Immigration topped day one of President Felipe Calderon’s visit to Washington DC yesterday. Speaking alongside President Barack Obama at the White House, Calderon denounced the new immigration legislation being implemented in Arizona while, in the New York Times’ words, also defending his government’s record on border security. He found a sympathetic ear in Mr. Obama, who also attacked the Arizona law – calling it “a misdirected expression of frustration over our broken immigration system. [Obama, however, also noted he did not have the 60 votes necessary in the Senate to pursue federal immigration reform]. In an attempt to quell Mexico’s frustration, President Obama said his administration continues to examine the law because “no law-abiding person, be they an American citizen, a legal immigrant, or a visitor or tourist from Mexico, should ever be subject to suspicion simply because of what they look like.”
The Times also focuses on the “human face” of the immigration debate, made manifest to first ladies Michelle Obama and Margarita Zavala de Calderón at a Maryland elementary school just before their husbands addressed reporters. It was there where a young girl asked Ms. Obama if her mother – in the US without proper documentation – now faced the risk of deportation.
President Calderon is scheduled to address a joint session of the US Congress today.
With more on US-Mexico relations, the ranking member of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), released a new report on US-Mexico efforts against organized crime and drug trafficking, coinciding with Calderón’s visit. The report, entitled “Common Enemy, Common Struggle,” (a link to the full download available here) was prepared by Lugar senior staffer, Carl Meachem, recently sent by the Senator to Mexico City to assess Mérida Initiative progress.
The Criminal Division of the US Justice Department also urged serious reform of the Mexican judicial system ahead of Calderon’s arrival yesterday. Lanny Breuer, the US Assistant Attorney General in charge of the division, tells AFP that the Mexican court system has just a three percent conviction rate in drug trafficking cases. The US continues to work with its Mexican counterparts on the issue, says Breuer, having trained almost 5,500 Mexican legal employees over the last year.
Civil society groups – among them the US-based Washington Office on Latin America and the Latin America Working Group, along with Mexican organizations Fundar, PRODH, and Tlachinollan – are urging the US and Mexico to get serious about “moving beyond ineffective and worn-out strategies.” In a statement yesterday, the organizations recommend expanding community-based prevention programs and evidence-based drug treatment; strengthening human-rights based security initiatives; promoting judicial reform; and increasing enforcement and cooperation of money laundering, among other things.
And a four-month investigation by National Public Radio which claims elements of the Mexican military are colluding with the Sinaloa cartel around Ciudad Juarez is getting lots of talk. Journalist John Burnett speaks on NPR’s Talk of the Nation yesterday about the investigative report. He emphasizes that “elements” of the Mexican military – not the military as a whole – is being compromised by Sinaloa – the largest of Mexico’s seven drug cartels. According to Burnett, Sinaloa is the “Sicily of Mexico” – the heartland of Mexico’s drug war – and it’s leader Joaquín, “el Chapo” Gúzman has been able to expand his influence to other parts of the country “because of the favor he’s been able to curry with the government.” Here’s the fact of the day from the report: Burnett says press releases indicate that about 2600 arrests have been made by Mexico in its fight against drug cartels. However, only 104 of these arrests have occurred in Juarez [where, Burnett says, 10,000 troops and federal police had been dispatched]. Eighty-eight of those arrests involved Juarez cartel members while just 16 were from the Sinaloa cartel. The Mexican government, speaking to EFE yesterday, denied the claims of collusion made by the NPR report.
On to other stories today:
· In Honduras, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR) has a new statement out following a four-day delegation visit to the country, which ended Tuesday. The delegation included IACHR Chair Felipe González, First Vice-Chair Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, Executive Secretary Santiago A. Canton, Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression Catalina Botero, and staff of the Executive Secretariat. A full report is expected in the coming weeks. For now, however, the IACHR expresses its “deep concern over the continuation of human rights violations in the context of the coup d’etat” of June 2009. Interestingly, the IACHR is explicit in distinguishing these concerns with general concerns about common crime that plagued the country even before June 28. It writes:
“Without prejudice to the high rate of criminality that in general exists in Honduras, the IACHR believes that the complaints received could correspond to the same pattern of violence that the IACHR reported in Honduras: Human Rights and the Coup d’État, published on January 20, 2010.”
This, the IACHR says, includes continued “threats and acts of harassment” against “human rights defenders, journalists, communicators, teachers, and members of the Resistance,” as well as “acts of harassment directed against judges who participated in activities against the coup d’état.” It’s that last issue of illegal judicial dismissals which Human Rights Watch is also condemning. According to HRW: “On May 12, 2010, the Honduran Supreme Court ratified its May 5 vote to dismiss four lower-court judges who are members of Judges for Democracy, a group that has challenged the legality of the coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya last year … Under Honduran law, the disciplinary proceeding leading to the judges' removal is not transparent and does not afford basic due process guarantee.”
· At World Politics Review, Kari Lipschutz has a short interview with Inter-American Dialogue president, Michael Shifter, on Ecuador’s foreign policy.
· US and Cuban officials, says AFP, are talking with one another, “at the working level,” about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. According to Gordon Duguid, a State Department spokesman, no details could be shared about when the talks began, where they were taking place, or who was involved.
· CNN has an interesting report about the difficulties of internal migration in Cuba as thousands who have come to Havana from rural provinces in the last decade have been “deported” back to their homes under a 1997 decree that restricts rural migration to the capital.
· Brazil and Turkey continued their public protests against the idea of new UN Security Council sanctions on Iran Wednesday. In a letter to the UN body, the two write that they are “convinced that it is time to give a chance for negotiations and to avoid measures that are detrimental to a peaceful solution.” They also called the nuclear fuel swapping deal struck Monday a “realistic and achievable road map.”
· BBC Mundo reports on a citizen initiative to fight political corruption and impunity in Brazil, which was approved by the national congress this week.
· Also from BBC, news that the Inter-American Human Rights Court will, on Thursday, begin hearing a case brought against the Brazilian state by human rights groups and family members of some 70 individuals, disappeared by the military from 1972 to 1975 in operations against the so-called “Araguaia guerrilla movement.” According to the Center for Justice and International Law’s (CEJIL) Viviana Krsticevic, an amnesty law remains the principal obstacle in the prosecution of those involved in human rights violations during Brazil’s cold war-era dictatorship.
· The Washington Post’s Juan Forero writes on the most recent set of accusations charging that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has provided assistance to the FARC and ETA. Documents from the two groups, the Post says, “suggest that Venezuela facilitated training sessions [in Venezuela] between the FARC and ETA.”
· Journalist Frank Smyth has a piece discussing Guatemala, its role in the drug trade as Central America’s principal “Transit Zone,” and the issue of impunity. According to Smyth, Guatemala “stands out in the region for having the worst record for either prosecuting or extraditing its own major suspects” implicated in trafficking activity. Smyth also notes that, unlike other countries in the region, “Guatemala’s ‘host-country’ trafficking organizations are suspected of each being tied to one or more of the nation’s retired Army intelligence commanders who have a long history of collaboration.”
· Finally some opinions. Andrew Selee, David Shirk, and Eric Olson of the Wilson Center offer their thoughts on President Calderon’s “historic” visit to DC. At the Washington Post’s website, Edward Schumacher-Matos says “the only solution to the drug trafficking and violence on both sides of the border is to legalize drugs.” But unfortunately, he says, that won’t be on the agenda for Calderon-Obama talks this week. At CFR’s site, Prof. Antonio Ramalho gives an interesting interview on Brazil, its role in Iran nuclear negotiations, as well as its position on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. And Alvaro Vargas Llosa discusses the “anti-politics” of Antanas Mockus in Colombia. He writes: “I have seen too many anti-politicians not to fear Mr. Mockus turning into a Fujimori or a Chavez. But the more I observe Colombia, the more I am convinced that his support is for the right reasons, whether he delivers or not – meaning that Colombians will hold him in check if he wins and becomes messianic.”
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