In March of 2007, the so-called Plan Mexico - officially known as the Mérida  Initiative – was approved  as a program of American military assistance for "fighting drug trafficking and organized crime" in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. The Plan has been strongly challenged in Mexico due to the risk that the disastrous effects of Plan Colombia be repeated, that sovereignty be compromised and that national military institutions be made de facto subordinates to the imperial power of the US.

The North American Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) makes way for new forms of strategic plans or mega-projects that lump economic criteria in with those of security, thus justifying actions that otherwise would not be permitted for violations of national sovereignty. Although this sovereignty has already been seriously challenged, because of the creation of an international regulatory framework that trumps the internal legislation of participant countries in the Free Trade Agreement, the security plans tend to create complicity and internationalization throughout all activities involved with prevention, combat, and control of drug trafficking and terrorism, dangerously perpetuating the ambiguity with which these have been identified as threats to the national security of the United States.

These plans are based upon a military perspective that begins with a concept of territories followed by strategies designed for complete control. Borders are redefined to comply with security objectives and corresponding rules are no longer based upon criteria for the well-being of the population, nor for the protection of national patrimony as in times past, but rather for control and discipline. This is the new Leviathan that is rising over and above the remains of democracy - at times just barely achieved -, and over the self-determination of peoples.

Integration plans, such as the SPP, which extends the homeland of the United States toward the north until it touches the glaciers, passing through oil and strategic metals deposits, and through Canadian forests, and south until it reaches the border with Central America, encompassing the area of oil and mineral deposits, the only tropical rainforest in northern America, and crossing the territory that contributes the most migrant or maquila workers for the economic development of the great colossus, are complemented by plans to combat drug trafficking, but which have many other derivations as well as strong implications for sovereignty and jurisdiction.

This expansion once again, as with the free trade agreements, is being initiated within North America. For Latin America, it seems relevant to note that during this last year, Mexico has apparently become the preferred place of activity for the drug cartels. From the moment that Felipe Calderón was inaugurated President, there has been daily news of executions, battles between security forces and drug traffickers, assassinations of public security officers, kidnappings and even deaths of singers with ties to one of the drug mafias.

One cannot help but note the disproportionate media coverage of these events, since it’s so out of step with previous periods. Indeed, from a certain perspective, it seems to be a set-up to justify police training, greater financing for security operations, the intervention of the army in internal security, the creation of new special military police corps and toward the creation of conditions for the announcement of Plan Mexico, officially baptized as the Mérida Initiative.

Plan Mexico, Plan Colombia’s twin, is oriented to providing financial support for activities of US instructors of operations and intelligence, including equipment, directed at revamping the Mexican police, military and paramilitary forces; but also for the direct involvement of US security forces within Mexico.

Almost simultaneously, Felipe Calderón relaunched Plan Puebla Panama but with addition of Colombia. Plan Colombia, and interest in militarizing the region from Puebla to Panama, appear to provide the other territorial squeeze that, together with the SPP and Plan Mexico, would lead toward the creation of a uniform militarized area from the border between Mexico and the United States to the further confines of Colombia, in which energy integration with North America is a key part of the agreement.

Along these lines, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is building toward energy integration that will solve the energy crisis in the United States and lead toward policy and security integration based upon criteria set by the US Joint Forces Command which includes, among other things, the mission to guarantee unrestricted access to resources considered indispensable for national security (of the United States, of course).  In other words, Mexico’s riches - and those of the region from Puebla to Panama and now extended all the way to Putumayo – become legitimately linked to strategic interests of the US, in addition to the measures adopted following September 11^th, 2001 under the Patriot Act, with regard to combating subversion, terrorism and dissidence. The infringement of citizen rights to which the people of the United States have been subjected, is extended by way of the SPP to the Canadian and Mexican peoples.

However, from a geopolitical perspective, putting US security forces as guardians of the Mexican borders not only affects Mexicans but the entire Caribbean and Central American region as well.

With the SPP and the occupation of Haiti; with the military bases and patrols and ongoing exercises in the region, the protection of the oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico and Venezuela is assured; the most important movements of migrants and drugs are controlled; vigilance is ensured over processes taking place in Cuba, Venezuela and throughout the block participating in ALBA in general; and a precedent is being set for new regional integration treaties that are being imposed on the continent, among which undoubtedly one of  the most outstanding is the Initiative for Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA).

Economic plans that include the possibility that a company can sue a state for damages and prejudice when its activity is turned down or called off – even in instances when a company’s activities are damaging to society or the environment such as those that produce toxic waste - for the amount of potential lost profits over 20 years of operation, combined with plans involving militarization or security that will guarantee, as Colin Powell has said, that trade and the economy can function under adequate conditions and without slip-ups.

These two types of plans also come hand-in-hand with mega-projects, whose direct goal is to fundamentally alter the territory upon which they’re working, rearranging its uses and redesigning its borders. The central nerve-system across Latin America, through which we’ll see energy flow and riches leave, are the roadways mapped out in Plan Puebla Panama and IIRSA, protected by security agreements, antiterrorist laws that prevent protests by affected communities, operations of the DEA and its Latin Americans counterparts, military exercises, immunity accords, and military bases.

Thus, in the same way that NAFTA was the spearhead for the free trade agreements, the SPP is just the beginning of a policy for continental security that has made a significant advance in the formation of a continental police force called Ameripol, last November 14 in Colombia¹, reinforcing attempts to create the Hemispheric Security Force integrating armies in the region, that under the guise of peacekeeping has begun to work de facto in Haiti.

Within this context, the Mérida Initiative is a dangerous sign of the overflow of Plan Colombia towards the rest of the Continent.

Ana Esther Ceceña is a Mexican economist and researcher for the Institute for Economic Studies in the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) as well as Coordinator of the Hegemony and Emancipation working group of CLACSO.

This article was first published in Spanish in ALAI's magazine América Latina en Movimiento,  No. 427, December 2007.  http://alainet.org/publica/427.html.  Translation:  ALAI.

(1) Information from el Diario ABC of Paraguay: "Delegates from 18 countries formalized the creation of Ameripol on Wednesday in Bogotá. Ameripol is a continental police that will have as a priority the war against drugs amongst a broader set of activities against transnational crime, informed Colombian sources today. In Bogota, after two days of deliberations, representatives of police forces from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay, Peru and the Dominican Republic wrapped up the Third Meeting of the Police Chiefs of Latin America and the Caribbean. [... ] Until 2010, the executive secretary of the organization will be the Chief of Police of Colombia, General Óscar Adolph Naranjo. As of 2010, the Executive Secretariat will be elected for periods of three years."