Striking similarities between narco-states — Colombia and Mexico

http://samuellogan.blogspot.com/2007/12/crime-politics-and-three-bullets-in.html

This is a source for analysis, interviews, and commentary on security in Latin America. Herein you will find rumors, the results of off the record interviews, and information you’ll not find in international or United States news media.

Crime, politics, and three bullets in the head

by Samuel Logan by December 11, 2007

Salvatore Mancuso, a paramilitary chief in Colombia, famously claimed control over a third of the Colombian Congress after the 2002 legislative elections. The truth behind this statement continues to unfold even today as more and more Colombian politicians on the national level fall to the so-called para-politico scandal. Colombian paramilitaries across the country were able to extended their reach to national politicians because prior to 2002 they completely controlled politics on a state and municipal level in many of Colombia’s departments.

Violence leading up to elections is the best evidence of the fact that organized crime has a hand in political matters, and while the recent municipal elections in Colombia were not as violent as those of the past, it remains a fact that former paramilitary leaders still control some municipalities in Colombia.

Observing this pattern across the region, there is a striking similarity between Colombia and Mexico.

Mexico is ruled by three political parties. The PAN, represented by the president, Felipe Calderón, has a strong presence in the Congress. The PRD occupies the second-most seats on the national level and sits as the main opposition party. And then there’s the PRI – a political party that holds relatively little sway on the national level but controls nearly all of the Mexican states from the governor down to literally hundreds of municipalities.

These states include: Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nayarit, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Sinaloa, Durango, Veracruz, , Quintana Roo, and Yucatan among others. The states listed here, however, are arguably those most afflicted by Mexican organized crime.

Focusing on Tamaulipas, considered the head quarters of the Mexican drug trafficking organization known as the Gulf Cartel, we see that violence surrounding elections denotes a heavy presence of organized crime in local and state-level politics.

On 29 November, men in a Suburban, a Jeep Cherokee, and a pickup opened fire on the recently elected president of the border-town municipality of Rio Bravo, Antonio Guajardo Anzaldúa, who was exiting his offices with a federal police escort. After the rain of bullets, one of the attackers calmly opened the door of his pickup, walked over to Guajardo, and shot him three times in the head.

Later that day, a main Tamaulipas-state newspaper received a call from the Gulf Cartel, warning that when reporting the news of Guajardo’s death the reporters should be careful with that they print, according to Mexico’s El Proceso magazine.

Guajardo was a member of the Workers’ Party, part of the coalition formed by the PRD. He was a relatively unimportant politician in the grand scheme of Mexican politics, but he had information on PRI politicians in Tamaulipas that he insisted on using to denounce the presence of organized crime in state and municipal politics.

During his campaign, Guajardo focused on blowing the whistle on any and all PRI politicians or political appointees who had connections to the Gulf Cartel in Tamaulipas. He denounced the state’s governor, Eugenio Hernández Flores, as an accomplice of the Gulf Cartel. He denounced Servando López Moreno, who won the elections in the border municipality of Miguel Alemán. López, according to Guajardo, had already appointed Juan Felipe Hinojosa, father of a well known crime boss Carlos Hinjosa, as the municipality’s treasurer. And the list goes on, too long to share with you here.

Guajardo’s death and the following cover up underline the close relationship between organized crime and PRI politicians in Tamaulipas. But what about other states and other municipalities where organized crime likely controls politics as much as it does in Tamaulipas?

Consider that the PRI controls governorships and municipalities in just about every state where organized crime is a principle problem and you’ll get a sense of the possible depths of corruption Calderón must tackle as he fights to remove organized crime from his country.

Eventually we may see the day when an organized criminal boss declares that he controls a third of the Mexican Congress. It would be a stretch to make such assumptions now, but if that day comes, many will remember when Salvatore Mancuso said the same thing in Colombia in 2002 and then proved it by telling the truth and crushing the careers of various politicians in 2007.

by Samuel Logan 

Plan Mexico: The New Face of US Foreign Policy in the Americas

by Rebecca Bartel  –Current Policy Analyst and Educator for Latin America and the Caribbean with Mennonite Central Committee.

