Drug trafficking also includes other dirty businesses, such as arms, ammunitions and human trafficking, money laundering plus corruption and violence.

In Mexico alone, it is estimated that more than 14 000 people have died as a result of these evils since 2006.

The problem obviously exists and to deny it would be absurd. The problem is that the suggested solution would make things worse, because it focuses on its external manifestations, without attacking its real roots which are not in our countries, but in the United States.

It is patently obvious that there would be no supply without demand. Drug trafficking and all its associated phenomena exist because there is a sick society in the US, burdened by a dehumanizing system which has no honorable values or goals, which needs false solutions for its daily anxieties.

This huge drug market has been growing in recent years, which leads to the existence of criminal groups to satisfy the demand.

Washington, however, instead of tackling drug consumption within its borders, prefers to use the spectre of drug trafficking as the favorite excuse to increase its presence in the region, where it has set up military bases and its intelligence and espionage apparatus, sometimes without opposition.

This is the Merida Initiative. Its first concrete steps were taken this week in Mexico where, after the “donation” of five helicopters to the security forces, there followed the news of the establishment of an office where members of the Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA, and other organizations will operate.

This program, also known as the Mexico Plan, involves not only the DEA, but also the U.S. departments of State and Justice, the Pentagon, the National Security Council, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, and the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA.

Somehow all these entities will be represented in that office, which will be the perfect “Trojan horse” to maintain an overall control of everything that happens in Mexico. Gradually, the program will extend to Central America, where radar stations are already in Costa Rica, to be followed by several bases in Panama, besides the already known facilities in Palmerola, Honduras, and Comalapa, El Salvador.

Therefore, under the protection of the fight against drugs, we are witnessing a huge U.S. deployment, whose real aim is to maintain the hegemonic control in what this country considers its backyard, and where it feels the air of sovereignty and freedom is a threat to its interests. The rest, including drugs, is just an excuse and nothing else.

Taken from Radio Havana Cuba