El Chapo: the New King of Juarez

In another exclusive this morning, the AP reports that the Sinaloa cartel, commanded by notorious drug capo Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman, now controls trafficking routes through Mexico’s most dangerous city, Ciudad Juarez. That information, says the AP, comes from US intelligence agents who’ve been monitoring the city’s drug activity through confidential informants within trafficking circles. If accurate, the new intelligence would mean the Sinaloa cartel has expanded its grip over the drug trade, “edging out the rival Juarez gang” who formerly dominated most routes north through the city. Mexican officials confirm the likelihood of the report saying: “If you control the city (Ciudad Juarez), you control the drugs. And it appears to be Chapo.”

The Sinaloa cartel is already considered the world’s largest narcotrafficking organization with its leader, Guzman, among the world’s richest men. The gang has been fighting for control of Juarez since 2008, a battle which, according to the AP, “prompted Mexican President Felipe Calderon to send thousands of army troops to the city.” Some 5000 persons have been killed since that time. But in other developments Thursday, President Calderon ordered Mexican army troops off the streets of Juarez, replacing them with thousands of federal police officers who will now take over security duties in the city. The AP sets the scene of the transfer:

“With lights flashing and helicopters churning overhead, dozens of blue-and-white federal patrol cars, trucks and armored cars streamed onto the streets, with helmeted officers scanning boulevards once plied by tan army humvees. About 412 federal vehicles, eight armored units, 90 motorcycles and four aircraft will patrol this city of 1.3 million, across the border from El Paso, Texas, that has become cartel battleground for drug routes heading north.”

The change is part of Calderon’s new strategy which will prioritize community policing and intelligence gathering in the struggle against the country’s drug cartels. [Soldiers will remain posted at checkpoints and border crossings, however]. To this end, Mexican federal police commissioner, Facundo Rosas, also announced the opening of a new federal command center, to be housed in an old maquiladora building, “where 40 intelligence officers will work exclusively on solving kidnapping and extortion.”

And with a more in-depth look on Mexico’s drug wars, I highly recommend a new piece out by Tomas Kellner and Franceso Pipitone, senior directors of Kroll Associates. Kellner was a former investigative journalist for Forbes while Pipitone has worked in Mexico's Ministry of the Interior, the Office of the President of the Republic, and the National Human Rights Commission. Their piece runs in the most recent issue of the World Policy Journal and has been re-posted at the indispensable Tom Dispatch.

To other stories today:

