López narrates how her 19-year-old daughter, Jahaira Guadalupe Vaena López, was abducted in Tlacolula, Oaxaca. She describes her efforts to get the authorities to investigate the crime, how she was warned not to press the matter, how informants told her that her daughter was murdered in a turf battle between fractured drug gangs. Just days before leaving for the United States with the Caravan for Peace, she faced one of the assassins who had been apprehended and listened as he described in detail how her daughter was raped and beheaded.

Margarita has joined some 50 grieving family members to accompany caravan leader Javier Sicilia on a trip across the United States. Sicilia, a poet who lost his son to drug war violence in March of 2011, catalyzed a movement of victims and Mexican citizens fed up with the bloodshed that has claimed more than 60,000 lives and left tens of thousands more disappeared since former President Felipe Calderon launched the drug war five years ago.

Mexico’s Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity decided to organize the U.S. caravan after taking two caravans from Mexico City–one north to Ciudad Juarez on the U.S. border, and one south to the border with Guatemala. Both drew out victims of the drug war and registered their cases to provide support for family members seeking justice and solace.

The decision to take their pain across the border came after discussion with the San Francisco-based group Global Exchange. Soon a coalition came together that included Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, the Latin American Working Group, the RFK Center, the Washington Office on Latin America, our CIP Americas Program, the Drug Policy Alliance, and the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities, among the key players. The coalition later expanded to include the NAACP, and local organizations in each of the cities along the route.

A binational meeting in June defined five demands of the U.S. caravan: to open public debate on humane alternatives to drug prohibition, to ban the import of assault weapons and crack down on illegal gun smuggling over the border, to combat money-laundering with full investigation and strict enforcement, to suspend all aid to the Mexican armed forces and end the war on drugs abroad, and to halt the militarization of the border and criminalization of migrants.

I joined the caravan on the final east coast leg of its 6,000-mile trip. I had heard most of the stories before in Mexico, having accompanied the northern caravan and numerous marches and meetings.

I was curious to see the impact on people in the United States. As the women in the room told their stories, each one struck like a cold blade in the heart. Although women are a minority of the war’s deaths, attacks on women usually include brutal sexual violence, and women make up the majority of those actively seeking justice and an end to the war.

Along the route, caravan members like these women have become confident and eloquent spokespersons to end the drug war. They speak from the heart and appeal to the heart. Their empowerment as leaders is one of the most important achievements of the caravan. Another is the sympathy and outrage their testimonies evoke.

And it’s not a one-way street. Caravan members also listened to the stories of U.S. citizens. Like Kimberly Armstrong in Baltimore, whose 16-year-old son was shot and killed by a 14-year-old in endemic drug violence. Or Carole Eady, who struggled her way out of the stigma and life disruption of imprisonment for a drug offense in New York City.

The threads begin to come together. In her brilliant book The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander notes that in Washington, D.C., the caravan’s last stop, it’s estimated that three out of four black men can expect to serve time in prison. She calls this mass incarceration of black people a new racial caste, the latest Jim Crow system of social control, where young black men and women are jailed, stigmatized, and in many cases disenfranchised for life by discriminatory drug laws.

Based on the shared sorrow of losing loved ones to jail, violence, death, or disappearance, Mexicans and Americas found they fight the same unjust system of social control of the poor and people of color. The drug war generates profits for the defense industry and siphons public funds into perpetuating itself. It rips apart families and communities, north and south of the border. The bogus attempt to eliminate rather than regulate something in great demand creates a multibillion-dollar black market run by groups that become more violent as they are selectively attacked. It pits security forces against the public, providing them with the tools to violate human rights and life with impunity. It erodes democracy and the rule of law it purports to uphold.

Whether it’s through imposing a military/police state in Mexico or shunting youth into the margins of society, the drug war machine runs on the human lives it destroys.

A binational peace movement?

The caravan’s call to end the drug war resonated in city after city. But has the caravan forged a binational movement for peace?

Not yet. As the Mexican caravaners go back home, their U.S. hosts return to daily life. Many will simply guard the memory of Mexico’s pain and begin to read the news a little differently.

But others will act. The Peace Caravan has already achieved something remarkable. It brought together groups in U.S. cities that scarcely knew each other before. Some community organizers in the scores of cities from San Diego to the nation’s capital plan to continue the dialogue with the Mexican movement and among themselves.

In New York City, the Latino and African-American communities plan a meeting to discuss the impact of mass arrests and detention. In Baltimore, the movement to block construction of yet another multimillion-dollar prison in one of the nation’s most economically devastated cities is making common cause with movements for drug policy reform, racial justice, and youth rights.

In Texas, faith-based organizations advocating stricter enforcement of gun laws are intensifying their campaign against gun show sales and arms smuggling after seeing close up the human cost of the flow of guns to Mexico. In Arizona, human rights organizations working against the militarization of the border and the death and detention of migrants came face-to-face with activists protesting Mexico’s militarized drug war in a cross-border reflection. In Washington, members of Congress received caravan lobbyists whose power to convince came not from money or influence, but from human empathy and reason.

