U.S.-Mexico: Military Buildup
Mexico is the most important country in the Americas for the United States, both for reasons of national security and because it represents a very immediate future source of vital natural...
...FY79 Congressional Presentation Document by State/Defense Dept...
...Meanwhile, the U.S...
...Mexico is strategically important because it has 1800 miles of virtually unguarded border with the U.S...
...Mexican working people have responded with both increased labor militancy-at least 300 strikes in 1977-and greatly accelerated emigration to the United States...
...Congressional conference on national security last year that "we don't have to go over to Asia or Europe to look for a crisis when Mexico is in our backyard...
...General Accounting Office (GAO) has confirmed that the hundreds of DEA agents overseas are engaged in many of the same activities as their OPS predecessors...
...and to control those already here (See Update Sept.-Oct...
...civilian agencies [in Mexico] of such military technology as surveillance and communications facilities...
...The use of thousands of police and soldiers to break a strike of university employees in Mexico City last July (see Update, July-August 1977) and to crush a movement of workers, peasants and students in Oaxaca in December, as well as the continual deportation of thousands of Mexicans from the United States are only the most dramatic examples of the ongoing repression of the Mexican labor movement...
...Currently, the INS is being used to break strikes of militant undocumented Mexican workers throughout the U.S...
...pressure campaign designed to gain access to Mexico's rich oil reserves, implement an economic austerity program south of the border and squelch rising labor militancy...
...issue of the NACLA Report we detailed the recently disclosed FBI counterintelligence activities in Mexico as part of a concerted U.S...
...The CIA station in Mexico is one of the largest in the world and with the collaboration of Mexican government officials has long maintained an intense campaign of infiltration and manipulation of trade unions and universities in Mexico...
...The INS Border Patrol is currently receiving training in counterinsurgency techniques and the U.S...
...Through the International Narcotics Control program, Mexican police have received more than $47 million since 1973 and are projected to receive another $10 million this year and $13.5 million in 1979...
...policymakers about the other major areas of anxiety: political unrest and immigration...
...95-195, May 16, 1977, Aviation Week (April 11, 1977), Chicago Tribune...
...Defense Department detailed its objectives regarding Mexico in a document recently submitted to Congress: "The immediate objective of our security assistance for Mexico is to foster the favorable disposition of the Mexican armed forces toward the United States and to enhance the capability of the armed forces to fulfill its national NACLA Report 40update * update update * update security role...
...Contrary to cries raised by Border Patrol officials at a February press conference in San Francisco, protesting that border agents are "an endangered species threatened with extinction," the Carter Administration plans to double the INS' border police to 4,600 by 1980...
...agencies in particular-The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)-are stepping up their activities as political tensions continue to mount in the border area...
...The U.S...
...Apparently Colby's warnings have been heeded, for along with the implementation of the austerity program, both the Mexican and U.S...
...Key to the Carter plan is the further militarization of the border and a build-up of the INS Border Patrol...
...southwest, most notably in recent strikes at the Goldwaterowned Arrowhead citrus ranch in Maricopa County, Arizona...
...The maintenance of open lines of communication between the armed forces of our two countries is particularly desirable...
...EPIC is staffed by 15 agents, some recruited from the CIA and the military, and is in charge of monitoring drug traffic...
...This is how John Marks, exintelligence agent and co-author of The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, explained at a January press conference in Washington the presence in Mexico of the largest CIA operation in the Western Hemisphere and its "undercover intervention" in the internal affairs of Mexico...
...Congressional Conference on National Security May 11-12...
...Nov.Dec 1977...
...Ex-CIA director William Colby declared at a U.S...
...Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove (1977...
...Currently, for example, in the northern Mexican states of Durango and Sinaloa-scene of many militant peasant land occupations in the past two years7,000 Mexican soldiers, aided by 226 DEA advisers are "conducting a 'special war' " against the indians of the Sierra Madre mountains...
...today threatening the jobs of our labor force, being exploited by some people who will hire them on the sly, and contributing to the social disorder and problems of where they secretly live...
...The GAO admits that, because of the similarity in the equipment used for narcotics control and regular police functions, it is almost impossible to prevent DEAsupplied hardware from being used in non-drug related operations...
...governments have mounted vicious attacks against Mexican workers north and south of the border...
...Two U.S...
...Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, at the request of Senator Charles Percy, has asked the Secretaries of State and Defense to "study the (potential] use by U.S...
...1976...
...THE DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION Under the guise of drug control programs, the DEA is apparently becoming one of the main U.S...
...M. Klare, Supplying Repression (1977): Center for Research on Criminal Justice...
...DEA agents are also active in the southern states of Oaxaca and Guerrero, two areas of the country under virtual military siege as a result of government efforts to smash the activities of growing peasant-worker-student alliances...
...In fact, the current U.S.sponsored austerity program in Mexico has exacerbated the very conditions of which Colby is fearful...