• Chinese President Hu Jintao is preparing for a significant visit to Latin America next week, making stops in Brazil, Chile, and Venezuela. The Chinese news service, Xinhua reported on the trip yesterday, quoting the country’s vice foreign minister who said the visit will continue to deepen Chinese-Latin American relations. “China and Latin American countries, all as developing countries, share extensive common interests. China has always attached great importance to its relations with these countries,” said the vice foreign minister recently. The trip will begin in Brazil for a meeting of the four BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) to be held April 14 to 17. According to the Chinese, Brazil and China will sign a “joint action plan” during bilateral talks as well as energy, finance, cultural, and science and technology agreements. Similar subjects are on the agenda in Venezuela and Chile it appears. Hu Jintao’s visit to Latin America will come after a stopover in Washington for next week’s highly anticipated international nuclear security summit. In the past weeks, President Obama has held long phone conversations with his Chinese counterpart about supporting a new round of sanctions against Iran. Something additional to keep an eye on when the Chinese head to Latin America is any post-DC discussion of Iran between Hu Jintao and Lula da Silva who has opposed new UN sanctions thus far.
• The Financial Times also looked at growing Chinese-Latin American relations earlier in the week, focusing on the new economic vulnerabilities that have come with deepened Chinese ties. For example, Lat Am nations have been reluctant to raise objections to Chinese currency manipulation by China because of their newfound dependence on the country for trade, says Brookings Mauricio Cárdenas.
• Freedom House released its new 2010 report on “Countries at the Crossroads” yesterday. The country profiles include various Latin American countries, among them Argentina, Nicaragua, Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, Haiti, El Salvador, and Honduras. (Note: just glancing at the Honduras report’s introduction gives me the sense that many of these pieces were written some months ago).
• Two notes on journalism in Latin America today. First, from the AQ blog, a distressing piece about the “grave risk” facing print news in Latin America. According to Mexican journalist Alma Guillermoprieto, paper editions of Latin American newspapers may no longer exist if they do not quickly employ new multimedia tools. In many ways, Guillermoprieto argues, Latin American papers are in worse shape than their North American and European counterparts. And, even more distressing, an EFE report says more than half of the journalist murders worldwide over the last 3 months have been working in Latin America. Honduras and Mexico lead the list as the most dangerous locations in the world to be a journalist. This from the Geneva-based Press Emblem Campaign.
• Venezuela and Uruguay tightened economic ties Wednesday when newly elected Uruguayan President José Mujica made a visit to Caracas. Uruguay gets oil (the two renewed a preferential deal that sends 40,000 barrels of oil to the country per day) and technical support for its crude oil refinery on the outskirts of Montevideo. Venezuela gets 1,000 “vehicles” from Uruguay as well as technical assistance for food production and apparently “180 metric tons of Uruguayan chicken per month.”
• Also, a piece at Global Post by frequent Time contributor, Charlie Devereux, provides a fair look at housing policies in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. The focus is on the creation of so-called “socialist cities” under the Chavez government, hailed by some as a solution to the country’s housing shortages—as well as common crime and poverty—but assailed by others as “an invasion of private property rights.” The short piece is worth a look.
• Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch issued a new statement yesterday denouncing attacks on “judicial independence” under the Chavez government. The particular case of the detained Judge María Lourdes Afiuni is HRW’s focus.
• Colombia’s Semana has a piece on what some are calling Latin America’s new “arms race,” looking beyond Venezuela’s recent purchases, in the paper’s words.
• La Silla Vacía has more on the recently announced Brazil-US security deal, arguing that the agreement may prove itself to be useful for Colombia. Nicolas Urrutia offers his take:

  "The majority of the cocaine that leaves [Colombia] for Europe does so through Venezuela and Brazil. However, while the routes through Venezuela are increasingly pressured by monitoring done from Key West, through the Joint Interagency Task Force South, the South Atlantic continues to be a comparatively 'open' space. Therefore, the agreement might not only contribute to the continued closing off of narcotrafficking spaces, but also it could demonstrate in concrete terms the Brazilian’s commitment to a problem that cannot fall exclusively to Colombia and the US.”

• Time has more on a story the AP broke yesterday about highly enriched uranium transfers from Chile to the US after last month’s powerful earthquake.
• The Miami Herald reports that US organizations which help Cuban dissident groups can restart trips to the island under new State Dept. rules. The move indicates that, in the Herald’s words, the US is “toughening its posture after Havana's recent abuses.”
• Unrelated to Latin America but perhaps of interest to some readers, the new Soros-funded Institute for New Economic Thinking is being launched over the next few days at a conference at King’s College. Steve Clemons, publisher of the Washington Note, is at the conference with more.
• Finally, a handful of opinions. Christopher Sabatini of the America’s Society in the Huffington Post on anachronisms in US-Latin American policy. Marifeli Perez-Stable on the Castro brothers’ “deafness” to Cuban demands. AEI’s Roger Noriega in the Wall Street Journal calls on the US to get tough on Venezuela for its relationship with Iran. And some may have seen a Washington Post editorial which was accidentally posted online about Venezuela’s recent arms deal with Russia a few days ago. The first post was apparently too aggressive in tone and was taken down from the paper’s site. But a new editorial ran yesterday, criticizing US “nonchalance” over human rights crackdowns and the country’s new arms deals.