The way many U.S. citizens understand the drug war has changed through meeting the Mexicans who bear the brunt of it. While U.S. politicians and media portray it as a necessary fight against the threat that organized crime supposedly poses to national security in both countries, the victims spoke of the violence that resulted from the war on drugs itself. Audiences and congressional representatives were surprised to learn that many of the victims on the caravan accused not gangs but the U.S.-funded Mexican police and military for the murder or disappearance of their loved ones.

Organizers now face the question of how the moral victory can lead to a political one. On the drug policy front, U.S. society seems to be moving toward a tipping point despite push-back from law enforcement and private prison interests that make big money off incarceration, as well as from politicians who convert insecurity into “law and order” votes. A recent poll shows Colorado could legalize marijuana in the November elections after a similar measure narrowly lost in California. The award-winning film The House I Live In presents a stunning indictment of the domestic drug war through the words of its enforcers, its participants, and its victims.

But the federal government continues to be on the wrong side of the trend. Some hope that President Obama, if he is reelected, could make bolder moves toward reorienting a policy that imprisons so many mostly African-American youths and costs the nation $51 billion a year, according to the DPA. I’m inclined to agree with a LEAP editorial that warns the reform movement to watch the actions, not the rhetoric, of the Obama administration. It will take a stronger push from constituents to get the administration to take on the interests that benefit from sustaining America’s longest war.

Moral victories plant seeds that are often slow to bear fruit. Evaluating the experience on the last morning in a church hall, exhausted caravan members saw a mix of catharsis and consciousness-raising that gave them strength. Lopez noted that the “the tragedy I’m living through can be useful to a lot of people.” Melchor Flores, whose son was arrested in January of 2009 in Monterrey and never seen again, stated that the caravan had “touched consciences”.

He added, “Wherever my son is, he should be satisfied because he knew I wouldn’t let him down.”

Teresa Carmona, a tiny, white-haired woman whose son Joaquin was murdered in Mexico City, has become a powerful voice before the public and the media. She believes the caravan met its goal.

“We brought the faces of our beloved children, parents, and relatives all the way here, and so we legitimated this pain and this reality.”

In the nation that first invented the drug war and exported it to their country with deadly results, the Mexican bereaved have left a mark in the hearts of thousands of men and women. Sometimes it takes tragedy to make change. The cumulative histories recounted in the peace caravan represent a tragedy of mammoth proportions.

That should be more than enough to act on.

AUTHOR: Laura Carlsen
URL: www.cipamericas.org and http://americasmexico.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: lecarlsen [at] gmail.com

“We are the children of the ideals you couldn’t kill.”

A young woman carried the hand-lettered sign as she marched with tens of thousands of people in Mexico City last July 22. Twenty-something, with long black hair and jeans, her message captures the spirit and sense of history of Mexico’s new movement for real democracy. At the same time, it reveals the resentment that especially youth feel about the presidential elections and a new government that for them representsan era of manipulation and repression.

Weeks after Mexico’s presidential elections, thousands of people have turned out to protest the declared winner, Enrique Peña Nieto, and the imminent return to power of the party that ruled Mexico for more than seven decades. The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which is slated to take office December 1, now faces increasing accusations of fraud, a legal demand to declare the elections invalid, and a youth movement that refuses to go away.

#IAm132

“Mexico, Without the PRI”, “Electoral Institute, You Coward—Correct the Elections!” and “Mexico Voted and Peña Didn’t Win!”–men and women chanted these slogans through downtown avenues in the latest demonstration, vowing that the politician best known for his hair-do and ties to old-style Mexican politics would never take office. Most of the marchers are university-age, but contingents of workers, neighborhood associations, and citizens of all ages take part.

Many support the opposition candidate and second-place finisher, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. But the media spin that the entire movement is a contrivance of a poor loser falls flat when confronted with the actual messages and motives of the movement.

Mexico is seeing the birth of a movement for real democracy. It is led by a generation that wants to break through the cynicism of a nation accustomed to corruption and authoritarian rule. Its members challenge not just the election results, but the very definition of democracy.

The movement called “#IAm132” that arose in protest to Peña Nieto at a local university centers on the principle that democracy can’t be bought. Young people with no adult memory of living under the PRI have looked at their nation’s history and decided they don’t want to go back there.

The “#IAm132” movement–with the hashtag in its name marking its generational identity–has a broad platform that includes: democratization of the media to guarantee the right to information and freedom of expression; “secular, free, scientific, pluricultural, democratic, humanist, popular, critical, quality education”; change in the neoliberal economic model with less emphasis on the market and more state involvement; transformation of the security and justice model and withdrawal of the army from public security; participative democracy and autonomy; and health as a human right.

