Pubdate: Sun, 22 May 2011
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2011 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: Neal Peirce, Syndicated columnist

MISGUIDED U.S. DRUG POLICIES AFFLICT MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA

The War on Drugs in Mexico, Partially Funded by Hundreds of Millions 
of Dollars in U.S. Government Assistance, Has Not Only Failed to Curb 
the Trade but Intensified Horrific Violence, Corruption and Human 
Rights Abuses, Writes Neal Peirce.

For most Americans, the recent news of popular demonstrations in 
Mexico was probably a small diversion from the daily tide of bloody 
global reports from such faraway hot spots as Pakistan, Syria, Libya, 
Afghanistan and Bahrain.

Why worry, most of us likely concluded, if thousands of Mexicans are 
marching in the streets, protesting the horrific violence and high 
death toll in their nation's raging drug war? Isn't that their problem?

It's true, the news reports focus less on the American role, more on 
growing anger with the government of President Felipe Calderon and 
the meager returns from the massive police and military crackdown on 
the drug trade he inaugurated in 2006.

Since then, more than 37,000 Mexicans have been murdered, often 
tortured and brutalized before their deaths, as cartels battle for 
control of drug smuggling routes and brazenly assassinate anyone, 
official or average citizen, they think is in their way.

The hard lesson is that the war on drug dealers, decreed by Calderon 
and partially funded by hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. 
government assistance, has not only failed to curb the trade but 
intensified horrific violence, corruption and human-rights abuses.

There's no evidence the grip the drug gangs have over Mexico's 
politicians, judiciary and security forces has been seriously 
weakened. Indeed, there's widespread belief and some evidence, 
confirmed by an NPR report, that the Mexican police forces appear to 
"go easy" on the Sinaloa cartel, allegedly the largest exporter of 
cocaine to the U.S. The cartel's head is Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, 
the world's most wanted drug lord.

The Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, who stopped his writing after his 
24-year-old son was gunned down by drug terrorists earlier this year, 
catalyzed the May marches. He articulated a Martin Luther King-like 
answer to the violence convulsing his country:

"We will not turn this pain in our souls, in our bodies, in hate nor 
in more violence, but in a vehicle to help us restore love, peace, 
justice and dignity and the stuttering democracy that we're losing."

And Sicilia had a stern judgment to make -- as King did in his time 
- -- about the U.S. government: "Since the war was unleashed as a means 
to exterminate (drug trafficking), the United States, which is the 
grand consumer of these toxic substances, has not done anything to support us."

There, indeed, is the rub: Americans' complicity, their attitude that 
the Mexican drug nightmare is someone else's problem, or as both 
Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama seem to believe, a 
situation with a military solution.

A group of 20-plus U.S. experts and advocates in drug policy and 
Latin American affairs has weighed in on Sicilia's side, calling on 
the U.S. to drop "failed prohibitionist drug policies" on our home 
turf "so that violence, corruption, assassinations and the 
degradation of Mexico's fragile democratic institutions" can be curbed.

As first steps, the group suggested curbing "wasteful and harmful 
supply-side programs such as aerial fumigation and military aid."

On its home turf, it was suggested, the U.S. should take a "first 
step" by legally taxing and regulating marijuana -- noting that 
marijuana is reportedly the leading source of profit for Mexico's traffickers.

A sad reality -- underscored by a recent report in The Economist -- 
is that the drug-running and drug wars between cartels are now 
infecting virtually all of Central America. The route to the U.S. 
used to be from Colombia, the world's top cocaine producer, across 
the Caribbean to the tip of Florida. But the U.S. Coast Guard shut 
that route down by the early 1990s, so that shipments began to flow 
directly north, through Mexico, into the United States.

Somewhere between 250 and 350 tons of cocaine, The Economist notes, 
now pass through Guatemala on the way to the United States. Mexico's 
Sinaloa, Gulf and Zetas mobs operate through much of the Central 
American isthmus and -- unlike the Colombians -- pay their help in 
drugs, not cash.

The results have been devastating. Guatemala, Honduras and El 
Salvador all have murder rates more than double that of Mexico, and 
Nicaragua's has spiked in recent years as well. All are among the 
world's poorest nations.

Guatemala, for example, is plagued by malnutrition rates of up to 80 
percent in some rural villages. The country's average schooling rate 
is just 4.1 years.

With shaky regimes and political deadlock, plus high susceptibility 
to hurricanes, floods, landslides, earthquakes and volcanic 
eruptions, Central America has only two nations -- Costa Rica and 
Panama -- with relative stability and sound living standards.

Yet with Mexico, these are our continental neighbors. U.S. aid is at 
low levels, compounded by our blithe assumption that the drug running 
and killing is their problem, not ours. Arguably it's high time for 
the United States, the mega-world power, to start paying more (and 
smarter) attention to close neighbors. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake