According to the Washington Post, the United States is training Mexican officers at a rate of 1,067 a year at 17 bases around our country including the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. Helicopter instruction is given at Fort Rucker, Alabama and a program in Intelligence training is offered at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington D.C.
Since the Acteal Massacre December 22, 1997, an effort to crush the Zapatista uprising of January 1, 1994 (the day that NAFTA went into effect) there has been growing awareness and concern of the degree to which the United States is arming and training right-wing paramilitary groups linked to the ruling International Revolutionary Party (PRI).
U.S. sources claim justification through the "drug war" but human rights groups charge that weapons and training are actually used for repressive paramilitary activities like the Acteal massacre
The U.S. is the primary weapons source for Mexico, providing everything from torture devices to counter-demonstration, bulldozers to attack helicopters. From 1993-1997, we provided $362 million worth of weapons and military training to the Mexican government. Those were our tax dollars. Latin American activists, who have been in regular contact with the people of Mexico and Chiapas, state plainly that the United States is arming a war on our own continent. U.S. motivation comes from insistence that nothing undermine the profits gained through NAFTA and from the hunger of the weapons industry for a new market.
Lobbyists for the weapons industry persuaded President Clinton, in 1997, to drop a successful 20 year ban on high-tech weapons sales in Latin America despite evidence that the need for the ban remains strong. Mexico is one of many Latin American countries that continues to abuse human rights and where civilian control over the army is very weak. The risk of starting or escalating regional arms races increases as countries rush to buy the latest weapons. For example, U.S. plans to sell F-16 fighter jets to Chile will likely provoke Argentina, Brazil and other nations to want the same. The purchase of expensive weapons robs nations of funds needed to support domestic programs like education and health care.
- information from the Peace Action Education Fund
In light of the growing funding and training links between the U.S. armed forces and the Mexican Federal Army, the concerns raised by the Acteal Massacre (12/22/97) and the killings in San Juan de la Libertad (6/10/98) have special relevance for U.S. citizens and their representatives. Please write to the following members of the Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives, noting the need for a careful examination of the consequences of U.S. support for the Mexican military. Request that they arrange an official visit to Chiapas to investigate and report on conditions there. Urge them to respond to calls from many sectors of Mexico's civil society for a drastic reduction in the supply of U.S. equipment and training to the Mexican military.
Appropriations Chairman: Rep. Robert L. Livingstone (Republican)