PRI’s Rocky Road Back to Power

Few people predicted Mexico’s post-electoral protests or the rapid rise of the youth-led movement against Peña Nieto. The PRI learned from its loss to Vicente Fox in 2000 and the convulsive post-electoral protests of 2006, when conservative candidate Felipe Calderon was declared the winner with the slimmest of margins and widespread accusations of fraud. It set out to avoid both scenarios, grooming its candidate years earlier to position him as the image of the “new PRI.”

The effort reportedly included secret deals with the major television stations for favorable coverage in the media dating back to 2009. Both the Mexican magazine Proceso and later The Guardian reported on these contracts, although the PRI denied the charges.

It also included rebuilding the political machine that served the party during its 71 years of uninterrupted rule over the country. That political machine suffered a debilitating blow with the election of Vicente Fox of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) in 2000. The PRI not only lost the helm of a nation it had confidently controlled for years, it also lost its majority in the legislature and several state governorships to boot. It was a dramatic and ignominious fall from power, and the age of  “the dinosaurs”—as the PRI political elite is called—appeared to be over for good.

But at least one insider and numerous analysts claim that the PAN agreed to leave the PRI political machine in place in return for support for its reform proposals in the legislature and the continued dominance of a small and powerful economic elite. The PRI was able to rebuild without fear of criminal charges for past acts of corruption and repression among its ranks.

The 2012 elections proved that the machine has been well oiled and employs many of the same tactics used to guarantee electoral wins in the past. But the goal of building a solid margin of victory to assure legitimacy backfired due to citizen and some media monitoring of blatant abuses

A coalition of progressive parties filed a legal challenge on July 12 to declare the presidential election invalid due to violations of articles of the Mexican constitution that call for free and fair voting. The demand specifically cites exceeding campaign spending limits as the cause. The legal limit is set at the unlikely figure of $336,112,084.16 pesos—about $25.4 million dollars. The coalition says it has proof that the PRI-Green Party spent five times the allowed limit.

In the most potentially damaging aspect of the allegations, Lopez Obrador accused the PRI of laundering money through off-the-books campaign spending. The opposition has demanded an investigation into the possible use of public funds in PRI-governed areas and money from illicit sources, including organized crime. The use of pre-paid bankcards is a common form of money laundering. The PRI issued thousands of these cards from a bank called MONEX to voters in a presumed vote-buying operation. (One protest sign noted acidly, “Mexico’s elections were so clean, even the money was laundered”).

The legal challenge also cites evidence of buying off pollsters to create an impression that the election was in the bag. Many polling companies confidently reported double-digit leads for Peña Nieto,with up to an 18-point lead. The final count showed just over 6 points, with Peña Nieto at 38.21 percent, Lopez Obrador at 31.59 percent, and conservative candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota at 25.41 percent. Whether the discrepancy resulted from faulty methodology or giving the client what he wants has become the subject of daily conversation in Mexico.

US-Mexico Drug War Alliance

President Obama called Peña Nieto to congratulate him on his victory even before Mexican electoral authorities had declared the victory. The White house issued a readout of Obama’s call to Peña Nieto, heralding a continued partnership in “democracy, economic prosperity and security.”

The Obama administration’s rush to affirm support for the embattled candidate is not a sign of enthusiasm for the return of the PRI. The U.S. government clearly would have preferred another conservative government in Mexico. The National Action Party swung the door wide open to greater U.S. involvement in the country. Agencies including the DEA, ATF, CIA, and FBI as well as“retired” military personnel now participate in and operate Mexico’s disastrous internal security policies. Felipe Calderon’s war on drugs proved the perfect vehicle for breaking down resistance to U.S.  intervention and making huge inroads in its regional security plan, which includes integrating Mexico into its “regional security perimeter.”

But the Obama administration was eager to put the elections behindto get center-left candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador off the political stage as soon as possible. Lopez Obrador openly called for ending the drug warand “adopting a different strategy” during his final campaign speech.

Ignoring the post-electoral conflicts already brewing south of the border, the White House congratulated the candidate and the Mexican people for having “demonstrated their commitment to democratic values through a free, fair, and transparent election process.”But well before Lopez Obrador filed the legal challenge, evidence of vote buying had surfaced and the “Iam132” movement and others were expressing accusations of fraud.

When asked by a reporter on July 9 if the State Department still maintained that the elections were “transparent,” spokesperson Patrick Ventrell dodged the question, stating only that “we welcome the electoral authority’s announcement of the final results, and obviously we look forward to working with President-elect Mr. Pena Nieto.”

The administration accepted Peña Nieto when polls showed a significant lead and hurriedly arranged meetings with its soon-to-be new ally well before the elections. The Pentagon-driven Mexico policy requires a willing partner in the drug war. Mexican army troops are now stationed in strategic locations throughout the country, ostensibly to stop the flow of illegal drugs and capture drug kingpins. They have repeatedly acted to repress human rights defenders and subdue communities protesting the loss of natural resource control or army presence. The armed forces act as a form of social control, while army officials have been accused of being in cahoots with organized crime in several cases.

