"Martha Garnica devised secret codes, passed stacks of cash through car windows and sketched out a map for smugglers to safely haul drugs and undocumented workers across the border,” writes the Washington Post’s Ceci Connolly in a long feature piece which ran over the weekend. For her work, she was “richly rewarded” – a large house, pool, two hummers and vacations to Europe. But, until her 2009 arrest, Garnica lived a double life – in the shadows a drug cartel asset; in public life, a longtime US border patrol agent. The Post says the Garnica story illustrates the often-ignored “role of the United States” in the drug trade. “Corruption is on the rise in the ranks of U.S. law enforcement working the border,” according to the paper, with the frontline of US Customs and Border Protection experiencing the most “acute” problems [The number of CBP corruption investigations opened by the inspector general climbed from 245 in 2006 to more than 770 this year. Corruption cases at its sister agency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, rose from 66 to more than 220 over the same period.]
It could be argued, however, that the lack of attention to the United States in debates about the drug war is increasingly becoming a phenomenon isolated to the United States itself. Mexican and other Latin American officials have become quite willing to argue that the US shares responsibility for drug war woes. Late last week, for example, Felipe Calderon maintained that principal responsibility for the recent massacre that took the lives of 72 migrants lay in the United States. “If we are talking about responsibility, at the root of this, in the case of immigration, is the lack of immigration legislation in the United States that would recognize this phenomenon,” Calderon said shortly after pledging to step up joint efforts for combating drug gangs with his Salvadoran counterpart, Mauricio Funes. [For his part, Mr. Funes clarified that home nations also bear responsibility for having not generated the proper “employment” and “welfare” conditions for their citizens.]
This comes after the firing of 3200 members of the Mexican national police force a little over a week ago.NPR has a report on the dismissals, writing that “hundreds of federal cops took to the streets of Ciudad Juarez in an extraordinary demonstration to accuse their commanders of corruption and colluding with the criminals they are supposed to be fighting.” Taken together with new questions about increased US military and police aid to Mexico – particularly a replication Colombia-like counter-insurgency strategies, as suggested last week by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – things get increasingly complicated. Adam Isacson at Just the Facts has more.
Still in Mexico:
· The International Press Institute said this weekend that Mexico is the world’s most dangerous country for journalists. “In the first eight months of 2010, 52 journalists were killed because of their work. That’s only four fewer than in the same period last year and it’s 52 too many,” says the Vienna-based organization’s interim director. IPI has also maintained that Latin America, as a region, is the most dangerous in the world for journalists. The Wall Street Journal examines the exodus of Mexican elites from the country’s industrial capital of Monterrey in the wake of growing cartel activity there. U.S. farm equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. ordered executives with children to leave the city. The US State Dept. recently told its employees they should move their children out. And according to the paper, “The security situation is so alarming…that the mayor has sent his family to live in Dallas...” The New York Times, meanwhile, reports on Mexico’s bicentennial celebrations, and the muted enthusiasm which surrounds them. However, to paraphrase the Wilson Center’s Andrew Selee, quoted in the piece, “history and symbols” still may be things that unite a Mexican body politic being torn apart by violence. News from Reuters on the latest arrest of a major cartel kingpin – this time another Beltran Leyva capo Sergio Villarreal, aka “El Grande.” The Wilson Center and the Univ. of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute have a new working paper out on US arms going south to Mexico. And two opinions. David Rothkopf says Hillary Clinton’s Colombia comparisons were needed as a “wake up call” about the increasingly dire situation of violence in Mexico. Laura Carlsen, on the other hand, argues that rather than translating “shared responsibility” into increased military aid for Mexico, the United States should finally engage with its own out-of-date drug policies.
· From Colombia, the BBC reports on a new report from the Colombia-based think tank Idepaz which says armed drug trafficking organizations (or so-called “paramilitary successor groups,” in the words of Human Rights Watch) now represent the principal source of violence in the country – more so than left-wing rebel groups. The Indepaz study says such organizations are now present in 29 of the country’s 32 provinces and count some 13,000 individuals among their members. The BBC: “With names like the Black Eagles and Rastrojos, they combine control of cocaine production and smuggling with extreme violence, though with less of a political agenda.”
· Responding to presidential decrees in Peru which could limit the scope and effectiveness of human rights prosecutions there, Human Rights Watch is calling on the Peruvian government to make serious amendments. “President García has created a legal framework that amounts to a blanket amnesty for the vast majority of abuses by state agents in Peru's recent history, including during his first presidency,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “This means that those responsible for killings, ‘disappearances,' and torture will never have to pay the price for their crimes.” U.N. Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Martin Scheinin, adds that there is the “perception of a climate of impunity” in Peru. More from IPS. President Alan García, meanwhile, now seems willing to negotiate. If the Peruvian parliament overturns decree 1097, García said Sunday, he would not stand in their way.
· From the LA Times, excerpts from an interview with Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes who was visiting Los Angeles last week. Topics of discussion include: links between Salvadoran gangs and the international drug trade, immigration, and economics. Returning to the question of defining “shared responsibility, Funes maintains that “if the United States is concerned about [illegal] immigration and drug trafficking, the best solution is a strategic alliance that together will bring development and job opportunities and social benefits to El Salvador.”
· More analysis on upcoming Venezuelan legislative elections, from the Americas Society.
· After a reporter’s call with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair, Howard Berman the Havana Notehas the latest on where Cuba travel/trade legislation may be headed.
· Finally, history, economics, and public policy. Andres Oppenheimer, in the Miami Herald, takes a dig at the place of history in the region’s current political discourse. Apparently the Herald columnist has a new book coming out entitled, MOVE ON! Latin America's Obsession with the Past, and 12 Challenges for the Future. His argument:
“Instead of spending so much time on their fallen independence heroes, countries should spend more time debating why only 1.9 percent of all the world's investments in research and development are going to Latin America, or why there is no single Latin American university in the most prestigious ranking of the world's 100 best higher education institutions, or why a small Asian nation such as South Korea produces 80,000 international patents a year, while all Latin American countries combined produce fewer than 1,200.”
Whether or not history and public policy can in fact be separated out as neatly as Oppenheimer believes, the piece seems appropriately read alongside an interesting mix of other reports out this week. The UNDP says efforts at poverty-reduction still have a long way to go whileinequality in Latin America remains the highest anywhere in the world. Following last week’s discussion of the new ECLA report of Latin America in the World Economy, the World Bank has a report out examining whether commodity exports, the historic source of both the region’s economic growth and stagnation, have been “more of a curse than a blessing for the region.” Its conclusion (via the Miami Herald): “If properly managed, commodities can be a key source of economic growth for Latin America and the Caribbean. In fact, the 2001-2008 commodities boom -- the longest since records have been kept -- helped the region bounce back more quickly from the global economic crisis.” An important reason for this, according to World Bank chief economist, Augusto de la Torre, has been the story of improved Latin American governance. De la Torre: It “is far more common to see commodity extraction linked to other economic activities directly benefiting the source country.” On that, ECLA’s Alicia Barcena, quoted in this weekend’s New York Times has more. “The lesson of the 1990s and 2000 decades is there has to be an active public policy. There has to be the role of the public sector to bring up the level of the people in the schools, to invest in education and science and technology.”
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