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GUEST: Laura Carlsen, the director of the Americas Program of the International Relations Center, based in Mexico City

A Mexican newspaper posted videos of what appear to be torture training workshops on its website last week. The videos, which are reposted on YouTube, show police in the city of Leon, being subjected to harsh treatment by their superiors and what appears to be a plain-clothes foreign trainer giving orders in English. A reluctant cadet is made to roll through a puddle of vomit, another has his head shoved into a pit of excrement and has mineral water poured up his nose while blindfolded. The website Narco News claims that a company called Risks Incorporated based in Miami, Florida and Great Britain runs the training courses for Mexican police. Apparently the newspaper, El Universal, identified the leaders of the torture workshop as a “Jerry Wilson” from Britain and “Gerardo Arrechea,” a Cuban-Mexican. Mexican officials have defended the workshops saying that it gives their police the necessary training to handle confrontations with drug cartels. The training courses have caused a major uproar in Mexico and are to be investigated by the nation’s Human Rights Commission. But just days before the training videos went online President Bush signed a $400 million US aid package to Mexico called the Merida Plan aimed at drug trafficking and crime.