Continuing the drug war is at the top of the U.S. binational agenda. Congress has sustained it through consistent funding of the Merida Initiative since the Bush plan passed in 2008. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee just recommended four more years and a billion more U.S. taxpayer dollars, despite the fact that the joint strategy has resulted in 60,000 fatalities in Mexico and no measurable decrease in the flow of illicit drugs to the U.S.

Pena Nieto stated, “Without a doubt, I am committed to having an intense, close relationship of effective collaboration measured by results,” alleviating fears that the former nationalist party would distance itself from the new military/police alliance with its powerful neighbor. He has announced the appointment of a former chief of Colombia National Police, General Oscar Naranjo, as his top security adviser before the elections. Naranjo is a key player in Colombian security policy and very close to the U.S. security establishment.

There are four months until the inauguration. Mexico’s long lame-duck period will be rife with protests. The IAm132 movement joined with other grassroots organizations in mid-July to lay out a series of mobilizations tied to the date the electoral authorities must ratify electoral results (September 6), inauguration (December 1), and beyond.

In questioning the role of media monopolies, publicity and public image, vote buying, campaign spending, and political operators, Mexico’s new movement is raising serious questions about electoral democracy. The questions don’t only apply to Mexico–a nation emerging from and perhaps returning to authoritarian government. They also have much relevance to the United States as it heads toward presidential elections in November.

Photos: Clayton Conn, Alfredo Acedo

AUTHOR: Laura Carlsen
URL: www.cipamericas.org and http://americasmexico.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: lecarlsen [at] gmail.com

“Enforced disappearances in Mexico have happened in the past and continue to happen today,” the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances stated during a presentation of its findings in March.

The UN Group noted that during the country’s first “Dirty War”, which lasted from the late 1960′s to the early 1980′s, enforced disappearances was a systematic State practice used against students, indigenous peoples, peasants, activists and anyone suspected o
f being a critic or opponent of the government.

“While the Cold War provided the pretext to disappear social movement actors and people opposed to regimes, the War on Drugs again provides pretexts to disappear people opposed to government policies,” said Stuart Schussler, the Mexico Solidarity Network’s International Solidarity Coordinator. “When you disappear people it’s a crime against the whole community and an assault on its social fabric. As a result, people become afraid to speak up and to organize.”

Now that this practice has reappeared in the country’s latest conflict, the UN notes that the cases of disappearances share the same patterns of widespread impunity, secrecy and lack of reparations and justice for the victims as in the past.

“The refusal of the authorities to recognize the true dimensions of this phenomenon and the involvement of public officials in these crimes – whether by commission, omission, or collusion with organized crime groups – has enabled this crime to spread to many parts of the country,” Amnesty International stated in response to the UN’s findings.

Since President Felipe Calderon deployed the military to combat narco-trafficking in December 2006, over 50,000 people have been murdered—more than the death toll for the 11-year war in Afghanistan. According to Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, between 2006 and April 2011, 5,937 people have been reported lost or missing, while 8,898 murdered people remain unidentified. Much of this violence, which has been carried out by the Mexican government, military, and police, has been subsidized by U.S. taxpayers though the Merida Initiative, a counter-narcotics policy modeled after Plan Colombia, which provides Mexico with $1.6 billion in aid that is supposed to have human rights requirements.

“Instead of reducing violence, Mexico’s ‘war on drugs’ has resulted in a dramatic increase in killings, torture, and other appalling abuses by security forces, which only make the climate of lawlessness and fear worse in many parts of the country,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The UN Group noted that groups targeted include women, migrant workers, human rights defenders and journalists. It also noted that although drug cartels are responsible for these acts, it received “detailed documentation” that public authorities and military personnel are believed to be responsible for numerous cases.

HRW published a report in November 2011 which supports these charges. The report documented 39 cases of disappearances where evidence “strongly suggests” government involvement. It states: “The cases follow a pattern: victims are arbitrarily detained by soldiers or police, their detentions never officially registered, and they are not handed over to prosecutors. In the immediate aftermath of such detentions, victims’ relatives routinely seek information from security forces and justice officials, who deny having the victims in their custody.”

This lawlessness and failure to investigate and prosecute crimes was of great concern to the UN. In fact, 24 states in Mexico have not even criminalized the offense, while “less than 25 per cent of offenses are reported and only 2 per cent result in conviction.”

“The victims of enforced disappearances have no faith in the justice system, prosecution services, the police or Armed Forces. The chronic pattern of impunity still exists in cases of enforced disappearance and sufficient efforts are not being made to determine the fate or whereabouts of persons who have disappeared, to punish those responsible and to guarantee the right to the truth and reparation,” the UN Group’s report stated. “It would seem that Mexico is unwilling or unable to conduct effective investigations into cases of enforced disappearance.”

