Texas lawmakers debate initiative to help Mexican law enforcement
By Brandi Grissom / El Paso Times
Article Launched: 05/16/2008 05:34:22 PM MDT


AUSTIN -- As the escalating death toll in Juarez surpassed 20 this week, Texas lawmakers in Washington were debating the merits of a Bush administration plan to help Mexico fight drug cartels.
"The Merida Initiative is an opportunity to work in partnership with Mexico to make El Paso, the border region and our two nations safe from drug-related crime," U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, said Friday. "This initiative will help protect our own citizens."

The Bush administration is urging Congress to approve $560 million this year for the Merida Initiative, which would send equipment to the Mexican government and provide training for law enforcement officers. The entire plan would send about $1.4 billion in aide to Mexico over three years.

But this week, some Texas lawmakers said they could not support the plan unless money first was sent to local law enforcement on the U.S. side of the border.

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, on Thursday, included $100 million in federal money for border sheriffs in a funding bill that was approved in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The Merida plan, she said, would help Mexico but would not help local officers who "are waging the same battle every day."

"We must arm our local law enforcement officers to combat these crimes and protect themselves and our citizens," Hutchison said in a press statement.

As lawmakers continue their tug-of-war over how to combat border violence and drugs, the death toll continues
to mount in battles among the cartels and the Mexican government.
In Juarez, at least 21 killings were reported this week, including three homicides Friday. And the government sent in hundreds more soldiers, increasing the military presence there to more than 2,300 troops.

So far this year, Juarez has seen nearly 300 slayings, and in all of Mexico, more than 2,500 people have died in crime and drug-related violence.

The amount of U.S. aide the Merida plan would send to help in the bloody drug battle is a "very lame, very tepid effort," said University of Texas at El Paso political science professor Tony Payan.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon, he said, has dedicated more than $7 billion to fighting the cartels.

"It shows no seriousness on behalf of the United States," Payan said.

American companies the government would pay to provide Mexico the equipment and training, Payan said, would benefit most from the Merida Initiative.

What would help, he said, is movement by Congress to restrict guns and weapons in the U.S. that make their way to Mexico to fuel the conflict.

Better technology at border ports to prevent corruption that allows the drug flow to continue would help, too, Garcia said.

New Mexico State University government professor Jose Garcia, however, said the U.S. aide could help stem drug-related violence.

President Calderon's efforts, he said, have disrupted the drug cartels by targeting middlemen, instead of only the drug lords.

"They're just no longer as capable of running things as smoothly as they used to be, and so they're taking it out on each other and also on law enforcement agencies," Garcia said.

U.S. aide, he said, would be seen as an endorsement of Calderon's strategy.

"It's enough money to give the government of Mexico a lot more confidence in what it's doing," he said.

If the strategy continues effectively, he said, the cartels could break into smaller, less visible units to escape government notice, as the Colombian cartels did in the 1980s.

Violence could lessen, he said, but drug trafficking likely would not until Americans stop buying narcotics.

"Drugs are best dealt with on the demand side rather than supply side," Garcia said, "but it's not politically feasible apparently for that to happen."

Brandi Grissom can be reached at bgrissom@elpasotimes.com; (512) 479-6606.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_9286009