At the beginning of May, President López Obrador issued a diplomatic note to express his disagreement with the alleged financial support to the NGO known as “Mexicanos Contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad” (Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity)
Mexico City (June 03, 2021).- The fight against corruption is a national security interest for the United States and, therefore, will support national and international institutions and strengthen the capacity of civil society and the media focused on investigating and uncovering cases on that matter, announced this Thursday, June 3, the White House in a statement signed by President Joe Biden.
At the beginning of May, the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, issued a diplomatic note to express his surprise at the alleged financial support of the United States Agency for Integral Development (USAID, for its acronym in English), to non-governmental organizations such as Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity, which he described as “opposition”, and alleged that it is a “sample of interference by the United States government in matters that only concern Mexicans.”
On May 31, he complained that his note had not received a response, and this Wednesday, June 2, AMLO criticized the United States Embassy, saying that the US government continues to provide economic support to organizations that he considers as opposition to his regime. He used one of his colloquial terms “Maíz con Gorgojo”.
In the National Security Study Memorandum, Biden claimed that corruption “threatens America’s national security, economic equity, anti-global poverty and development efforts, and democracy itself.”
Therefore, fighting it becomes a “national security interest of the United States” and the government will spearhead efforts to “promote good governance, bring transparency to the United States and global financial systems; prevent and combat corruption at the national level and abroad, and make it increasingly difficult for corrupt actors to carry out their activities ”.
To do this, he presented a strategy that includes “supporting the capacity of domestic and international institutions and multilateral organizations focused on establishing global anti-corruption standards, asset recovery, promoting financial transparency, encouraging open governments, strengthening financial institutions, establishing frameworks. to prevent corruption in financial development projects, and to combat money laundering, illicit financing and bribery”.
Likewise, it will support and strengthen “the capacity of civil society, the media, and other actors focused on supervision and accountability to investigate and analyze corruption trends, support preventive measures, investigate and uncover acts of corruption, demand accountability to leaders and inform and support government accountability and reform efforts ”. It will work to “provide these actors with a safe and open operating environment at the national and international level.”
The statement insisted on the importance of working with international partners to “counteract the strategic corruption of foreign leaders, state or affiliated companies, transnational crime organizations.”
He added that that country will redouble its efforts to increase assistance resources “for investigation, financial, technical and political” in those countries that show the desire to reduce corruption.
The capacity of foreign governments and partners will also be strengthened “to implement transparency, supervision, and accountability measures, which will counteract corruption and provide citizens with useful and accessible information regarding government programs, policies, and spending.”
The statement said that the US Government will promote “partnerships with the private sector and civil society to promote anti-corruption measures and take actions to prevent it.”
The memorandum included, as part of the strategy to combat “all forms of illicit financing in the United States and international financial systems, including implementing a federal law to force companies in the United States to report their beneficiaries to the Treasury Department, reducing the offshore financial secrecy; improve information sharing ”; furthermore, “hold corrupt individuals, transnational criminal organizations and their facilitators to account; including, where appropriate, identifying, freezing and recovering stolen assets… and, where possible and appropriate, returning those assets for the benefit of citizens affected by corruption ”.
Biden, in another statement, stated that corruption “eats away at the foundations of democratic societies. It makes governments less effective, wastes public resources and exacerbates inequalities in access to services and makes it more difficult for families to support their loved ones ”. It also “encourages and intensifies extremism and makes it easier for authoritarian regimes to corrode democratic governance.”
The United States, assured the US president, will lead by example, but “this is a mission for the whole world.”
In that sense, he stressed that “we must support the brave citizens of the world who are demanding honest, transparent governance.”
Fighting corruption, said the US president, “is not only a question of good governance. It is self-defense. It is patriotism, and it is essential to preserve our democracy and our future ”.
Source: El Universal