HRW’s Vivanco added that this leaves victims’ families with the burden of searching for their loved ones. The UN also noted that the government has also consistently dismissed the crimes by suggesting that the victims were involved in illicit activities, much like how the victims of Cold War state terror in the region were often labeled communists.

Mothers from across Mexico marched to the nation’s capital this past Mother’s Day on behalf of their loved ones who have been disappeared to demand justice.

“For some it has been years, for others months or days, of walking alone, of clamoring in the desert of the hallways of indolent and irresponsible authorities, many of them directly responsible for (disappearances) or complicit with those who took (loved ones) away,” the mothers’ group said in a communiqué.

AUTHOR: Cyril Mychalejko
URL: http://upsidedownworld.org
E-MAIL: cmychalejko [at] gmail.com

In fact, several storms loom on the horizon that will no doubt cloud the Summit that begins at the Pacific Ocean resort town of Los Cabos on June

The First is the Economic Storm
Although Greece narrowly evaded default, the two rounds of austerity measures have struck the poor and middle class while failing to pull the economy out of the danger zone. In fact, austerity has installed the country in a deep recession.

It’s beginning to look like Spain is not far behind. Former president Felipe Gonzalez declared it was “on the verge of a total emergency”, mainly due to crisis in the banking sector. The European Commission offered help from the rescue fund to recapitalize banks, but will require cutbacks on funding to autonomous regions and financial reforms-in short, austerity measures similar to those imposed on Greece by the triumvirate FMI-ECB-ECommission.

Besides causing extensive human suffering, the austerity measures are beginning to concern wealthy nations because of how they decrease global demand. The G8 continues to be the lead dog on the global economy, so it worth taking a close look at the May 19, 2012 G8 declaration.

The Camp David Declaration Reads Like a Washington Consensus Redux. As such, it bodes ill for any innovative solutions to come out of the G20. According to the G8, every issue facing the global economy has the same solution: more global trade and deregulation. No matter that the lack of regulation led to the financial crisis in the first place, or that irresponsible patterns of growth gave us global warming, the answer is still more of the same. The G8 barely mentions emissions controls and instead proposes national treatment for imports of environmental equipment, effectively stripping developing countries of the possibility to build up their own green industries. Food security? Use government funds and policies to leverage private investment. The same with infrastructure. There is also a recommitment to “fiscal responsibility” and to “refrain from protectionist measures”.

The debate dominated the G8 meeting at Camp David. The issue that captured the press about the G8 meeting however, was not the complete capitulation to orthodox economic policies–the press has forgotten the brief period in which regulation and a role for the state to protect the poor was actually presented as a viable alternative strategy to deal with the crisis. Instead it was the Growth vs. Austerity debate, in which “austerity” took a hit, at least rhetorically. Obama, worried about the impact on the US economy of a European recession, was held forth as the growth advocate pitted against Germany’s pro-austerity Merckel.

Nervousness about the continued crisis came out at the G8 in a volley of mutual accusations. The blame game is on, a dynamic that does little if not nothing to solve the problems at hand. The US, Japan and other countries are saying the European Union got itself into this mess, and it should get itself out. The EU immediately shot back saying that other countries must take more responsibility. Specifically, they demanded that China allow its currency to appreciate and that the US not raise taxes on the wealthy. In a letter from European Commission leader Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy regarding the G20 agenda, the shift toward growth was clear

What’s surprising in this debate is the lack of human considerations. Although the politically popular employment concern is present, the discussion focuses more on how people will continue to consume, rather than how they will cover basic needs. Growth for whom? Shouldn’t the top priority be on making sure that the most vulnerable families are taken care of? Even the language in favor of increased government spending, is to keep consumerism up, not to create social safety nets. The talk about keeping workers working and productive—a must for any healthy economy—is focused on how to keep the financial system booming, not on production and family sustenance.

The Second Storm on the Horizon is a Political Storm.
The elections in Greece on became a referendum on austerity. The response was a resounding NO from the people, reflected in defection from the two leading pro-austerity parties and a rise in votes for the anti-austerity left and, to a lesser degree, far right. The Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) garnered 16.2% of the vote, putting it in second place–a stone’s throw from the leading New Democracy Party. The two are in a dead heat for elections scheduled for June 17—just as the G20 meets to discuss its fate.

There’s a chance the nation could boot the bailout. The SYRIZA candidate Alexis Tsipras said “Voters on June 17th have one choice: bailout austerity or our program,” he told party members, describing Syriza’s new policy as “one of dignity and hope for the people and the country”.

The election of Francois Hollande in France also shifted the balance away from the German-led belt-tightening model. Hollande’s Socialist Party will probably gain a majority in legislative elections later this month, strengthening his hand.

