- It's called "Plan Mexico," or more formally
the "Merida Initiative," and here's the scheme. It's to do for
Mexicans what Plan Colombia has done to that nation since 1999, and, in
fact, much earlier. Since then, billions have gone for the following:
-
- -- to establish a US military foothold in the country;
-
- -- mostly to fund US weapons, chemical and other corporate
profiteers; it's a long-standing practice; in fact, a 1997 Pentagon document
affirms that America's military will "protect US interests and investments;"
in Colombia, it's to control its valuable resources; most importantly oil
and natural gas but also coal, iron ore, nickel, gold, silver, emeralds,
copper and more; it's also to crush worker resistance, eliminate unions,
target human rights and peasant opposition groups, and make the country
a "free market" paradise inhospitable to people;
-
- -- it funds a brutish military as well; already, over
10,000 of its soldiers have been trained at the Western Hemisphere Institute
for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) - aka the School of the Americas (SOA)
at Fort Benning, Georgia; its graduates are infamous as human rights abusers,
drugs traffickers, and death squad practitioners; they were well schooled
in their "arts" by the nation most skilled in them;
-
- -- it lets Colombia arm and support paramilitary death
squads; they're known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC);
for more than a decade, they've terrorized Colombians and are responsible
for most killings and massacres in support of powerful western and local
business interests;
-
- -- it funds drug eradication efforts, but only in FARC-EP
and ELN areas; government-controlled ones are exempt; trafficking is big
business; laundering drugs money reaps huge profits for major US and regional
banks; the CIA has also been linked to the trade for decades, especially
since the 1980s; after Afghanistan's invasion and occupation, opium harvests
set records - mostly from areas controlled by US-allied "warlords;"
the Taliban's drug eradication program was one reason it was targeted;
Colombia's drug eradication is horrific; it causes ecological devastation;
crop and forest destruction; lives and livelihoods lost; large areas chemically
contaminated; bottom line of the program - record amounts of Colombian
cocaine reach US and world markets; trafficking is more profitable than
ever; so is big business thanks to paramilitary terror;
-
- -- it's to topple the FARC-EP and ELN resistance groups;
Latin American expert James Petras calls the former the "longest standing
(since 1964), largest peasant-based guerrilla (resistance) movement in
the world;" it's also to weaken Hugo Chavez, other regional populist
leaders and groups, and destabilize their countries; and
-
- -- it supports the "Uribe doctrine;" it's in
lockstep with Washington; its policies are hard right, corporate-friendly
and militarized for enforcement.
-
- Plan Colombia turned the country into a dependable, profitable
narco-state. Business is better than ever. Violence is out of control and
human rights abuses are appalling.
-
- It gets worse. Two-thirds of Columbians are impoverished.
Over 2.5 million peasant and urban slum dwellers have been displaced. Thousands
of trade unionists have been murdered (more than anywhere else in the world),
and many more thousands of peasants, rural teachers, and peasant and indigenous
leaders have as well. Paramilitary land seizures are commonplace. Colombian
latifundistas profit hugely. Wealth concentration is extreme and growing.
Corruption infests the government. Many thousands in desperation are leaving.
Colombia's "democracy" is a sham. So is Mexico's. Plan Mexico
will make it worse. That's the whole idea, and it's part of the secretive
Security and Prosperity Partnership - aka the North American Union.
-
- It's planned behind closed doors - to militarize and
annex the continent. Corporate giants are in charge, mostly US ones. The
idea is for an unregulated open field for profit. The Bush administration,
Canada and Mexico support it. Things are moving toward implementation.
Three nations will become one. National sovereignty eliminated. Worker
rights as well. Opposition is building, but moves are planned to quash
it. That's the militarization part.
-
- Business intends to win this one. People are to be exploited,
not helped. That's why it's kept secret. The idea is to agree on plans,
inform legislatures minimally about them, get SPP passed, then implement
it with as few of its disturbing details known in hopes once they are they'll
be too late to reverse.
-
- SPP is ugly, ominous and hugely people destructive. Hundreds
of millions in three countries will be affected. Others in the region as
well. Plan Mexico is a contribution to the scheme. Below is what we know
about it.
-
- Plan Mexico - Exploitation Writ Large
-
- The plan was first announced in October 2007 as a "regional
security cooperation initiative." It's to provide $1.4 billion in
aid (over three years) for Mexico and Central America on the pretext of
fighting drugs trafficking and organized crime linked to it. FY 2008 calls
for $550 million for starters with about 10% of it for Central America.
-
- In fact, Plan Mexico is part of SPP's grand scheme to
militarize the continent, let corporate predators exploit it, and keep
people from three countries none the wiser. Most aid will go to Mexico's
military and police forces with its major portion earmarked back to US
defense contractors for equipment, training and maintenance. It's how these
schemes always work.
-
- This one includes a menu of security allocations, administrative
functions, and special needs like software, forensics equipment, database
compilations, plus plenty more for friendly pockets to keep our Mexican
cohorts on board.
-
- After failing on May 15, House passage will likely follow
the Senate's approval on May 22 - below the radar. It's one of many appropriations
tucked into the latest Iraq/Afghanistan supplemental funding request, and
its purpose is just as outlandish. It will militarize Mexico without deploying
US troops. It will also open the country for plunder, privatize everything
including state-owned oil company PEMEX, give Washington a greater foothold
there, and get around the touchy military issue by allowing in Blackwater
paramilitaries instead to work with Mexican security forces.
-
- Only privatizing PEMEX is in doubt thanks to immense
citizen opposition. Thousands of "brigadistas" were in the streets,
protesting outside the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, as lawmakers considered
ending PEMEX state-control. They paralyzed debate and brought it to a halt
- temporarily putting off a final resolution of this very contentious issue.
Big Oil wants it. Most Mexicans don't. The battle continues. Mexico's military
may get involved.
-
- The US State Department describes them as follows:
-
- -- ...."impunity and corruption (in Mexico's security
forces are) problems, particularly at the state and local levels. The following
human rights problems were reported: unlawful killings; kidnappings; physical
abuse; poor and overcrowded prison conditions; arbitrary arrests and detention;
corruption, inefficiency, and lack of transparency in the judicial system;
(coerced) confessions....permitted as evidence in trials; criminal intimidation
of journalists leading to self-censorship; corruption at all levels of
government; domestic violence against women (often with impunity); violence,
including killings, against women; trafficking in persons; social and economic
discrimination against indigenous people; and child labor."
-
- Mexico's military fares little better with promises Plan
Mexico will worsen it. President Calderon now deploys troops around the
country. People fear them when they come. They're purportedly against drugs
traffickers, but that's mostly cover. Their real purpose may be sinister
- a possible dress rehearsal for martial law when SPP is implemented.
-
- Mexican soldiers are hard line. Their reputation is unsavory.
People justifiably fear them. They commit flagrant human rights abuses
and get away with them. The major media even report them. The New York
Times, CNN, BBC, USA Today and others cite evidence of rape, torture, killings,
other human rights abuses, corruption, extortion, and ties to drugs traffickers.
Little is done to stop it. Government and military spokespersons often
aren't available for comment. They're part of the problem, not the solution.
Plan Mexico promises more of the same and then some. Billions from Washington
back it.
-
- Social protests in the country already are criminalized.
Hundreds are filling prisons. Many languish there for years. Labor and
social activists are most vulnerable. Injustice and grinding poverty motivate
them. Plan Mexico ups the ante. Things are about to get worse.
-
- Militarizing society is toxic. Police state enforcement
follows. Accountability disappears. The rule of law no longer applies.
Plan Mexico assures it. So does SPP for the continent. In classic doublespeak,
the White House claims it will "advance the productivity and competitiveness
of our nations and help to protect our health, safety and environment."
Its real purpose is to annex a continent, destroy its democratic remnants,
lock in hard line enforcement, and secure it for capital.
-
- SPP Backdrop of Plan Mexico
-
- A detailed SPP explanation can be found on the 2007 article
link. It's titled The Militarization and Annexation of North America -
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6359
-
- Plan Mexico is part of SPP. It will militarize and annex
the continent. It was formerly launched at a March 23, 2005 meeting in
Waco, Texas attended by George Bush, Mexico's President Vincente Fox, and
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. They forged a tripartite partnership
for greater US, Canadian and Mexican economic, political, social and security
integration. Secretive working groups were formed to accomplish it - to
devise non-negotiable agreements to be binding on all three nations.
-
- Details are hidden. No public input is permitted. Pro
forma legislative voting is approaching. It will try to avoid a NAFTA-type
battle. Legislatures aren't being fully informed. The worst of SPP is secret.
It's not a treaty, and the idea is to pass it below the radar and avoid
a protracted public debate.
-
- What's known so far is disturbing, and considerable opposition
has arisen but thus far too inadequate to matter. SPP, Plan Mexico, and
a final continent-wide plan amount to a corporate coup d'etat against three
sovereign states and hundreds of millions of people. It's to erase national
borders, merge three nations into one under US control, and remove all
barriers to trade and capital flows. It's also to militarize the continent,
create a fortress-North America security zone, and have in place police
state laws for enforcement. Billions will fund it. All for corporate gain.
Nothing for public welfare.
