From The Guardian yesterday, diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks suggest the US has lost a great deal of confidence in the Mexican military and its ability to take on the country’s drug cartels. The Guardian’s Rory Carroll on the two assessments released thus far – one from late January 2010 and one from October 2009:
“The memos detail blunders in the fight against drug cartels and a desperate search for a new strategy to save President Felipe Calderón's administration from a bloodsoaked fiasco.”
Among those quoted in the cables is Geronimo Gutierrez Fernandez, Mexico’s undersecretary for governance, who tells US diplomats he has a “real concern with ‘losing’ certain regions” in the country. For its part, US diplomats, in the Guardian’s words, depict the Mexican military as “bureaucratic, parochial, outdated, and unfit to combat drug trafficking organizations (DTOs)” –a point many analysts have made for some time but, as the LA Times notes, a marked departure from public statements made by both the Mexican and US governments. From the 2010 State Dept. cable:
“Mexican security institutions are often locked in a zero-sum competition in which one agency's success is viewed as another's failure, information is closely guarded, and joint operations are all but unheard of. Official corruption is widespread, leading to a compartmentalized siege mentality among 'clean' law enforcement leaders and their lieutenants.”
In the 2009 memo, Gutierrez Fernandez also admits to US officials that Mexico was to blame for misusing early Merida Initiative monies, focusing on equipment purchases rather than training new personnel and reforming security institutions. Even so, the cable recommends Washington continue to back the Mexican government’s fight, and, as the BBC writes diplomats go so far as to praise the Mexican government for its “unprecedented commitment” to prosecuting the drug wars:
“If we could turn around Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, and one other city such as Culiacán, it would solve 60% of the violence, and send a signal to the Mexican people that the war can be won.”
According to the LA Times the Mexico cables are the first of some 2,836 to be released. The January 2010 cable, the paper says, was written as an advance briefing paper Defense Bilateral Working Group meeting that took place on Feb. 1 of this year.
For its part, the Washington Post’s Juan Forero, runs through what’s been released by Wikileaks thus far on Latin America, noting US diplomatic psychologizing of many of the region’s leaders – among them Evo Morales, Hugo Chavez, and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. The Post: “Private messages released by WikiLeaks…highlight Washington's focus on the personalities on a continent largely ruled by leftist presidents, some of them European-style technocrats and others virulently anti-American populists.”
In a diplomatic cable sent after the February 2010 Latin American Unity Summit in Mexico, US diplomats continue personality assessments, focusing on clashes between the region’s leaders, namely Chavez and ex-Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. Of the summit as a whole, the diplomats write, “there was no practical planning, there was no management of the agenda, and there was none of the legwork that would have been needed to yield a practical and useful outcome.” The memo’s title, “Back to the Future?” suggests US diplomats place little faith in attempts at Latin American regional integration.
On Argentina, a secret US cable from one year ago criticizes the country’s lax prosecution of organized crime, going so far as to claim Argentina is “awash” in drug money (the AP’s words). From the 2009 cable: “The near complete absence of enforcement coupled with a culture of impunity and corruption make Argentina ripe for exploitation by narcotraffickers and terrorist cells.” The US Embassy goes on to say the Kirchners have little intention of changing the situation.
And finally, there is Iran. The AP this morning notes that a series of released cables show worries about Iran’s growing presence in Latin America, while adding, as the Miami Herald did yesterday, that “fears of Venezuela sending uranium to aid Tehran's nuclear program are likely baseless.” In June 11, 2009, the U.S. Embassy said Venezuela is “incapable of substantive nuclear cooperation with Iran/Russia,” quoting a Venezuelan scientist who called a Venezuela-Russia civilian nuclear agreement “political theater.” Similar assessments are made about Bolivia’s relationship with Iran, the AP says. Both the Council on Hemispheric Affairs and Rebecca Ray at the Center for Economic and Policy Research comment.
To other stories:
· Mercopress reports on the Ibero-American conference being held this week in Mar del Plata, Argentina. The Secretary General of the Ibero-American organization, Uruguayan economist Enrique Iglesias, says “education directed toward social inclusion” must become Latin America’s central regional focus. Interestingly, the report adds that the summit may touch on the idea of creating a “solidarity fund” to compensate the region’s poor countries with “resources from the richer members.” .