The vastly unpopular austerity measures have also fed the far right. The fascist Golden Dawn Party garnered 7% of the vote in the Greek elections, leading the European network Against Racism to note, “European citizens and residents need progressive alternatives to austerity measures. It should not be the vulnerable persons in society who pay the bill of the financial and sovereign debt crises generated by financial institutions and lack of oversight by political leaders and decision makers.”

Grassroots mobilizations against austerity and inequality in Greece, Spain the United States and other G20 countries are heating up this spring. The protests raise the question of whether business and banker demands formulated by the B20 and adopted by the G20 can be imposed for much longer without risking widespread social unrest. They are measures that require enormous sacrifices from those least able to give up more. There’s a social breaking point somewhere: not where societies fall apart, but rather where they come together–to reject saving the system at the cost of the society.

What Will the G20 Accomplish?
In this scenario, the G20’s ability to broker any kind of meaningful solution is highly doubtful. The austerity vs. growth/stimulus discussion will not be resolved, because Europe’s economic powerhouse, Germany, is holding fast. Also neither side has proffered real solutions, since both sides of the debate are avoiding a deeper analysis of the crisis that would make financiers responsible for their role in causing it and reform rules to prevent the kind of obscene profit-taking and speculation that places entire countries on the brink of ruin.

Mexico’s pet proposal to hyper-finance the IMF to the tune of $500 billion will also likely be a non-starter. Although some funding has been promised and the IMF greeted the proposal with glee, the U.S. and Canada have refused to cough up. With no progress on reforms that would give them greater voice, China, India, Brazil and others are not keen on the proposal.

Mark Weisbrott of the Center for Economic Policy Research points out that, “It’s ridiculous for a middle-income country with high poverty like Mexico to fund Europe.” He adds that, “IMF money for development will be used to continue to make a mess out of Europe. Developing countries should take a stand and so ‘no’ to Europe. The ECB could end the crisis this week by lowering interest rates on long-term bonds, but they see the crisis as an opportunity to force governments to do things people would never vote for.”

Work on developing concrete measures on regulation of derivatives will not likely bear fruit in Los Cabos either. The working group on derivatives recently announced it would not be ready to present proposals at the June summit.

Expect no advances in climate change funding or prevention or mitigation efforts from the Mexico Summit. Funding continues to be left in the hands of the World Bank-run fund that emphasizes market solutions and private sector involvement over government-led controls and mitigation programs. Market solutions are failing throughout the world, while at the same time generating huge conflicts and contradictions.

G20 Internal Dynamics: Who´s In and Who´s Out
Apart from all these considerations, accusations that the G20 has neither the moral nor the official authority to set itself up as the entity that decides these global questions still dog the process. and are likely to deepen as the debates and contradictions deepen, both within the organization and among the large group of excluded nations. The outsiders are complaining that no one represents them, even as the G20 deigns to rule on issues that are literally life and death to their countries.

CARICOM said it is concerned about “the slow process of reform of the multilateral institutions, the uneven results to date and the continued lack of representativeness and transparency of the G20”. Barbados Prime Minister Stuart affirmed, “There are worrying signs that we have moved from the rich man’s club of the G7 to the big man’s club of the G20”, whose members are “more united in telling non-G20 countries what they should do instead of prescribing for those within their own fold.”

While voicing concerns that small states have no place at the table, one commentator wrote politely but pessimistically about Mexico’s efforts to speak for them, “While the developing world should be grateful for his (Calderon’s) labors, the available evidence suggests that small states, especially, should not hold their collective breath for this G20 meeting to make a meaningful difference to them.”

As Perez Rocha points out in this issue, LINK Mexico can hardly claim to be the voice of developing countries after its whole-hog embrace of neoliberal tenets has led it into precisely the pitfalls that those countries hope to avoid.

The other problem is who’s in and who’s out on a sub-national level. While certain sectors sit at the table, others can’t get a foot in the door. Alberto Arroyo points out the gross disparity between the influence granted the B20 and the L20. While the business sector will meet during the Summit and have a direct line to G20 decision-makers the labor group is relegated to making usually ignored recommendations.

With so many challenges and contradictions, the storm fronts converging on Los Cabos promise anything but smooth sailing for Mexico’s G20 Summit.

AUTHOR: Laura Carlsen
URL: www.cipamericas.org and http://americasmexico.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: lecarlsen [at] gmail.com

Close-up US-Mexican border fence

Mexican police officers on Monday — one day after the Summit of the Americas — discovered dismembered bodies packed into plastic garbage bags left inside an abandoned van, according to the Law Enforcement Examiner’s U.S. drug enforcement source.

What appeared to be the remains of 14 male victims were found in Mexico’s northern border city of Nuevo Laredo and federal police investigators said the killings are probably linked to the drug war being fought by opposing cartels.

According to officials, police officers received a telephoned report describing an abandoned truck in the city. A search of the van revealed 10 black plastic bags containing the remains of 14 male bodies, in their early-to-mid 30s.