...and abroad (up from 38 students in 1977), and projects military arms sales of $2 million for 1979 (over ten times the figure for 1977...
...1977...
...U.S...
...for support...
...Such "military reconnaissance," the Committee claims, may "enhance the capaMarchlADril 1978 41update * update update * update I i Photo Curt Gunther/Camera 5. city for monitoring poppy cultivation...
...Most of this assistance," according to a GAO report, "has been provided to the Mexican Attorney General's Air Services Section for aircraft and related support for improving the mobility of enforcement and eradication personnel...
...According to the U.S...
...Underscoring Marks' claims, in the Jan.-Feb...
...programs in such areas as counter-insurgency, psychological warfare, "imagery" intelligence and combat operations...
...In February, 1975, in fact, Jack Anderson revealed that 13 narcotic agents trained at a super-secret CIA counter-espionage school are still working for the DEA and that 64 former CIA employees now work for DEA...
...According to the recently disclosed FBI documents, the INS is also used by the Bureau as a cover to interrogate politically active Mexicans and Chicanos "who might be of interest in terms of national security...
...The United States is concerned that Mexico not be a hostile nation, nor have a gov ernment that is even moderately leftist, let alone communist or socialist...
...at a cost of $150 million-evidence that the Mexican government is seeking to beef up its military and will be turning to the U.S...
...The current build-up of repressive forces along the border poses a serious threat to the entire labor movement in the region and is designed to maintain what John Marks claims is a primary U.S...
...Jan 25...
...Mexico is the most important country in the Americas for the United States, both for reasons of national security and because it represents a very immediate future source of vital natural resources...
...training programs and arms sales aimed at what they call "needed modernization" of Mexico's armed forces...
...channels of police aid and training to foreign countries, especially Mexico, as well as a common cover for CIA agents-the role formerly filled by the Office of Public Safety (OPS) before its formal suspension in 1973...
...DEA agents also administer the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) on the Mexican border, which houses a complex computer system linking the center to 14 federal information systems, including the FBI"s crime computer...
...Since the implementation of severe economic restrictions by the International Monetary Fund in late 1976, wages in Mexico have been drastically undercut, and thousands of layoffs have pushed the combined unemployment and underemployment rate to 57...
...Customs Air Support Branch plans to modernize its aircraft fleet with a half-dozen new turbine-powered planes fitted with the latest radar and FLIR systems developed by the Navy...
...The INS historically has played a repressive role in this country, targeting immigrant workers as the cause of unemployment and the source of "foreign ideologies...
...foreign policy objective: a tranquil U.S.-Mexico border...
...The U.S...
...Justification for Military Aid...
...NACLA Report (Jul-Aug...
...In addition, Mexico has secretly requested purchase of twenty-six F-5 jet fighters from the U.S...
...By the NACLA-West Mexico Project Sources include Excelsior (various issues in Nov., Dec . 1977, Jan...
...1978), Transcript of U.S...
...Senate Report No...
...MILITARY ASSISTANCE Along with the FBI and the CIA, the Pentagon is looking to increase its influence within the Mexican military establishment with increased U.S...
...specifically . more extensive use of sensors, FLIR (forward-looking-infared) systems and radar, including mobile radar units...
...1977: LADOC...
...THE IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE As a result of increased immigration from Mexico, the Carter Administration has placed before Congress a plan to stem the flow of Mexicans into the U.S...
...It will also obviously enhance the capacity for "monitoring" guerrilla activities...
...Since 1946, Mexico has received nearly $70 million in military and police aid from the U.S., and nearly 900 military and police agents have been trained by U.S...
...And while the recent disclosures of FBI activities in Mexico provide an unusually detailed insight into that agency's repressive role, the FBI by no means acts alone...
...The population of Mexico is something like 60 million, [of which] there are a few million illegal immigrants in the U.S...
...We're not really criminal investigators as such,' admitted Charles Updegraph Jr., a DEA agent and chief analyst at EPIC, "We're mostly intelligence folks...
...The 1978 military assistance package for Mexico includes training 59 Mexican police and military students in the U.S...
...1978...
...Catholic Conference publication, LADOC, 19 planes, 30 Bell helicopters, tanks and cannons are being used against three million indians under the pretext of destroying marijuana fields...
...In addition, the Administration is considering a plan of "coordinated management of the border" which would put a security force of 6,000 federal agents and 8,000 police from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California along the border, according to the Mexican daily Excelsior...
...Ironically, however, the success achieved by the United States in "negotiating" its desired policies regarding Mexico's economy and oil fields has only furthered concern among U.S...
...That situation is obviously going to explode in a Mexico of 120 million...
...LADOC reports that thousands of tons of Vietnam War-type herbicides, such as the infamous 245T, are being sprayed on indian land, destroying crops and "driving the population to hunger...
Vol. 12 • March 1978 • No. 2
