Plan México moves forward
Soon after Felipe Calderón pointed out that in México ‘there is no dirty war,’ the plenary of the Chamber of Deputies met to approve generally the Reforma Judicial. This was done in the name of ‘combating delinquency,’ and will serve to legalize a police state – elements of which have already been imposed. Included in the Reforma are provisions for the legal execution of breaking and entering houses, arbitrary detention, access to confidential data of the accused, and holding defendants without the ability to communicate, among other things. The importance of this is not only the annulling of important guaranteed individual rights, but also that it is a path towards a type of repression where human rights and justice, bit by bit, slide further away from the already dispossessed.

Plan México, or the Mérida Initiative, continues to advance by way of the discourse concerning national security; its implementation is borne of a politics of fear. In spite of the fact that some see it as a ‘win,’ in theory, that social movements would not be considered ‘organized delinquency,’ recent experiences (in which the State criminalizes protest and social inconformity) indicate the contrary. It is enough to mention the response of the police-military front against popular movements: in Atenco, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Guerrero, and Chiapas. As is the aggression against defenders of human rights, so is the forced disappearance of people with connections to armed organizations.

 robertodammi@yahoo.com