Why America Is to Blame for Mexico's Carnage and Corruption

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/11/26/why_america_is_to_blame_for_mexico_carnage_and_corruption_pena_nieto_obama_ayotzinapa_disappeared

The crisis over 43 massacred students shows how dysfunctional and corrupt Peña Nieto's government is. And yet Obama keeps patting him on the back.

BY JOHN M. ACKERMAN NOVEMBER 26, 2014



Mexican protesters are not burning American flags, but they may be soon if the United States doesn't change its approach to its southern neighbor. Whether they will admit it or not, President Barack Obama and the United States Congress are directly responsible for the tragedy of the 43 missing, and likely massacred, student activists in the Mexican state of Guerrero -- and for the political crisis that has followed.

Enormous protests since Sept. 26, the day the students disappeared, have already forced the arrest of the mayor of the city of Iguala, where the incident took place, as well as the resignation of the governor of the state of Guerrero. Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans are now demanding the resignation of President Enrique Peña Nieto himself. On Nov. 20, the 104th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, tens of thousands of protesters burned an enormous effigy of the president in Mexico City's central Zócalo square while chanting "Peña out!"

The hashtag #YaMeCansé, which translates roughly as "I am sick and tired" and is directed towards Peña Nieto's government, has been tweeted over 146 million times over the last two weeks. The classmates of the missing students have issued an ultimatum for the president to step down on Dec. 1 if he is unable to find the students before then.

Obama's Nov. 20 executive order deferring the deportation of millions of immigrants may allow the president a brief honeymoon with some of the millions of Mexicans with families or relatives in the United States. But this limited gesture is by no means enough to compensate for the enormous damage that the present administration has done to Mexico and the Mexican people. The U.S. government's blind support for Peña Nieto has helped create the context of absolute impunity in which forced disappearances, or massacres, like the one in Iguala are possible.

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