The Merida Initiative failed, why believe that the Bicentennial Understanding will not?

After 10 years it was accepted that the Merida Initiative was of no use to combat drug trafficking, transnational organized crime and money laundering in Mexico and Central America. Will those failures now continue with the Bicentennial Understanding on Safety, Public Health and Safe Communities between Mexico and the United States?

I think so.

The Merida Initiative emerged in 2007 with the agreement of Presidents Felipe Calderón, of Mexico, and George W. Bush, of the United States. Just over 10 years later, in May 2019, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that his government would not continue participating in it because it did not meet its objectives.

To replace it, the governments of AMLO and Joe Biden agreed to create the Bicentennial Understanding that came into force yesterday.

On October 8, the governments of both countries announced, through an information sheet, the three objectives of the Understanding: “1. Protect our people. Mexico and the US seek to create safer communities, with better health services that are also sustainable and benefit the citizens of both countries; 2. Prevent cross-border crimes. Mexico and the US seek to reduce the capacity of Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) and prevent trafficking in drugs, weapons, people, wild fauna and flora, as well as human trafficking, and; 3. Pursue criminal networks. Mexico and the United States will seek to dismantle the illicit financial networks of the TCOs and reduce their ability to benefit from illegal activities, both transnationally and in cyberspace ”.

If these objectives sound familiar, it is because they are the same as those noted in the document that created the Merida Initiative on October 22, 2007: “Mexico and the United States will establish as a priority to combat the power and impunity of criminal organizations and drug trafficking , which threaten the health and public safety of its citizens, as well as the stability and security of the region (…) Our common goal is to maximize the effectiveness of our efforts in the fight against criminal organizations as well as to stop the drug trafficking (including chemical precursors); arms trafficking, illicit financial activities, currency and people trafficking. The Mérida Initiative represents a new and more intense level of collaboration that marks the beginning of a new stage in our bilateral cooperation that characterizes the solid relationship that exists between both countries ”.

Why should we believe that now, with the Bicentennial Understanding, the fight against criminal organizations that since 2007 have become more violent, powerful, wealthy and diversified despite the Merida Initiative is serious?

A single data shows how the Initiative did not serve to give stability and security to the region, at least to the Mexican part of it: in 2007 the homicide rate in Mexico was 8.12, reaching 29 in 2018, a rate that was repeated. in 2019 and 2020.

May my skepticism around the Bicentennial Understanding prove to be unfounded. Nor did I ever believe that the Merida Initiative would be of any use.

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Eduardo Ruiz-Healy

Journalist and producer

Guest column

Opinion writer, columnist, lecturer, media trainer, 35 years of experience in the media, micro-entrepreneur.



Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx

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