-
- SPP takes NAFTA and the "war on terrorism"
to the next level en route to extending it further for more corporate plunder.
It's based on outlandish notions - that doing business, protecting national
security, and securing "public welfare" require tough new measures
in a very threatening world.
-
- SPP bolsters US control. It enhances corporate power,
quashes civil liberties, erases public welfare, and creates an open field
for plunder free from regulatory restraints. It's being plotted behind
closed doors. A series of summits and secret meetings continue with the
latest one in New Orleans from April 22 to 24.
-
- Three presidents attended and were met by vocal street
protests. They convened a "People's Summit" and also held workshops
to:
-
- -- inform people how destructive SPP is;
-
- -- strengthen networking and organizational ties against
it;
-
- -- maintain online information about their activities;
-
-
- -- promote their efforts and build added support; and
-
- -- affirm their determination to continue resisting a
hugely repressive corporate-sponsored agenda. Opponents call it Nafta on
steroids.
-
- Business-friendly opposition also exists. Prominent is
a "Coalition to Block the North American Union." The Conservative
Caucus backs it. It has a "NAU War Room." It's the "headquarters
of THE national campaign to expose and halt America's absorption into a
'North American Union (NAU)' with Canada and Mexico." It opposes building
"a massive, continental 'NAFTA Superhighway.' "
-
- It has congressional allies, and on January 2007 Rep.
Virgil Goode and six co-sponsors introduced House Concurrent Resolution
40. It expresses "the sense of Congress that the United States should
not engage in (building a NAFTA) Superhighway System or enter into a North
American Union with Mexico and Canada."
-
- The April summit reaffirmed SPP's intentions - to create
a borderless North America, dissolve national sovereignty, put corporate
giants in control, and assure big US ones get most of it. Militarism is
part of it. It's the reason for fortress-North America under US command.
The US Northern Command (NORTHCOM) was established in October 2002 to do
it. It has air, land and sea responsibility for the continent regardless
of Posse Comitatus limitations that no longer apply or sovereign borders
easily erased.
-
- Homeland Security (DHS) and its Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) also have a large role. So does the FBI, CIA, all US
spy agencies, militarized state and local police, National Guard forces,
and paramilitary mercenaries like Blackwater USA. They're headed anywhere
on the continent with license to operate as freely here as in Iraq and
New Orleans post-Katrina. They'll be able to turn hemispheric streets into
versions of Baghdad and make them unfit to live on if things come to that.
-
- SPP maintains a web site. It's "key accomplishments"
since August 2007 are updated on it as of April 22, 2008. Its details can
be accessed from the following link: http://www.spp.gov/pdf/key_accomplishments_since_august_2007.pdf
It lists principles agreed to; bilateral deals struck; negotiations concluded;
study assessments released; agreements on the "Free Flow of Information;"
law enforcement activities; efforts related to intellectual property, border
and long-haul trucking enforcement; import licensing procedures; food and
product safety issues; energy (with special focus on oil); water as well;
infrastructure development; emergency management; and much more. It's all
laid out in deceptively understated tones to hide its continental aim -
enhanced corporate exploitation with as little public knowledge as possible.
-
- Militarization will assure it, and consider one development
up North. On February 14, 2008, the US and Canada agreed to allow American
troops inside Canada. Canadians were told nothing or that the agreement
was reached in 2002. Neither was it discussed in Congress or the Canadian
House of Commons. It's for "bilateral integration" of military
command structures in areas of immigration, law enforcement, intelligence,
or whatever else the Pentagon or Washington wishes. Overall, it's part
of the "war on terror" and militarizing the continent to make
it "safer" for business and be prepared for any civilian opposition.
-
- Congress may soon pass SPP, but with no knowledge of
its worst provisions kept secret. It's to assure enough congressional support
makes it law. Nonetheless, federal, state and local opposition is building.
It ranges from private activism to vocal lawmakers. In 2008, a dozen or
more states passed resolutions against SPP. Around 20 others did it in
2007. Congress began debating it last year with opposition raised on various
grounds - open borders, unchecked immigration, a NAFTA Superhighway System,
and the idea of giving unregulated Mexican trucks free access to US roads
and cities.
-
- There's also talk of replacing three national currencies
with an "Amero." Unfortunately, little is heard about trashing
the Constitution or giving corporate bosses free reign. There's even less
talk about a militarized continent against dissent. SPP is a "new
world order." Companies are plotting to get it. People better hope
they don't. Disruptive opposition might derail them. It's building but
needs more resonance to matter. Time is short and slipping away. These
schemers mean business. They want our future. We can't afford to lose it.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
-
- Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays
from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished
guests. All programs are archived for easy listening any time.
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