Merida Initiative to Combat Illicit Narcotics and Reduce Organized Crime Authorization Act of 2008

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise reluctantly in opposition to this bill.

I applaud the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, my friend and colleague Congressman BERMAN, for asserting the role of the Congress and making sure that new initiatives such as the Merida Initiative are authorized. It is the right thing to do, and I look forward to working with him over the coming weeks on a number of foreign policy matters pending before the Committee.

There is much to support in H.R. 6028, and there are also several troubling matters.

Regarding the provisions of the bill that deal with Central America--a region of Latin America that is very close to my heart--I believe H.R. 6028 takes several important steps forward, seriously investing in community-based solutions to youth and gang problems. H.R. 6028 provides strong support to non-security programs that address the endemic conditions giving rise to violence related to drugs, arms and human trafficking. It provides support for the U.N. International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), especially in the areas of witness and victim protection, an initiative that merits the very strongest support by the United States and the international community. The bill also seeks to promote transparency and an end to impunity throughout Central America by strengthening police and judicial systems so that they may more effectively and successfully carry out investigations and prosecutions of those responsible for human rights violations and other criminal acts.

This is all very good news, Mr. Speaker.

I am very concerned that this authorizing bill fails, however, to reflect the thoughtful and critically important human rights conditions contained in the Senate and House versions of the FY 2008 supplemental appropriations on military and security-related aid to Mexico. I understand that those proposed conditions are controversial in Mexico, in large measure because of the history of the very problematic drug certification process that existed in the past. I do not believe that the human rights conditions included in the supplemental appropriations bill bear any resemblance to the flawed drug certification process, and the House and Senate Appropriations Committees took great care not to mirror that flawed certification process.

By failing to include the conditions on aid provided for the Merida Initiative that are included in the Senate and House supplemental appropriations bills, passage of this authorizing measure could be viewed as an effort to weaken or eliminate those provisions from the final conference report on the supplemental that will soon be sent to the President for his signature. It is my sincere (hope that this is not the intention of bringing H.R. 6028 to the House floor at such a delicate moment. There was no reason to rush this bill before the House, since we know it has no counterpart on the Senate side. So its consideration today invites concern that its passage is indeed an attempt to influence conference negotiations on the supplemental and to send a message that human rights conditions are not welcome, and certainly not the stronger, more specific conditionality included in the Senate version of the FY08 supplemental appropriations.

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that America wants to be a good partner with Mexico on fighting drugs and ending corruption and human rights violations within Mexico's judicial system and its military and police. Over the past several weeks we have all seen the effects of the bloody rampage carried out by the drug cartels, especially those targeted at assassinating key officers and members of the Mexican National Police. I hope in other legislation that may come before the House this year that we will pay special attention to investing in drug education, prevention and treatment programs, as well as our own law enforcement agencies, so that U.S. demand for illegal drugs will also be forcefully and substantially addressed.

But we cannot simply write blank checks and fail to ensure that our aid is not subject to strong conditions on human rights, transparency, justice reform and promoting and protecting the rights of civil society. These concerns are very much at the forefront of the strong Senate conditions in the FY08 appropriations bill, and are also reflected in the slightly less stringent House conditions. They should have been included in H.R. 6028, the authorizing legislation, which is where human rights conditionality appropriately belongs.

So, Mr. Speaker, these are my concerns and my hopes regarding H.R. 6028, and I will be following closely the consequences of authorizing and appropriating these funds.

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