Colombia, Mexico, and Mixed Messaging

It took less than 24 hours for the White House to realize the controversial nature of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Wednesday comments, comparing the drug wars of Mexico to those of Colombia two decades ago and hinting at the replication of Plan Colombia for Mexico and its Central American neighbors. In an interview given to a Mexican correspondent from the paper La Opinión yesterday, President Obama seemed to correct the words of his top diplomat, maintaining that “Mexico is a vast and progressive democracy, with a growing economy, and as a result you cannot compare what is happening in Mexico with what happened in Colombia 20 years ago.”

So too were Clinton’s assistant secretary for the Western Hemisphere, Arturo Valenzuela, and the country’s drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske sent out to the press on a damage control detail. Valenzuela nuanced Clinton’s talk of an “insurgency” in Mexico, contending that the term “is not being used in the same sense as the Colombian insurgency” as “it is not a political upheaval within society that is trying to takeover the state.” For his part, Kerlikowske said great care should be given when tossing the word “insurgency” around in the Mexican context. The fact that there have been some car bombs is something causing "concern", Kerlikowske said Thursday, but "that does not translate automatically to insurgency."

The mixed message on Mexico represents what the Washington Post this morning is calling “a rare disagreement between Obama and Clinton.” The State Department, however, denies any such divergence exists. Here’s State Dept. spokesman PJ Crowley in an email to the Post:

“These are two different countries and different circumstances. The Secretary completely agrees…What she was saying is that, first, criminal organizations are challenging authority in Mexico as we saw in Colombia. The growing brutality is beginning to resemble what Colombia experienced. Colombia turned its situation around through decisive action by a democratic government, supported by the United States and the international community. We are seeing the same sustained action by the Mexican government. As she said also, this is a shared responsibility and we and others need to support Mexico in this effort.”

Further, the paper points out that Obama’s attempt to differentiate the Mexico situation from Colombia based on economic differences seemed historically inaccurate all-together. “Two decades ago in Colombia, the elected president, Cesar Gaviria, pushed through a series of economic reforms known as ‘the opening,’ which, despite drug-related violence, led to years of economic growth,” the Post writes.

Colombianization or not, the willingness of Ms. Clinton to use what might be called more “active” language when discussing the Mexico situation – and the fact that the White House felt obliged to issue so many clarifications – suggests some new (and likely monetarily significant) US-Mexico initiative may be on the horizon. As the Wall Street Journal reports today, “U.S. and Mexican officials say the Pentagon's Northern Command, the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies are discussing what aviation, surveillance and intelligence assets could be used—both inside Mexico and along the border—to help counter the drug cartels.” According to the report, however, in many cases, the biggest pushback for increased US military support in Mexico comes from the Mexican government itself, sensitive to incursions on its national sovereignty, particularly related to military and security issues.

Continuing:

· A quick wrap-up of other stories and opinions on the drug wars. At the Arizona Daily Star, organized-crime analyst Edgardo Buscaglia sees the Colombia/Mexico comparison as a fair one to be making, since both cases were/are “directly related to the weakness of the state.” Colombia's police director, Gen. Oscar Naranjo, seems to concur, arguing that “Mexico is on the cusp of a battle royal in which politicians, police and judges will increasingly be targeted and terror used against civilians - just as Pablo Escobar and his Medellin cocaine cartel did in their country,” to use the Daily Star’s words. Proceso and La Jornanda columnist and professor John Ackerman, in an op-ed in today’s LA Times offers a counter, calling Ms. Clinton’s Colombia analogy a “dangerous mistake.” Rather than militarize the drug war in Mexico further, Ackerman says the US should boost Mexico funding which deals with deeply rooted problems of corruption. Ackerman:

“Mexico needs to implement powerful institutional solutions that change the incentive equation for government officials. Specifically, it should create a new, fully independent and well-funded anti-corruption commission to work closely with civil society to oversee, investigate and catch wrongdoing by public servants.”

Meanwhile, former US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, Robert Bonner in today’s Wall Street Journal suggests a “comprehensive” US-Mexico strategy, which relies heavily on increased military-to-military cooperation. The Washington Post examines how some Mexican authorities are fearful of California’s upcoming vote on legalizing pot. And the Mexican Senate, in a 79-0 vote, has approved a bill that “would allow undocumented migrants to file complaints about abuses and receive medical treatment without being questioned about their immigration status.” Currently, says the AP, “Mexican law allows only people who are legally in the country to file such complaints with police and other agencies, and hospitals and other institutions are permitted to ask people for proof of legal migratory status.”

· On human rights worries in Peru, Just the Facts interviews Professor Jo-Marie Burt on a very controversial executive amnesty decree (1097) which has flown under the radar screen of the US-language media thus fear. Human rights advocates fear the decree could be a serious setback to years of judicial work against human rights abusers – including the conviction of ex-president Alberto Fujimori. In a column at NoticiasSer, Burt argues that the measure – which could end prosecution of rights violations occurring before 2003 – is part of a sustained campaign being launched against human rights defenders by Alan Garcia and the Peruvian government, which has increasingly returned to a “with us or against us” discourse of the 1980s and 1990s when dealing with human rights issues. WOLA has a statement on the matter, with Coletta Youngers, WOLA senior fellow, calling the decree a “get out jail free card” for those who “committed systematic atrocities against civilians, including massacres, torture, and forced disappearance.”

· Staying with controversies, the LA Times reports on that surrounding Georgetown University’s decision to bring former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe onto its faculty for a year as a “Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership” at its Washington DC-based School of Foreign Service.

· The AP here on the deployment of the Honduran military onto the streets of multiple Honduran cities to conduct anti-crime patrols following the massacre of 18 people earlier in the week in San Pedro Sula.

· IPS has a good report on the ongoing but little covered disputes between the Chilean government and Mapuche activists, 34 of whom have been on a hunger strike in Chilean prisons after being convicted of “terrorist arson, attempted homicide, bodily injury, invasion of property, threats and illicit association.” The individuals were tried under the country's polemical, Pinochet-era counter-terrorism law.

· In his Miami Herald column, Andres Oppenheimer comments on George Soros’s 100 million gift to Human Rights Watch this week, saying the donation could not have come at a better time. Latin America, Oppenheimer says, is paradigmatic of a global backtracking on human rights. “After reaching key agreements for the collective defense of democracy and human rights in the '90s, most countries in the region are now looking the other way at major violations by their neighbors,” says Oppenheimer. According to HRW’s Americas Director José Miguel Vivanco, “There is a double standard nowadays: many countries criticize rights violations of governments they don't like, but justify violations by countries they like.”

· And finally, this week’s Economist [full story here] provides an interpretative overview of the Latin American political and economic landscape as many in the region on the eve of bicentennial celebrations in Mexico. The piece notes the significant economic successes the region has experienced over the last decade. But, it maintains, consolidation of this success may require changes in both Latin America and its northern neighbor. Future Latin American prosperity, the Economist maintains, depends on Latin America “shedding its old chippiness, manifest in Mr [Hugo] Chávez’s obsession with being in the hated yanqui’s ‘backyard’” and the United States willingness to “build bridges, not walls” with their southern “cousins.” Shades of 21^st century “pan-Americanism” – a concept whose historical record seems disappointing, at best.