Rethinking "Security," from Mexico to Argentina

In a talk Thursday, Mexican President Felipe Calderon admitted that the deployment of the Mexican Army and National Police to the country’s most violent city—Ciudad Juarez—has not been enough to halt drug-related violence there. Rather, Calderon argued, new social measures must also be adopted in the city to combat still-rising crime and violence. As EFE reports this morning, these words, which come after the bloody murder of 16 teenagers in Juarez earlier in the week, follow similar statements made last November by Mexican Interior Minister Fernando Gómez Mont who promised an increased focus on “community reconstruction” in Juarez. As the Americas Program’s Laura Carlsen writes in her FPIF column, these types of statements represent “the most self-critical statements yet [from the Mexican government] regarding the failure of his drug war.” [However, Carlsen adds that further support of the Merida Initiative by the Obama administration, which put an additional $310 million in drug war aid in its proposed budget this week, is contradictory to Mexican calls for a change in strategy].

While the Mexican government reflects on the shortcomings of using the military to fight crime, there are some signs around the region that other countries may be following Mexico down the path it began in 2006. On Monday, Gov. Luis Fortuno of Puerto Rico signed an executive order that has activated the National Guard to take over public security efforts on the island. The year 2009 saw some 890 homicides—the third most violent year on record for PR—and a trend many connect to the increased activity of drug traffickers. And in Argentina, former President Eduardo Duhalde caused a stir this week when he argued it was necessary for the military to take over internal security matters so as to halt growing domestic insecurity in his country. This comes as the country debates a proposed “Democratic Security Accord” (presented in late December) supported by a broad range of individuals from the government, the opposition, and the human rights and legal community as an alternative against so-called “iron fist” internal security policies.

And meanwhile, in Chile, the outgoing government of Michelle Bachelet has made one of her final acts the “modernization” of military-civilian relations. This week the popular president signed a bill which places the Armed Forces more fully under civilian control. As MercoPress reports, “under the new legislation the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be selected by the President among the three-star generals and will be responsible for crisis situations ensuring the Chilean forces are fully trained, prepared and ready for deployment.” More debate on civilian-military relations could be coming shortly as president-elect Sebastian Pinera has said he would like to end a law which automatically puts a percentage of the money from copper sales into the military budget.

Other stories around the region today:

· From Haiti, the ten American missionaries who attempted to take 33 Haitian children out of the country last week have been charged by the Haitian government with child abduction and criminal conspiracy. If convicted, they could face as much as 15 years in prison. The Washington Post’s Juan Forero looks at how the U.S. response to Haiti may boost the country’s image in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Times says baseball manufacturer Rawlings, which moved operations out of Haiti to Costa Rica 20 years ago, should be encouraged to return to the country. And from AFP, UN independent expert on foreign debt, Cephas Lumina, criticized the IMF’s recent $114 million loan to Haiti. Lumina said “urgent, unconditional grant-aid” should be given to the country, not loans, while adding that the remaining portion of Haiti’s debt should be cancelled.

· The Wall Street Journal reports that Mexican drug boss Miguel Angel Caro Quintero, once the leader of the Sonora cartel, was sentenced to 17 years in prison yesterday. Caro Quintero was extradited to the US one year ago and put on trial in Colorado. And the AP has some analysis on how drug treatment centers in Mexico have become targets for drug gangs and a source of new recruits. Again, says Edgardo Buscaglia, a leading Mexican drug expert, “the phenomenon highlights the government's failure to address the social ills that have grown from Mexico's burgeoning drug trade. While the government has gone after the cartels using the police and military, they have done little to regulate private treatment facilities that have proliferated as cocaine use doubled nationwide over the last six years.”

· Just the Facts has a primer on what is known about the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, the new security/counternarcotics plan in President Obama’s 2011 foreign aid budget request. The request calls the CBSI a “multiyear, multifaceted effort by the U.S. Government and Caribbean partners to develop a joint regional citizen safety strategy to tackle the full range of security and criminal threats to the Caribbean Basin.”

· A new piece in In these Times by journalist Jeremy Kryt says the human rights situation is not improving in Honduras, even after the inauguration of Pepe Lobo (in fact, he argues, it is actually worsening). Honduran rights group COFADEH has confirmed the deaths of seven resistance members in January, writes the magazine. This as international attention has turned away from the country. According to Victoria Cervantes, coordinator of the Chicago-based human rights organization Los Voz de los de Abajo, “What we’re seeing now is a violence that’s very selective against people and communities in resistance.”

· Declassification of military archives in Bolivia will finally begin, says Bolivia’s La Razón, allowing investigations into the dictatorships of Hugo Banzer Suárez and Luis Garcia Meza to begin.

· On re-election in Colombia, Bloomberg reports on the uncertainty that continues to surround the issue. A constitutional court is currently evaluating the proposed referendum that, if passed, would allow Alvaro Uribe to seek another term in office.

· The AP reports on a new round of pro and anti Chavez protests in Venezuela yesterday, coming on the anniversary of the failed rebellion launched by then lieutenant-colonel Hugo Chavez and other military officers in 1992.

· And finally, I reported last week on a proposed constitutional reform measure in Chile that makes water a “matter of national security.” This week, in Brazil, a similar measure was passed by the Brazilian Congress who proclaimed “food security as a new constitutional right of all citizens, along with health, housing, work, social security, child protection and other basic guarantees.” Following the vote, Senate President Jose Sarney said his country “now has the satisfaction of having a constitution with the world’s best social-rights provisions.” President Lula da Silva has promised an extension of social programs this year as well, an attempt to “ensure the preservation of social ‘conquests’ made during his time in office.”