MEXICO'S WAR ON CIVIL RIGHTS

Obama Must Demand an End to Abuses Linked to President Felipe
Calderon's Drug Crackdown.

When President Obama goes to Guadalajara, Mexico, this weekend for
the North American Leaders Summit, he will surely praise Mexican
President Felipe Calderon for the courage he has displayed fighting
the war on drugs. The applause is well deserved. Calderon has turned
the crackdown on drug traffickers into the centerpiece of his
administration and has pursued organized crime with undeniable zeal.
But before Obama becomes too effusive and pats Calderon on the back
for a job well done, it's important that the U.S. president remember
the cost and the consequences of his counterpart's crusade.

In Mexico today, human rights violations committed by the military
and the police in this effort are on the rise, yet punishment for the
perpetrators remains elusive. So although Obama should recognize
Calderon's efforts, he should also insist that drug lawlessness
cannot be combated by breaking the law and that the army must be
subjected to the kind of scrutiny it has shunned so far.

Today, more than 45,000 soldiers police the roads of Mexico's main
cities and drug-producing areas as part of a strategy designed to
confront drug traffickers and contain the violence they wreak. Many
ring leaders have been captured, many drug shipments have been
confiscated and many smugglers have been imprisoned.

But violence remains unabated, and the unintended consequences of
Calderon's efforts have become distressingly clear: The number of
cases of human rights violations brought before the Mexican Human
Rights Commission has risen by 600% over the last two years.

The war on drugs is turning into a war on the civilian population
that can't simply be dismissed as collateral damage. Mexico's
military is capturing "capos," but it's also raping, extracting
confessions through torture and detaining people arbitrarily. Crime
is begetting more crime.

In light of this, U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) was right this week
to call "premature" the U.S. State Department's draft report claiming
that Mexico has fulfilled its human rights obligations under the
so-called Merida Initiative. He is right to remind officials on both
sides of the border that in return for Merida's $1.4 billion in
counter-narcotics aid from the United States, the Calderon government
made promises it has not kept. Key among these are greater
transparency and accountability, and the imperative that military
officers be tried by civilian courts.

Time and again, Calderon has resisted these demands, adopting an
increasingly contradictory stance. Calderon stands with his hand
outstretched, asking the U.S. for more support and involvement in the
war on drugs. But he also obstinately defends military exceptionalism
regarding the justice system, decries U.S. intervention in Mexico's
internal affairs and rallies Mexico's political class under the
banner of a politically expedient anti-Americanism.

In other words, Calderon wants to have his cake and eat it too. He
wants the helicopters and the military assistance and the money that
the Merida Initiative will disburse without having to abide by the
human rights commitments it contains.

So unless the Obama administration insists that those requirements be
met, the Merida Initiative will simply be financing impunity. It will
heighten the climate of fear that deeper binational collaboration
sought to eradicate. It will allow the Mexican military and police
forces to do what they do now: arbitrarily detain people, kill
innocent bystanders at army checkpoints, threaten and abuse alleged
suspects, ignore due process while carrying out arrests and get away
with it because Calderon believes they can and should. In his view,
the ends justify the means. As he defiantly stated in a recent
interview: "The worst human rights abuses are those committed by the
drug traffickers."

Unfortunately, Calderon's stance will undermine the cause he so
valiantly espouses. Military abuses that go unsanctioned are
weakening public support for the war on drugs and making it difficult
to construct the rule of law in a country where it functions intermittently.

Until Mexico makes real progress where human rights are concerned,
the U.S. Congress should withhold future funding for the Merida
Initiative. Unless Calderon agrees to place military officials who
violate human rights under the jurisdiction of civilian courts, U.S.
support will perpetuate the status quo.

Therefore, when Obama meets with Calderon, before putting his Mexican
counterpart on a pedestal, he should remind him of the violations
reported by human rights sources, such as the women raped by the
military in Chihuahua and the family killed at a military checkpoint
in 2007 in Sinaloa, and about the 30 people arrested without a
warrant in a church in Michoacan last weekend. All of them victims of
crimes gone unpunished.

So many Mexicans hope that when Obama arrives in Guadalajara for the
summit, he treads firmly and carries a big stick.