Led by Latinos, US Cities Organize to End Plan Mexico and Support Ayotzinapa
Led by Latinos, US Cities Organize to End Plan Mexico and Support Ayotzinapa
By Nidia Bautista | 5 / January / 2015
Thousands of people came out to protest on Dec. 3 in fifty-four U.S. cities under the hashtag #USTired2. Based on the slogan used by Mexican protesters #YaMeCansé (I’m tired of it) following a remark by Attorney General to cut off a press conference, #USTired2 has helped build momentum in the context of growing discontent with U.S. foreign policy toward Mexico and police brutality at home.
In a few weeks, the movement has become a contemporary example of grassroots solidarity between U.S. and Mexican communities. The organization has scheduled national protests for Jan. 6 when Enrique Peña Nieto visits the While House to meet with President Obama to discuss the bilateral agenda.
For over three months, Mexicans have organized demonstrations in the country’s cities and towns, demanding justice for the disappeared college students from Iguala, Guerrero. Yet since October, protestors have not only called for the appearance of the 43 disappeared students (now presumably 42 since the remains of one student were identified among ashes found near the scene of the crime), but also the resignation of President Enrique Peña Nieto and justice for the tens of thousands of disappeared and hundreds of femicides nationwide that have occurred, especially since the war on drugs was launched in December 2006. At the core of their criticisms is the impunity and corruption at local, state and federal levels.
While protestors in Mexico have amplified their demands, multiple protests have been organized abroad in more than fifty countries. One of the largest and most notable is in United States, known by the hashtag #USTired2. The protests were organized in November to coordinate nationwide protests on Dec. 3 in support of the Ayotzinapa families. The #USTired2 protests are geared toward pressuring the U.S. government to end Plan Mexico, the bilateral security aid package that supports Mexican police and military forces like those implicated in the Ayotzinapa case.
Organized primarily by Latinos and Mexican communities in the United States, the #USTired2 protests emerged as a critique of President Obama’s stance on Ayotzinapa. The new movement denounced Obama’s offer to help the Mexican government resolve the Ayotzinapa case as a contradiction, considering the U.S. government has provided $2.4 billion dollars in security funding to Mexico through Plan Mexico, also known as the Merida Initiative. Plan Mexico has been funding U.S. training and equipment for Mexico’s armed forces, police, courts and prison system. Since 2008 when the bilateral program began, human rights violations by security forces have soared, according to the National Commission on Human Rights.
More:
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/14231
