A group of Latin American leaders say they are united in their fight against drug trafficking in the region – and are asking the “drug consuming nations” (the US?) to support their common front. Representatives from 10 Latin American countries were hosted by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for a one-day summit in Cartagena Tuesday. The AP reports that talks on drug policy and organized crime turned quickly to Prop. 19, with President Santos, speaking on radio after the summit, yet again asking how he it would be possible for him to throw a Colombian marijuana farmer in jail when “in the richest state of the United States it's legal to produce, traffic and consume the same product.”
Meanwhile, the final statement produced by summit participants asked that drug-consuming nations form “consistent and congruent” anti-drug policies. Quoting from the AP’s reporting, here’s an excerpt of the declaration:
“[Drug consuming nations] cannot support criminalizing these activities in this or that country, while at the same time (supporting) the open or veiled legalization of the production and consumption of drugs in their own territories.”
In one of her first major statements against Prop. 19, Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla called California’s marijuana legalization initiative a “contradictory message” that “would put at risk, sincerely, the consistency of the anti-drug fight.” And Mexican President Felipe Calderon, speaking with the BBC’s HARDtalk yesterday, continued to suggest an inner contradiction between California’s legalization proposal, on the one hand, and a unified regional fight against “transnational organized crime,” on the other. Calderon on organized crime:
“Our biggest wish for our region is development, but our biggest obstacle is this transnational organized crime, which knows no borders, poisons our youth and damages our people through extortion, kidnapping and murderous violence. It's not possible to really face it effectively independently.”
[For other perspectives on policy options that move toward “shared responsibility,” the Wilson Center has more. Just the Facts also summarizes the Wilson Center’s recent discussions on the same topic.]
But others continue to disagree that such a contradiction exists – or perhaps, better stated, seem to downplaying the regional impact that the California’s Prop. 19 would have and instead are embracing the need for “global” or “multilateral” initiatives that move toward more sensible drug policy. Earlier in the week, the president of Colombia’s Congress, Armando Benedetti, became the latest to suggest that much. And Colombia Reports says, despite Juan Manuel Santos more public opposition to Proposition 19, the Colombian president’s position on drug policy could be read the same way.
No matter one’s position on Prop. 19, it certainly seems that the California initiative has had the very positive effect of stimulating the beginning of much needed regional discussion on a new approach to the drug question – a discussion which will be forced to take topics like legalization and harm reduction seriously in the coming months. [See also El Tiempo’s reporting].
As for Prop. 19 itself, George Soros donated $1 million to the cause this week – a donation which the Drug Policy Alliance’s Ethan Nadelmann says reflects Soros’s belief that the drug war must be “rolled back.” Katrina vanden Heuvel, in her Washington Post column, also lays out the domestic case for marijuana legalization. But the latest survey by the Public Policy Institute of California finds the initiative struggling a bit. According to the poll, Prop. 19’s passage is currently backed by just 44 percent of likely California voters. Almost half say they would vote against it.
To other stories:
· More on the drug wars: A troubling manifesto was released by what appears to be a new citizen’s paramilitary group in Juarez, announcing it has plans to take the fight against drug cartels into its own hands. The group, calling itself the Citizen's Command for Juarez (CCJ) – and apparently made up of students, business owners, and other professionals – released a statement to the media yesterday “declaring war against thieves, kidnappers and extortionist; promising to kill them one by one if the government doesn't stop the violence.” The dangerous problem this presents, according to UTEP political scientist, Tony Payan: “What prevents me from accusing my neighbor of being a criminal? And then having that group target my neighbor?”
· The LA Times reports on a bizarre “narco video” released earlier this week which shows the brother of former Chihuahua attorney general Patricia Gonzalez, with guns pointed at his head, claiming that his sister took bribes and ordered killings as the state’s top prosecutor. Patricia Gonzalez has rejected the accusations, contending they were “induced at gunpoint, most likely by disgruntled current or fired police agents, to avenge her efforts at rooting out dirty cops.”
· Meanwhile, does this week’s US delegation visit to Bogotá mark the end of “Plan Colombia”? WOLA’s Adam Isacson argues yes. The whole opinion is worth reading.
· World Health Organization officials say Haiti is likely to be affected by cholera for “years to come.” Reports continue to indicate that the outbreak’s lethalness is slowing as the infected seek treatment more rapidly. But the New York Times reports the disease will continue to spread and is now expected to also enter the Dominican Republic. The Times piece begins to ask how exactly the disease arrived to Haiti as well. “An infected person could have brought the bacteria in from another country, or it could have arrived in food or even on board a ship that discharged infected wastes into a local waterway,” the paper says.
· In-country, it’s actually the UN’s Minustah forces themselves who have come under intense scrutiny as one possible culprit. A Nepalese contingent is based alongside the river where the disease was first found. Minustah released a statement yesterday denying any responsibility and saying the camp’s septic tanks met EPA standards. Nevertheless the story is likely to develop more in the coming days.
· Also Tuesday growing frustrations boiled over into the sacking of Doctors without Border medical clinic in Saint Marc, which residents claimed put the rest of the community at risk. An editorial in the New York Times provides its take on the outbreak as well this morning. CNN provides some implicit perspective, perhaps, on Haiti. In Nigeria, a much less publicized cholera outbreak has killed 1,555 this week, they report. And in an unrelated incident, the AP says journalists covering the election campaign – which, yes, appears to be continuing amidst the health crisis – were attacked between Gonaives and Cap-Haitien on their way to campaign stop by candidate Jacques Edouard Alexis, an ousted former vice president considered to be a front-runner.
· In Lima, Peru there is finally a new mayor-elect. After nearly a month, Lourdes Flores conceded Tuesday to the center-left candidate, Susana Villarán.
· At the UN General Assembly, yesterday marked the 19th consecutive vote against the US embargo on Cuba. Those opposed: 187. Those in favor: 2 (the US and Israel). Palau, Marshall Islands, and Micronesia abstained. Sarah Stephens from the Center for Democracy in the Americas says the vote is yet more indication that US policy toward the island must change: “This lopsided vote in the U.N. ought to be a lesson for U.S. policy makers that the sell-by date on this flawed policy is long in the past and it should be replaced with engagement without further delay.”
· EFE reports on the murder of two pro-Chavez activists on the campus of a Merida university last Friday. Merida Gov. Marco Diaz said this week the motive for the killings remains unknown, although there are signs that “the crime scene was altered.”
· And finally, at the National Security Archive’s website, Kate Doyle has an excellent piece on the trial of Guatemalan police officers accused of killing labor activist Edgar Fernando García in 1984. Doyle, who has testified as an expert witness in the case, notes the trial’s dual significance. First, she says, the indictments of four officers were “the first to be based on evidence found by investigators among records inside the Historical Archive of the National Police.” And second, “if the court rules against the defendants, and it is upheld by the Constitutional Court, it will be the third conviction in Guatemala for forced disappearance.”
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