Competing Realities of Citizen (In)security in Mexico

Reporting from an increasingly violence-plagued Acapulco, Randal Archibold at the New York Times writes today on the competing realities of Mexico’s drug wars. On the one hand, a still growing list of gruesome murders – like the 15 dismembered bodies which turned up at an upscale Acapulco shopping center early last month. On the other, a growing list of capo arrests and deaths. According to American and Mexican officials, more than half of the country’s 37 “most wanted” drug kingpins fell in 2010, a statistic Mexican officials have used to demonstrate that their Mexican security forces have grown more effective.

But the Mexican public, says the Times, is no longer buying what the government tries to sell:

“A poll released Jan. 11 by Mexico’s national statistics institute found that more than 70 percent of respondents believed that the country’s security had worsened since 2009. The findings mirrored similar research by pollsters showing that, for the first time in recent years, Mexicans are more worried about safety than the economy, a near reversal from the year before.”

Mexico City-based political analyst, Denise Dresser, tells the paper that Presdient Felipe Calderon’s decision to make the prosecution of the drug wars the center of his presidency has created a situation in which the Mexican people now evaluate his administration almost entirely on those terms.

And the repercussions of Mr. Calderon’s framing may now extend beyond Mexico. Meeting with Mexican counterparts in Mexico City last week, Sec. of State Hillary Clinton pledged renewed US support for Mexico’s militarized fight against the cartels, saying the US would allocate $500 million in Merida Initiative funds to its neighbor in 2011. There appear to be important differences this year, according to senior US officials – specifically the targeting of aid to, in the Times words, “focus on attacking the impunity” and “shoring up local and state police forces and the justice system,” rather than delivering military equipment. US Ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual on impunity:

“The vast majority of the violence we’ve seen over the past decade in Mexico is not because it has arisen as a result of taking on organized crime. It’s that you’ve had impunity within the country because there has never been a legacy of investing in state and local police and in a judicial system that was able to crack down and contain it.”

The question is whether or not it’s too little, far too late. Both Mexican and American papers have reported on the presence of the Mexican military in parts of the Mexican capital, DF in recent weeks. This week Mexico’s Informador reports on the first “narco bloqueos” which I have read about in the country’s second largest city, Guadalajara. The AP reports on the murder of an El Diario newspaper vendor in Juarez today. And despite new talk about fighting impunity, Edgardo Buscaglia, a former adviser to the United Nations on organized crime, suggests Mexico still remains an example for how organized crime should not be combated:

“They put all the focus on using the military and the federal police without nearly as much attention on the other pieces you need to fight organized crime, like attacking corruption and investing in social programs to prevent it in the first place.”

Other stories:

· IPS today looks at another aspect of violence in Mexico: crimes being committed against mostly Central American migrants. The news service says that while kidnapping, assault, rape, extortion, and even murder are not new issues for migrants traveling north, two high profile cases – the massacre of 72 migrants in Tamaulipas last August and the still unsolved abduction of somewhere between 40 and 50 migrants in Oaxaca in December – have led to a new wave of activism by migrant rights groups, as well as talk of improved regional coordination between Mexico and its Central American neighbors. But some experts say a fundamental problem persists. Manuel Castillo, of El Colegio de México, says the issue of migration remains stuck within a “national security” framework. “The mindset that sees migrants as criminals, rather than victims of crime, must be changed,” he says. For her part, Fabienne Venet, director of the Institute of Dissemination of Studies on Migration (INEDIM) says migrant rights activists today have three demands: investigation of crimes committed against migrants, access to justice for victims, and increased protection.

· On Honduras, Human Rights Watch has released a new statement condemning a failure to investigate the recent murders of transgender women in the country. HRW co-authors the statement with Red Lésbica Cattrachas, a Honduran lesbian rights organization. The two groups say six transgender women have been murdered in the cities of Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula, and Comayagüela since November 29, 2010 – the latest killing reported on January 17, 2011. Thirty-four members of the LGBT community have been killed since HRW released a report on violence against transgender persons in Honduras in May 2009. To date, only one of those crimes has ended with prosecution. Indyra Mendoza, director of Red Lésbica Cattrachas: “We need legislative change and prevention programs to end discrimination in Honduras, because at the moment we are living our lives in hiding.” In a separate letter to President Porfirio Lobo, Boris O. Dittrich, Acting Director of HRW’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program, demands an investigation into the six un-investigated murders of the last 60 days.

· On a quite different note, but also in Honduras, Lobo’s Foreign Minister Mario Canahuati speaks with Spain’s El País about the country’s on-going attempt to re-store international and regional diplomatic relations after the coup of June 2009. He says he expects his country to re-enter the OAS at the organization’s June summit in El Salvador.

· In El Salvador, EFE and El Faro have reports on the new president of the Salvadoran parliament, FMLN deputy Sigfrido Reyes. Reyes becomes the first FMLN member to lead the country’s legislative body.

· Also in El Salvador, El Faro reports that Mauricio Funes appears to have convinced lawmakers into giving him one year – rather than 30 days – to implement the country’s new Freedom of Information law.

· AFP looks at opposition disorganization, divisions, and in-fighting in Nicaragua which currently make Daniel Ortega’s re-election quite probable – at least according to US ambassador to Nicaragua, Robert Callahan, who spoke with other US ambassadors to the sub-region at the Wilson Center in Washington DC on Monday.

· The Wilson Center also has posted video from an event last week with Colombian Vice President Angelino Garzon.

· La Silla Vacía suggests that closer relations between Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez did not lead, in 2010, to increased trade relations (at least in terms of Colombian exports to Venezuela) – although the report does not offer details about possible changes that occurred between the first and second half of 2010 (Santos only assumed power in August).

· While Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) is expected to give its final verdict about the results of Nov. 28’s much criticized presidential vote today, the Miami Herald reports on growing calls – including from some US lawmakers – that the November vote be cancelled and a completely new election be held. The Congressional Black Caucus’s Foreign Policy and Int’l Affairs Task Force, in a statement Monday, said the US and the international community should “support a new Haiti election process that is free and fair, respecting the rights of the Haitian people.” Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) made a similar personal statement Monday, saying he disagrees with Sec. of State Hillary Clinton’s “unequivocal support” for the OAS’s recommendations. And a group of 19 Haitian and international groups – among them Cen­ter for Con­sti­tu­tional Rights, TransAfrica Forum, the Insti­tute for Jus­tice & Democ­racy in Haiti – are also calling for a complete re-run of elections that are “fair and inclusive.”

· Baby Doc Duvalier talked publicly for a second-time, granting the Spanish-language network Univision an exclusive television interview Tuesday. Reuters reports. Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has offered the Haitian government its assistance in prosecuting Duvalier for human rights abuses committed during his fifteen years in power (1971-1986). And the Washington Post, also on Haiti, looks at longstanding questions about the effectiveness of NGOs in the country.

· Sarah Stephens of the Center for Democracy in the Americas writes at Politico on this month’s Obama administration Cuba travel and remittance reforms. Among other things, Stephens says broad support for the changes within civil society groups, both on the island and off, illustrate just how out of touch with reality – and the aspirations of their own constituents – a handful of hard line Cuban American members of Congress are today.

· Finally, Greg Grandin, blogging for The Nation, comments on a quite bizarre June 2008 Bush administration proposal – revealed in the recently released “Palestine Papers” – to resettle displaced Palestinians in Argentina or Chile.