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Amnesty International on Calderon Visit and Plan Mexico

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2008/02/rights-group-to.html

Rights group to Calderon: “Heal thyself”
Mexican President Felipe Calderon is in the United States this week stumping
for fair treatment of immigrants living north of the border, regardless of
their legal status.

While supporting that effort, the human rights group Amnesty International
says that Calderon should get his own house in order. The organization is
calling on the Mexican leader “to support human rights at home with the same
vigor that he shows in seeking greater protections for the rights of Mexican
migrants to the United States.”

In an open letter to Calderon, Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International, USA, cites a long history of repression by the Mexican government “including torture, arbitrary detention, excessive use of force and the denial of due process”
against its own citizens.

The agency is particularly worried about Plan Mexico, the so-called “Merida Initiative“, a Bush administration proposal to send $1.4 billion in aid to Mexico and a half-dozen other Latin American nations to combat drug cartels.

A big chunk of those funds would go to Mexico’s military, which Amnesty said
has been implicated by Mexico’s own National Commission of Human Rights in
the “rape, torture and the killings of civilians” while conducting counter-narcotics activities.

Cox also called for a halt of abuses of Central American immigrants on
Mexican soil. Many are assaulted and robbed on their way to the United
States, too often by corrupt Mexican authorities.

–Marla Dickerson in Mexico City