· The AP says ex-Guatemalan congressman Manuel Castillo has been sentenced to 203 years in prison for his involvement in the murder of three Salvadoran members of the Central American Parliament in 2007. The sentence was handed out by a Guatemalan judge. Two former police officers and four others were also convicted in the case.
· The Colombian Supreme Court has elected Viviane Morales as the country’s new Attorney General. The position had remained unfilled for the last 16 months. Before this week’s vote, Morales promised to wage an “all-out” battle against corruption in Colombia. And according to EFE, “one of her main tasks will be to continue to pursue investigations into the ‘parapolitica’ scandal, which was spurred by revelations of ties between politicians and rightist paramilitaries.”
· In Honduras, EFE reports on campesino demonstrations in Tegucigalpa Thursday. The protestors demands include agrarian reform and a resolution to land conflicts in Honduras’s Bajo Aguan region. As the report notes, five peasants were killed there last month in a confrontation with private security agents at a plantation run by agribusiness magnate Miguel Facusse. Meanwhile, at the Ibero-American Summit in Argentina, OAS Sec. Genreal José Miguel Insulza insisted anew Thursday that the time has come for Honduras to be reintegrated into the inter-American system. Even so, Insulza said he would respect Argentina’s decision to not invite Honduras to participate in the Ibero-American Summit this week.
· Also on Honduras, The Hill reports that former Clinton aide-turned-coup regime lobbyist, Lanny Davis has been officially hired by the Honduran embassy in Washington to help with communications and media strategizing. Lanny Davis, on his new role:
“I hope to help the Government of Honduras and President Porfirio Lobo strengthen U.S.-Honduran relations by emphasizing that Honduras remains a loyal ally of the United States and a stable constitutional democracy governed by the rule of law. We hope and expect to work closely with both sides of the aisle and the administration in this effort.”
· AFP says Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has asked lawmakers to support an emergency decree which would provide the president with “greater power to mobilize troops.” The request comes amidst on-going border tensions with Costa Rica. AFP: “Nicaragua's constitution bars mandatory military service, but the proposed laws would allow Ortega to order a ‘national mobilization’ during conflicts or natural disasters.”
· The Economist has an exclusive look at some of the newest Latinobarometro numbers on Latin American perceptions, contending that a strong economic recovery has led to optimism and growing support for democracy across much of the region. Uruguay, far and away, looks most content with its democracy; Mexico, Peru, and Guatemala the least so.
· IPS reports on the newest type of cocaine mule: sharks. And Der Spiegel writes about life on homemade Colombian drug smuggling submarines.
· Also on drug policy, Juan Gabriel Tokatlian writes in the Guardian on the continued – an almost unquestioned – use of the military in fighting the drug wars in Latin America. In Latin America, he says, that means allowing the role of US Southern Command to go unexamined. And South Com, says Tokatlian, remains key to the “prohibitionist paradigm.” The welcomed alternative?
“Instead of another state-led ‘coalition of the willing’ to fight drugs in a new location, what is needed is a broad, social alliance with bold ideas that could lead beyond the current failed model of counter-narcotics. What is clear is that the current prohibitionist kulturkampf needs to be replaced. The answers will not come from SouthCom's Miami HQ, but from Latin America's civil societies.”
· And finally, the latest from Haiti. Both Reuters and the AP report on protests in the capital of Port-au-Prince yesterday. Interestingly, at least four of the nineteen presidential contenders marched with demonstrators, denouncing the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) and leading chants of “Prison for Preval, liberty for Haiti.” One of those candidates, industrialist Charles Henri Baker, tells the AP that “these were not elections. People were not allowed to vote and there was stuffing of the election boxes ... We need democratic elections.” The protestors also decried backtracking by Michel “Sweet Mickey” Martelly and Mirlande Manigat. The two candidates, considered the frontrunners by many, joined 10 other contenders in declaring massive fraud Sunday but have since suggested that, even so, they’d be willing to let the vote stand.
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