Death Comes for Tijuana

A brazen attack on a private drug treatment center in Tijuana took the lives of at least 13 men late Sunday night. The incident was the deadliest in the city since 2008, and one which opens new questions about citizen security in the border city hailed by President Felipe Calderón and others as a “model” in the fight against organized crime.

According to the LA Times, the massacre was carried out by two to four men who lined up treatment center patients against a wall before opening fire with assault rifles. Shortly thereafter, the paper says, someone broke into the police frequency in the city, “playing narco-ballad music and warning that the attack was ‘a taste’ of Juarez-style carnage.” As the Blog del Narco writes – and the Times now confirms – the anonymous radio voice added that “one person would die for every ton of marijuana seized,” a reference to last week’s seizure of some 134 tons of weed, believed to have belonged to Joaquin “el Chapo” Gúzman’s Sinaloa cartel.

The New York Times, meanwhile, returns to President Calderon’s speech at a Tijuana security conference earlier this month in which he said the city provided a “clear example” that Mexico’s security challenge “has a solution.” It’s true that the annual number of murders in 2009 from a high of more than 800 two years ago, the paper says. But, “not counting the latest violence, there have been 639 killings this year, on a pace to match or surpass the 695 of last year.” And once again, William Finnegan’s reporting for the New Yorker raises serious questions about the methods and long-term costs associated with the city’s current police “purification” process, carried out under the iron-fist of Colonel Julian Leyzaola.

Nik Steinberg of Human Rights Watch echoes those concerns in a letter to the New York Times today. “The Mexican military and police, whom [Op-ed contributor Federico] Campbell praises for making Tijuana safer,” Steinberg writes, “have committed widespread human rights abuses, including more than 100 credible accusations of torture documented by Human Rights Watch, undermining the very security they were sent to restore.” Meanwhile, David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego, tells the Wall Street Journal that, even if homicide numbers have fallen, it remains unclear whether or not official authorities are actually in control of Tijuana. Shirk: “Who is in charge of Tijuana, the authorities or the thugs? I don't think there's any clear evidence that the authorities are in charge.”

Continuing with Mexico:

· Former President Vicente Fox made another plea for direction change in his country’s fight against drug cartels, calling for the military to be brought back into the barracks. Speaking at the Festival of Latin American Media in Miami on Monday, here’s Fox:

“You cannot win a battle against crime by trampling human rights, restricting freedom on the streets, or disregarding the judicial system.”

As he has outlined before, Fox said a new approach must be centered around decriminalizing the consumption, production, and distribution of drugs. Fox again added his voice to those supporting California’s Prop. 19, which is the subject of Open Society Institute founder George Soros’s op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal. In the US, Soros says the “roughly 750,000 arrests” made each year for possession of small amounts of marijuana “represent more than 40% of all drug arrests” – a financial burden on the country’s criminal justice system that could be erased if marijuana were legalized, taxed, and regulated. In addition, drug laws have deepened racial inequities, Soros maintains, while the principal beneficiaries remain “major criminal organizations in Mexico and elsewhere that earn billions of dollars annually from this illicit trade.” Quoting Soros:

“Some claim that [cartels] would only move into other illicit enterprises [if marijuana were legalized], but they are more likely to be weakened by being deprived of the easy profits they can earn with marijuana. This was just one reason the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy—chaired by three distinguished former presidents, Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, César Gaviria of Colombia and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico—included marijuana decriminalization among their recommendations for reforming drug policies in the Americas.”

· Outside drug war focus, Reuters with an interesting look at Mexico’s hope of becoming a “laboratory for cutting carbon” ahead of the next round of global climate change talks, to take place in Cancun in late November.

· On Cuba, the New York Times reported yesterday on a letter which the wife of imprisoned USAID contractor Alan Gross sent to President Raúl Castro, pleading for her husband’s release, in early August. The release of the letter to the press now is meant to coincide with the annual United Nations vote condemning the US embargo on Cuba as well as debate about the European Union’s common policy toward the island. On the latter, Foreign Policy has a bit more, reporting that EU High Representative Catherine Ashton is planning to contact the Cuban government for talks aimed at normalizing ties with Cuba, following the recent release of dozens of political prisoners. The Miami Herald, unsurprisingly, rejects any changes to the EU’s common policy, which ties improvements in EU-Cuba relations to “progress on human rights.” Meanwhile, on the island, the AP and Al-Jazeera both have good reports on Cuba’s new economic reforms, which went into effect Monday. Among other things, the reforms, which did not emerge until this week, include the creation of four classes of taxes for the emergent private sector while also outlining the 178 private activities for which licenses can be granted.

· The New York Times continues its reporting on the cholera outbreak in Haiti. With optimism, the paper says “treatment is rescuing more than 90 percent of those who get to a clinic.” Just six deaths were reported Monday. And this interesting bit about Latin America’s contribution to medical efforts:

“Medical professionals and supplies are arriving from around the world to support the Haitian government, still reeling from the January earthquake. About 20 rocky miles north of St.- Marc [the outbreak’s epicenter], a Cuban medical brigade, long stationed at the community hospital in L’Estère, has been expanded to 28 doctors and nurses, and Bolivian troops are building a 100-bed cholera clinic next door.”

The CS Monitor, meanwhile, has a look at the political implications of the outbreak – and increasing doubts that the Nov. 28 vote could in any way be considered legitimate. CS Monitor: “Haitian President René Préval on Saturday voiced concern about contagion at polling stations, raising the possibility that the Nov. 28 election would be delayed. Even if the vote happens as scheduled, observers say some might stay home out of fear.”

· State Dept. number two, James Steinberg, met with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in Bogotá Monday. As Colombia Reports writes, the first topic touched upon: Prop. 19 – an initiative Steinberg said the federal government in no way supports. “As we continue with this new dialogue, we will continue with the fight against drugs,” Steinberg reassured Santos. More from El Tiempo. Meetings continue today before Santos’s scheduled reunion with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday. At that meeting it is expected that the two neighbors will restore full ties. For his part, Mr/ Chavez seems to already be thinking about the meeting, recently applauding President Santos for holding back, for now, on pushing the US bases accord through the Colombian Congress.

· In Brazil, Dilma Rouseff and Jose Serra faced off in their final televised debate Monday, but, Reuters says, Serra “failed to land any decisive blows.” Dilmas currently has 49 percent to 38 percent lead over Serra, according to the most recent Vox Populi poll published Monday. More from the Wall Street Journal which also seems to have thrown in the towel on the Brazilian challenger.

· Another interesting note about Brazil’s campaign to get African nations to drop North America’s digital standard, and instead select the South American standard. The push comes as African broadcasters prepare to move from analog to digital TV.

· Also on Latin American international relations, Bolivian President Evo Morales is in Iran this week to sign a series of new bilateral agreements, including a $278 million Iran-to-Bolivia loan for mineral and textiles industry development.

· Roque Planas at the Latin America News Dispatch has more on Peruvian presidential contender Ollanta Humala’s talk in New York last week.

· In Uruguay, the AP says an amnesty law which continues to shelter some military and police officials from prosecution for dirty war human rights violations is under scrutiny once again. After voters rejected overturning the law in a 2009 plebiscite, the Uruguayan Congress is now considering annulling several of the controversial law’s articles of impunity.

· And, finally, from the Guardian, Transparency International’s 2010 corruption index. Latin America’s least corrupt, according to TI: Chile (who comes in at 21^st in the world, two places ahead of the US and three places ahead of Uruguay). The region’s most corrupt: Venezuela (at 164 of 178).