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Members of the Friends of Brad Will — the
Illinois-born videojournalist killed one year ago — recently
disrupted congressional hearings on a new security cooperation initiative
between the U.S. and Mexico that President George W. Bush announced in
October. Dubbed the Merida Initiative by the White House and
Plan Mexico by some detractors (a reference to a similar endeavor, Plan
Colombia), the plan is aimed at helping Mexico and Central America combat
terrorism, international narcotics trafficking, corrupt local political
bosses, as well as to disturb the operations of murderous drug cartels. “This is an important moment in the fight
against transnational drug-trafficking and organized crime and one that
requires urgent action on the part of all nations involved,”
Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon told the U.S. House of
Representatives Foreign Relations committee. “The governments and citizens of Mexico and
Central America have recognized the threat to their own stability and
prosperity. They are taking courageous steps to confront these criminal
elements and are now seeking U.S. support to ensure a comprehensive and
integrated regional effort.”
Several Friends of Brad Will members repeatedly
interrupted Shannon’s testimony on Wednesday, Nov. 14, by invoking
Will’s story. After a few outbursts, police removed group member
Harry Bubbins
from the chamber where the hearing was taking place, and a second Will
friend, Priya Reddy, was removed later — but their actions succeeded
in turning what should have been routine talks on an obscure policy
proposal into a hearing on human rights in Mexico, the group says. The proposed aid package, worth $1.4 billion over
three years, which Bush requested as part of his Iraq War spending request,
would supply the governments in Latin American countries with helicopters,
surveillance aircraft, ion scanners, drug-sniffing dogs, tracking software,
and other support. Mexico would receive $500 million and Central American
nations would receive $50 million during the next fiscal year.
Will, who was born in Kenilworth, just north of
Evanston, Ill., traveled to Mexico in 2006 to film ongoing disputes between
teachers’ unions and paramilitary forces controlled by local
government officials. Despite the identification by eyewitnesses of two
policemen as Will’s killers, Mexican prosecutors blamed protesters
[See John Ross, “The killing of Brad Will,” Aug. 9]. Two Democratic Illinois lawmakers — U.S. Sen.
Dick Durbin and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky — and several other members
of Congress have asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to investigate
Will’s death. Critics believe that that the provision of military
support to the Mexican government may result in more of the same abuses of
human rights and press freedom that led to the deaths of Will and four
others in Oaxaca on Oct. 27, 2006.
Bubbins says U.S. government officials should send a
clear signal that human rights are a priority in Mexico, the
second-deadliest nation for journalists last year. That his group sits on
the same side of this issue of the Merida issue as conservative U.S.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., albeit for different reasons, Bubbins adds, is
an example of the “unanimous dissent” on several of
Bush’s proposals, including the Iraq War. “[Plan Mexico] is definitely not a
solution,” Bubbins says. “It’s rewarding the human-rights
violators. Rather than giving more aid, we should be cutting it.”
Contact R.L. Nave at rnave@Illinoistimes.com
This article appears in Nov 22-28, 2007.
