March Against Drug War Rejects “National Security Law”, Calls for “Citizen Security” http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5253

Hundreds of people streamed onto Avenida Reforma from Mexico City’s Museum of Anthropology, further proof that Mexico’s peace and justice movement still has the capacity to draw citizens out to protest the drug war. Protesters demanded that the Mexican Congress throw out proposed reforms to the National Security Law that is designed to provide legal underpinnings for continuing the war on drugs strategy launched by President Felipe Calderon in December of 2006.

Diana Gomez, an analyst with the Americas Program and a victim whose father, Jaime Gomez, was disappeared and murdered in Colombia, spoke of the links between Plan Colombia and Plan Mexico, or the Merida Initiative, imposed by the U.S. government. Her father, she noted, was killed in the context of the “Democratic Security” plan of the U.S. and Colombian governments.“Colombia is not the model to follow”, she warned. She pointed out that militarization under the pretext of the drug war in Colombia led to the death of her father and thousands of others, including the “false positives” killed by the military, with many more disappeared and displaced.

This is a model that benefits powerful interests at the expense of the people, especially the poor and opposition leaders. And it is a model that is being actively promoted by the U.S. government despite evidence of its failure to achieve its stated objectives.As the dialogue is renewed and part of the Mexican movement engages Congress in a new round of dialogue, others are organizing public education and protest events around the construction of the U.S.-funded international police academy in Puebla, a Forum Against Militarization, and student discussions.