As the agreements and decisions made between the “Three Amigos” in the highly secretive Montebello talks continue to seep through to media, one issue of major concern is the publicly announced “Plan Mexico”, so-called because of its symmetry with the infamously failed Plan Colombia. The Plan is being negotiated bilaterally between the United States and Mexico, proposing to provide between 800 million to one billion dollars in military aid to assist Mexico’s Cadlerón administration in its “War on Drugs”. The Plan is intended to combat the narco-trafficking cartels and the consequent violence which the drug trade generates in the country. According to the Washington Post (August 8, 2007, pg. A01), in this last year alone, some 3,000 lives were claimed by the violence created by confrontations between drug cartels as well as national military and police forces in combat.

The concerns surrounding the Plan include the threat of a further militarization of the country’s deep-seated social and economic problems. Although both US and Mexican officials have clarified that Mexico prohibits US military training in the country, and this will continue, the Plan would include aid for military technology including phone-tapping, radar tracking of air shipments and aircraft to boost the Mexican military’s capacity to respond to increasingly advanced technology used by the cartels. Much attention is being focused on the major differences between Plan Colombia and the proposed Plan Mexico, those being: i) no military troops will be sent to Mexico– the Plan is exclusively designed to send military aid; ii) the United States is committing to combat drug consumption within the domestic borders. Other important differences between the Mexico deal and the Colombian situation is that while Mexico is combating drug cartels, Colombia is ravaged by a 60 year internal armed conflict, rooted in social and economic inequalities.

These differences, however, do not change the many similarities between the proposed Plan Mexico and Plan Colombia. Nor do they alter the fact that the United States is embarking on a new path of foreign intervention in the Americas, its under-current being a strengthening of the capacity of military forces to combat the “internal enemy” and taking on policing roles in domestic security issues, as well as assuring secure environments for its foreign investment. As the Plan promotes an extension of the North American Security and Prosperity Initiative (NASPI), which analysts in Mexico have dubbed a “militarization of NAFTA”, it also is feared to generate more dependence on the United States in sensitive matters of national security. As Carlos Fazio of La Jornada notes, “given the great asymmetry in relations between the United States and Mexico, the trans-nationalization and militarization of “joint efforts” imposed by Washington through pressure and blackmail mean a major cession of sovereignty by Mexico”, (Carlos Fazio, La Jornada, August 27, 2007).

Although exact amounts have not yet been disclosed, Rep. Henry Cueller (D-Texas) who has already proposed legislation providing more aid to Mexico is optimistic of a large sum: “I’m sure that it’s going to be hundreds of millions of dollars. If we’re going to be successful in cutting out that cancer over there, we’re going to have to invest a large amount” (Washington Post, August 8, 2007, Pg. A01)It is as of yet still unclear whether the Bush administration will push for an emergency supplemental appropriation for next year’s foreign aid budget, or wait another year.

Another concern is the focus on the border. The Plan contemplates greater military presence on both sides of the border to combat traffickers bringing goods into the US. While the proposed plan suggests nothing around immigration issues, a greater militarization of the Mexico-United States border causes concern around the subsequent establishment of a military strategy to discourage immigration into the Northern country. This would put into even greater risk the lives of those Mexicans who cross the border every day, hundreds of whom die every year in the attempt.

Some things to Consider:
1. Militarization is an unacceptable strategy to combat any social and economic issues. While the debate concerning ways of confronting the serious problems of drug trafficking is contentious and multifaceted, Christians cannot condone any military intervention – direct or indirect – to respond to complex problems of social exclusion and economic disparity.
2. Notwithstanding the differences between Plan Colombia and the proposed Plan Mexico, Plan Colombia must be understood as an utterly failed foreign policy of the United States in their “war against drugs” and in no part should be duplicated. Rather, it should be looked upon for what it is: a military plan which has exacerbated the armed conflict in Colombia, creating more displacement and political repression in the years of its implementation and being an astronomically irresponsible waste of tax-payers’ money.
3. The under-current of assuring a secure environment for foreign investment in the country is a worrisome indication of the developing foreign policy agenda of the United States and Canada in the Americas. We should be aware that corporate North America has a significant voice in the establishment of our governments’ foreign policies and the Christian consumer should contemplate taking steps to offset the need for increased out-sourcing to developing countries where the risks of labor and human rights abuses against workers are great.
4. Plan Mexico should be debated in public spaces, with representatives of civil society from both the United States and Mexico, and not negotiated behind closed doors as NAFTA was.
5. Plan Mexico should NOT be implemented as it stands, and if implemented, should necessarily include programs for judicial reform, police training and capacity building, as well as social and economic development components to offset the attraction of the drug trade to Mexican nationals subject to unemployment and poverty.