Mexico’s Wikileaks Cables: Drugs, Intelligence, Venezuela, Human Rights

I wanted to post this story about Mexico’s Wikileaks cables as a sort of repository for the info I could find on the subject. Of course Mexico hasn’t been the center of most of the controversy surrounding the Wikileaks release of diplomatic communications, but it’s still interesting to learn some of this. Most coverage of these cables focused on drugs and intelligence, but I think the most interesting part about the cables is how deeply engrained in Mexico’s military/security operations the U.S. is, and how much the U.S. leans on Mexico to “control” other Latin American nations.

• Mexican President Felipe Calderón asked U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for help to reign in violence in Ciudad Juárez. The cable, 249280, is here in English and Spanish.
• Chinese VP Xi Jinping visited Mexico, met with the president and business people, to discuss deepening economic ties.
• Mexican officials, president, meet with Director of National Security Dennis Blair. They also met to discuss deepening intelligence sharing.
• Mexico, Venezuela rebuilding diplomatic ties.
• Mexican government focuses on ways to stem the influx of illegal guns.
• 2008 narco violence trends in Mexico.
• U.S. Justice, Security officials meet with Mexico about military human rights concerns.
• Mexican security officials share narco strategy, ask for intelligence help from U.S. security officials.
• Mexican government officials tried to find Constitutional loopholes to empower the military in the narco war.
• “Mexico’s use of strategic and tactical intelligence is fractured, ad hoc, and reliant on U.S. support.”
• More info on how the Mexican Navy forces killed Arturo Beltran Leyva based on U.S. intelligence.
• U.S. officials are focused on helping Mexico make “institutional improvements” to allow Mexico to better fight narcos and “position it to become a twenty first century military in one of the leading democracies in the region.”
• The U.S. is depending on Mexico to “reign in” Latin American leaders deemed impractical by U.S. leaders, such as Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia.