Guns, Arizona, US Aid, and Mexico

Guns and immigration were among the issues Felipe Calderón highlighted in his speech to a joint session of the US Congress Thursday. On the former, the Mexican president, facing rising criticism at home for his aggressive prosecution of the drug war, called on the US to “regulate” the sales of assault weapons “right away,” saying the weapons were too frequently “ending up in the hands of criminals.” According to the Washington Post, Mr. Calderón said his country had seized some 5,000 guns over a three-year period -- 80 percent of which were traced back to a sale in the US.

The paper also says the Mexican president thanked lawmakers for providing hundreds of millions of dollars to “bolster his country's fight against drug gangs” – a fight he said he has no plans of dialing down. “We have not hesitated to use all the power of the state, including the federal police and the armed forces,” Calderón said Thursday. “We are hitting them, and we are hitting them hard.”

This as an AP report this morning indicates that the United States has only “spent a fraction of the $1.1 billion it promised Mexico between 2008 and 2010 to make ‘an immediate and important impact’ on surging drug cartel violence.” State Dept. spreadsheets recently obtained by the wire service indicate that only now is money really beginning to flow to Mexico. The AP: “After bureaucratic tie-ups limited spending to $26 million in two years, cash began to flow this year, with $235 million projected by year end, and at least $331 million expected in 2011.” [U.S. leaders frequently talk about how they have sent $1 billion in aid to Mexico over the last three years. Calderón himself said he’d received “about $400 million” already. But, the AP says, the real number is actually just $161 million thus far.]

And on the immigration issue, the biggest news came in the reaction of various Republican members of Congress who believed Calderón had “crossed the line” in assailing Arizona’s anti-immigrant legislation. “I've never heard of another country's president coming here and criticizing the United States like that,” Sen. Jon Cornyn (R-TX) said after the speech. Makes you wonder if he’s ever heard an American president talk in or about Latin America before.

To other stories today:

· The Washington Post reports on Sen. Claire McCaskill’s worries about a lack of oversight on some $1 billion the US sends to various Latin American governments to combat illegal drug production and trafficking. McCaskill, chair of the subcommittee on contracting oversight, attacked both the State Dept. and Pentagon on the issue during a hearing Thursday [full statement available via Just the Facts], saying the responsible agencies “had been slow to provide her office with the most basic information, including how much is being spent, what kind of work is being performed and whether periodic evaluations and audits are being done.” Among the companies who have been given contracts by the US government are Northrop Grumman, ITT Systems, Lockheed Martin and DynCorp.

· Sticking with drugs and violence, Global Post has a new piece looking at the reversal of crime trends in Medellin, Colombia. “The city has returned to its old ways, throwing into stark relief just how difficult it is to reclaim a city from drug traffickers,” journalist Nadja Drost writes. The piece goes on: “Behind the new and relative calm was a strong, criminal hand: Diego Fernando Murillo, a drug kingpin who monopolized Medellin’s drug trade — even from prison. Many attribute the drop in killings in the mid-2000s not so much to the city efforts, but to the overlord’s regime, dubbed ‘Donbernabilidad.’”

· Also, news on the murder of peasant land rights activist, Rogelio Martinez, who was killed in rural Northern Colombia this week by “a group of hooded men dressed in black.” In a new statement condemning the murder, Amnesty International says “those campaigning for truth, justice and reparation and for the return of lands stolen by paramilitary groups in the context of Colombia’s long-running armed conflict continue to pay a heavy price for their human rights work.”

· The US Justice Dept. says former Guatemalan special-forces agent Gilberto Jordan has been indicted by a federal grand jury for lying on his naturalization application about his participation in a 1982 massacre at the Guatemalan village of Dos Erres. If convicted, DOJ says Jordan faces a maximum prison sentence of 10 years and revocation of his U.S. citizenship.

· Meanwhile, in Guatemala, a Mexican national was sentenced to 60 years in prison this week for his involvement in the massacre of 19 drug traffickers in November 2008. Victor Hugo Morales, considered among the Zetas’ leadership, was charged with criminal conspiracy and membership in an illegal armed group, EFE reports.

· From Peru, a piece in Foreign Policy looks at on-going indigenous struggles against extractive industries in the Amazonas region – and the state violence with which such struggles continue to be met, particularly after Bagua. “The problem,” says Ivan Lanegra, an officer in Peru’s ombudsman's office, “is there's no overall development plan [in Peru]. No one is managing the big picture. The state needs to play a bigger role in regulating these projects and guiding the profits into proper institutions. Until that happens, local communities will continue to feel there's no one looking out for them.”

· The images of indigenous demonstrations are not ones portenos are particularly familiar with but BBC Mundo writes that on Thursday groups entered the capital city of Buenos Aires and its principal plaza, the Plaza de Mayo. Their demands: the return of their ancestral lands, much of which have fallen into the hands of large soy farmers and education reform that is “pluricultural.” The protests came as the country prepares for its much-anticipated Bicentennial celebrations.

· In the Economist, a very good report this morning on the booming Brazilian economy which some have said faces the risk of “overheating.” Also more at BBC on Lula’s frustrations with the US over Iran. The matter is also the subject of a good Q & A with Peter Hakim, Paulo Sotero and Matias Spektor over at the Inter-American Dialogue’s site.

· The Miami Herald reports that the U.S. agency which enforces Cuba sanctions approved 42 new travel service providers this year – up from zero in 2009. According to the paper, the increases come, in large part, because of (slightly) new US-Cuba travel policies enacted by the Obama administration last year.

· In These Times says neoliberalism is “alive and well” after Latin America put the ink on new trade deals with the European Union this week. Speaking about the new Central America-EU free trade deal in particular, ITT says “human rights advocates and workers across both continents are opposing the agreement at a time when Europe is struggling to rebound from the financial crisis, suddenly intensified by the recent turmoil in Greece.”

· In Uruguay [recently named the “most optimistic country in the region”] more than 10,000 took the streets Thursday for what is arguably one of the most moving annual demonstrations anywhere in the region. The 15^th annual “March of Silence” brought human rights activists, labor activists, and politicians (including President José Mujica) together to remember the victims of the country’s military dictatorship while again demanding “truth and justice” for those who remain disappeared. The march was the first since voters failed to approval the annulment of an amnesty law that continues to shelter some military officials from prosecution for human rights violations committed during the dictatorship. Also, I recommend a short video which the Uruguayan Mothers and Families of the Detained/Disappeared aired on Uruguayan television yesterday.

· In Colombia, new polls show Antanas Mockus increasing his lead over Juan Manuel Santos ahead of May 30^th voting. In the first-round, Mockus beats Santos 33% to 29%. But in a second-round Mockus’s now holds an astounding 14 percentage point lead over Santos!

· Lastly, opinions. Roger Pardo-Maurer (former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Western Hemisphere affairs) in Politico says Mexico’s challenges go well-beyond the drug war. Among the issues he highlights: oil, water, competitiveness, youth, and aging. The Washington Post, in an editorial, says the Obama administration and Congress should listen to Felipe Calderón’s calls for a revival of the assault weapons ban. Also in the Post, neocon Charles Krauthammer talks Latin America after the Brazil-Turkey-Iran nuclear deal. Pictures of Turkish and Brazilian presidents standing next to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Krauthammer argues, show “not just an America in decline” but “America in retreat -- accepting, ratifying and declaring its decline, and inviting rising powers to fill the vacuum.” Andres Oppenheimer and Israeli columnist Uri Dromi also offer their thoughts on Brazil and Iran in the Miami Herald.