No group has claimed responsibility for the massive slaughter, but drug cartels are the most likely to blame, according to the Law Enforcement Examiner’s anonymous, drug enforcement officer source.

The suspicious vehicle was left parked right in front of the city’s municipal building which includes City Hall and the mayor’s private office. A threatening message from the unidentified criminal group was also left, but the Mexican police refused to divulge the contents of the note written in Spanish.

Police officers and personnel from the Mexican armed forces responded to the crime scene and started their investigation with forensic technicians and police photographers, said the American source.

The northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas is one of the areas that faces the extreme violence caused by organized crime gangs for more than five years. Drug cartels, such as the powerful Los Zetas, are in the midst of fighting other crime gangs as well as the police and the military, in a violent effort to control the valuable routes into the United States, according federal government officials in Mexico City.

More than 50,000 people — mostly Mexicans — have been killed in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon initiated his “war against organized crimes” in 2006.

Ironically, Calderon had just returned from the America’s Summit which was held on Saturday and Sunday. During the summit Mexico’s beleaguered President, called for all countries represented at the two-day meeting to fight illegal drug use and to stop arms exports to organized crime gangs such as Los Zetas drug cartel.

Speaking at a press conference on the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas held in Cartegena, Colombia, Calderon stated he’s requesting intensifying programs that are geared towards reducing drug consumption in the nations that are mostly consumers, especially the United States. He also requested an end to the trafficking of arms to Latin American nations.

“Calderon, who frequently chastises the United States in front of American politicians who never defend their own country or U.S. citizens, blamed U.S. banks for the money laundering that boosts criminals’ violence and power,” said former police detective now security director Manuel Cardoza.

The summit at the request of Guatemala — a country in the midst of its own drug war — agreed to discuss the appropriateness of the region’s drug trafficking policies, and decided that the Organization of American States should take on the task of formulating an anti-drug, anti-violence strategy, according to a U.S law enforcement source working in Latin America. “The intention is to carry out a diagnosis of alternatives including the implications, costs and benefits of several possible policy options that might be implemented,” he said.

AUTHOR: Jim Kouri
URL: http://www.renewamerica.com/
E-MAIL: COPmagazine [at] aol.com

More than 50,000 men, women and children have been killed in violence related to the drug war since December of 2006. That was when President Felipe Calderón made the now deeply regrettable decision to launch thousands of army troops into the streets to confront drug cartels.

Almost no one believes the drug war has been a success. In one recent poll, 53% of Mexicans surveyed said that organized crime was winning the war. Their perception is born out by statistics. The same poll, by Consulta Mitofsky and Mexicans United Against Crime, reported that in the five years since the drug war began (2006-2011) crimes have increased 15%, with homicides up 88%, kidnappings 81%, and extortion 46%. According to the US drug report, between 2004-2008, heroin production increased 340% in Mexico.

Gender-based violence has also risen dramatically. In the northern border state of Chihuahua, where Ciudad Juárez—already infamous for its femicide rate—is located, assassinations of women rose 1,000% between 2007 and 2010. Chihuahua was one of the first places that the federal government organized a major military operation in the drug war and it continues to have heavy military presence. Yet, far from being safe, its citizens live in fear. In addition to assassinations, hundreds of people have been ‘disappeared’ and tens of thousands have fled their homes.

The law-and-order strategy of focusing on supply enforcement and interdiction in the drug war, rather than a demand-side social or health approach has also had a terrible impact on eroding legal institutions in Mexico. According to government statistics, only 20% of crimes are investigated, only 9% go to trial and only 1% result in punishment. One percent. Incidents of corruption among police, judges, prosecutors and other public officials are commonplace. There has been an 83% rise in human rights complaints 2006-2011; complaints against the Army make up 45% of the total, with the increase in complaints about the army rising ninefold since the drug war. Torture, rape, murder, illegal detention and disappearances are the most serious of the many complaints filed.

Although the Obama administration worried again about “spillover” violence coming across its border at the April 2 North American Summit, it is clear that U.S. policies are largely to blame for the current mess. Plans for regional cooperation under a model of expanding U.S. security priorities, including drug prohibition, to Mexico began under the Security and Prosperity Partnership in 2005 and developed into the Mérida Initiative under George W. Bush in 2007. The security aid package for “Counter-Terrorism, Counter-Narcotics and Border Security” included millions of dollars in military equipment and training to fight the drug war. Calderón had already sent more than 45,000 soldiers into the streets of Mexico for crime fighting and the Mérida Initiative consolidated politically and economically the strategy of military/police confrontation.

It is U.S. demand for drugs, estimated at tens of billions of dollars a year, that creates and sustains the business, and its failed prohibition policies that deliver that business into the hands of organized crime. It is the U.S. arms industry that arms the hit men, through legal and illegal sales and aid. It is U.S. corruption and crime that allows for the money and drugs to flow within the U.S. and over the border. And it is the lobbying power of U.S. defense contractors and private security firms that keeps the Mérida Initiative funded year after year by Congress. In times of budget constraints, the Mérida Initiative has now inexplicably been funded well beyond the original three-year extension proposed by the Bush administration.

