Jennifer Johnson

As we continue our national conversation about gun violence in the aftermath of the Newtown elementary school shootings, let's also consider a plea from our neighbors in Mexico. One hundred thousand people -- yes, 100,000 people -- have been killed in the violence that has devastated Mexico in the last six years. Twenty-five thousand people have disappeared. Seven thousand bodies lie unidentified in morgues.

No question, Mexico’s new President Enrique Peña Nieto was faced with many profound and pressing human rights issues when he assumed office on December 1st.  With human rights defenders and journalists enduring alarming levels of threats and attacks in Mexico, including targeted killings and disappearances by both state and non-state actors that have gone largely uninvestigated and unpunished, many are calling on Peña Nieto to commit to provide the political will and resources needed to protect defenders and journalists and prevent future attacks.

Just days before his inauguration on December 1st, Mexico’s president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto will make a short visit to Washington, DC to meet with President Obama and leaders in Congress to discuss the U.S.-Mexico relationship in the next sexenio.  In a recent guest op-ed in the Washington Post, Peña Nieto made clear his desire to shift the focus of the bilateral relationship away from security concerns and the fight against organize crime towards trade and economic interests.  

Last month, a congressional report noted that a staggering 70% of the weapons recovered in Mexico in 2009 and 2010— and submitted for tracing— originated in the United States, overwhelmingly from Southwest border states. The controversial and highly flawed ATF Operation Fast and Furious has drawn attention to not just the staggering number of firearms that flow over our southern border, but to loopholes and shortcomings in our policies surrounding firearms purchases that have enabled straw purchasers (people who claim to buy weapons for themselves, but then pass them on to criminal groups) and other gun traffickers in the U.S. to channel thousands of weapons to organized crime in Mexico.