The top story from the Americas in the New York Times this morning is on U.S.-Mexico relations where a report looks at the inability to stop the flow of U.S. guns to Mexico. The piece highlights the case of John Phillip Hernandez, arrested last year as part of a gun smuggling ring that, according to court documents, brought at least 339 high-powered weapons into Mexico over the course of a year and a half. Law enforcement officials say that “the federal system for tracking gun sales, crafted over the years to avoid infringements on Second Amendment rights, makes it difficult to spot suspicious trends quickly and to identify people buying for smugglers.” The result has been a very light regulation of firearms sales in border states, allowing gun smugglers to “evade detection” for months and sometimes years. In Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, for example, the NYT writes that “dealers can sell an unlimited number of rifles to anyone with a driver’s license and a clean criminal record without reporting the sales to the government” while bizarre loopholes allow dealers to not report multiple sales of rifles like the AK-47 at all, as they must do with pistols. Federal agents say about 90 percent of the 12,000 pistols and rifles the Mexican authorities recovered from drug dealers last year were bought within the United States. Meanwhile, in Mexico, the AP also reports in the NYT that Mexican authorities arrested a woman guarding an arsenal that included the first anti-aircraft machine gun seized in Mexico. Police say the high-powered weapon can 800 rounds per minute and is capable of penetrating armor from more than 5,000 feet, although it is not yet known where the weapon was manufactured or sold.
In the LA Times, more on Mexico, the U.S., and drug violence. From the Mexican side, the paper says city mayors are the ones confronting the toll of drug violence on their streets, but, according to many city officials, they “lack any meaningful role in the federal government’s fight against organized crime.” According to the LAT, Mexico’s 2,400 mayors are prime targets for bribe offers because they oversee local police while well-intentioned municipal officials too often have limited funds from which to equip and pay police well enough “to break long-standing graft.” Fear of violence aimed at local government officials have led some, like the mayor of Petatlan, in a section of coastal Guerrero state, to attempt to re-direct drug gang resentment for recent crackdowns by announcing that his cops have nothing to do with arresting traffickers. A complicated system of law and the rise of a multiparty system in Mexico over the last 20 years have both contributed to current public safety challenges, writes the LAT. The paper writes that “under Mexican law, authority for policing and prosecuting drug-trafficking crimes rests with the federal government. State police handle other major crimes, such as kidnapping and murder, whereas municipal officers are left primarily with a preventive role.” On the United States side, the LAT also has a report, writing that the Homeland Security secretary is expected to name Alan Bersin, credited with taming a lawless area between Tijuana and San Diego during the Clinton administration, to a similar “border czar” post today. One Homeland Security official has said that Bersin will focus on illegal immigration into the U.S. as well as southbound gun trafficking and cash smuggling.
The Washington Post reports on the upcoming Summit of the Americas, writing that in Latin America, President Obama may find a “group of leaders far less forgiving than their European counterparts were about the United States’ central role in the global financial crisis.” As Inter-American Development Bank President Luis Alberto Moreno said recently, the crisis is the first in the hemisphere that “is not made in Latin America.” Moreover, the WaPo says that the Summit will give insights into what will be a contentious political year in the region. Four countries will hold presidential elections in the next eight months amid rising poverty, there will be, according to Luis Alberto Moreno, “a temptation to run against Washington.” Unlike the last Summit in 2005 which focused on the Bush administration’s efforts to pass a hemispheric free trade agreement, “trade will be a low priority, both because of the legitimate focus on the financial crisis and because of the Democratic Party's position on trade,” says CSIS adviser, Grant Aldonas. The official agenda includes issues of environmental preservation and alternative-energy policy, reviving the economy, reversing the deteriorating public safety situation in several countries and closing a regional gap between rich and poor.
From the Miami Herald, a story on the Haiti donor’s conference held yesterday in Washington, D.C. says that Haiti supporters pledged $324 million toward the country's recovery over the next two years. According to the paper, the money is designed to help build roads, fight drug traffickers and generate up to 150,000 jobs in the impoverished Caribbean country. For its part, the United States pledged $57 million, with Secretary of State Clinton maintaining that “what happens in Haiti affects far beyond the Caribbean and even the region.” The U.S. government also pledged $20 million toward a budget gap by helping to service Haiti's debt obligations. Ms. Clinton travel’s to Haiti on Thursday to meet with Haitian President René Préval before heading to Port of Spain, Trinidad, for the Summit of the Americas.
And, in the Wall Street Journal, more reactions and analysis to the slight changes in U.S. Cuba policy that were announced on Monday. The paper says “the shift announced Monday by the White House is likely to spur a significant increase in visits by Americans to Cuba” but only from Cuban Americans. “Still, Cuba is long way from retaking the role it held as a hotbed of American tourism before the Cuban revolution erupted in the 1950s,” says the paper. More than 2.3 million travelers, mostly Europeans, Canadians, and other Latin Americans visited Cuba last year, and it is estimated that about one million Americans per year eventually would visit Cuba if allowed. But for now, says the WSJ, access to the island from the U.S. is limited. Cuba travelers from the U.S. rely on tour operators who organize charter flights authorized to make the journey as major airlines would require government a bilateral aviation agreement with Cuba before they could start regular scheduled service.
In other news, the WaPo also reports on President Obama’s upcoming trip to Mexico. He is scheduled to meet with Mexican President Felipe Calderón on Thursday, and reports say the president will pledge to do more to stop the flow of U.S.-made firearms to the drug cartels fighting for control of smuggling routes along the border. President Obama also wants to broaden the U.S. relationship with Mexico to include economic and environmental interests rather than the usual focus on immigration and drugs. The article points out that, interestingly, Calderón and Obama share a special bond—both men are graduates of Harvard University.
From the LAT, an opinion piece and an editorial both give more opinion on the new Cuba policy changes. Hoover Institution fellow, William Ratliff, argues the president should now move further. “Short of the complicated task of immediately ending the embargo, Ratliff writes, “the president can lift travel restrictions on all Americans, further liberalize trade relations, conduct discussions of migration, environmental and drug issues, and not oppose Cuba's re-integration into the Organization of American States.” While in the editorial, the LAT says even the embargo should go. “The ban on travel to the island should be lifted altogether. And more important, what about the trade embargo? Nothing speaks for our way of life better than our way of life; the embargo merely denies Cubans the opportunity to appreciate this country in all its diversity and ingenuity,” writes the paper.
Meanwhile, in the MH, a story discusses the generational debate that is exploding within the Cuban American community, as is to be expected, after Monday’s policy changes. An AP report says that in Venezuela Hugo Chávez has appointed his new administrator of Caracas: Jacqueline Farias, member of his ruling party. And, in a MH editorial, more praise on the Fujimori trial and verdict in Peru. The paper writes: “Coming just days before the impending Summit of the Americas, the verdict says more than any diplomatic communique possibly could about the quality of justice that Latin American societies are capable of and deserve.”
Photo: Gregory Bull: Associated Press