Experts and analysts are still trying to explain the obvious but paradoxical correlation between a strategy ostensibly aimed at cracking down on the cartels and the chaos that has resulted. Even President Obama, a staunch ally of Calderón’s in the drug war, has noted publicly that the cartels are stronger than ever. The violence has resulted from turf wars between rival drug cartels—often caused by a government strike against one, battles between the armed forces and cartels, and the splintering of cartels when their leaders are killed by the government or arrested. Many of those splinter groups are the most violent and ruthless cartels of all.

Even the head of the U.S. Northern Command, Gen. Charles Jacoby told a Senate committee in March that the strategy of killing drug lords was not working. This is something that Mexican researchers have been documenting for some time, with charts that show a clear relationship between the murder or arrest of a local drug lord and an explosion of violence in that city.

Besides the booming economy of war, the drug war strategy serves interests of social control. When the nation is militarized in the name of the drug war, the government can and does intimidate and often do worse to dissidents. Human rights defenders, indigenous people seeking to protect their land and natural resources from incursions of companies, and youth in general are particular targets of military occupation, killings and repression.

It’s clear why the drug war has become a political liability. It has tainted the prospects for Calderón’s would-be successor, candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota of the National Action Party; she has endorsed the militarized strategy but sought to change the tone as she trails in the polls. Enrique Peña Nieto, from the PRI, the party which ruled Mexico with an iron fist for seven decades until being unseated from the presidency in 2000, has also endorsed the strategy yet there is some sense that his advantage going into the campaigns is in part owing to a desire among many Mexicans to return to a time when it seemed that the ruling party had secret agreements with cartels to avoid rivalries and violence by giving everyone, not least of all government officials, a piece of the pie.

The only candidate to promise a change of strategy is the center-left coalition candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He has said he would change the strategy and put the emphasis on tackling the social roots of crime and violence.

This is one of the tragedies of the drug war. With violence capturing headlines, the more than half the population that says that economic issues are of most concern to them has been left out in the cold. Mexico felt the U.S. recession hard and has been slow to recover, and now could be facing the consequences of another global recession. The number of poor people has increased by five million during this administration. The North American Summit announcements said that the three partners in the North American Free Trade Agreement would continue to reduce trade barriers and failed to note the negative effects of the agreement on their countries’ most vulnerable populations.

More and more Mexican migrants are returning home—because of record numbers of deportations in the US and because the high rate of unemployment means they’re out of work. They come back to communities with no jobs, and in many cases suffering culture shock after decades in the United States.

Stories like theirs don’t make the news like a gory beheading does. But as elections loom, the rise in poverty and the abandonment of the poor–with the nation pouring billions into security to fight criminals who find it easy to recruit fresh ranks among hapless youth—could and should be issues of primary concern.

AUTHOR: Laura Carlsen
URL: www.cipamericas.org and http://americasmexico.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: lecarlsen [at] gmail.com

The blame game is on. As Mexico readies for campaign season in the run-up to the July 1 presidential elections, we expect to see a lot of this—public displays of government achievements and throwing blame for the many disasters of the past six years, but especially for the drug war. Here, an Army general speaks ‘as an individual, based on personal experience’ to point the finger at former president Vicente Fox and justify the role of the armed forces in the drug war.

La Jornada (translation Americas Program) Felipe Calderón Hinojosa inherited a country taken over by organized crime from Vicente Fox Quesada, in which a large number of the almost 2 million 500 towns “were imprisoned by crime and many mayors could not carry out their respobsibiliites…Therefore the Mexican Army had to step in to confront this phenomenon,” said General Genaro Fausto Lozano Espinosa, commander of the 5th Military Regiment, based in Guadalajara that includes the states of Aguascalientes, Jalisco, Colimba, Nayarit, and Zacatecas-,this Wednesday at the Law School of the Autonomous University of Zacatecas (AUZ).

In fact, the commander said, the Army must stay in the fight against organized crime because the situation is likely to endanger the very existence of the Mexican state, given its complexity and scope…

The military command acknowledged that at present, Mexico’s Pacific mountains are full of drugs and there are hundreds of thousands of people who dedicate themselves to its production. It’s a cultural issue, a way of life, he said, but currently, the country’s main problem “is the drug dealing, the growing consumption of drugs which is creeping into our homes without our knowledge.”

Lozano Espinosa defended President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa’s decision to send the army into the streets to fight organized crime, saying since the beginning of his administration there has been a serious problem of law and order in the country and the Army and Air Force cannot remain idle or negligent in their responsibilities. At the start of this administration, the state of governance, freedom, rule of law, and democracy was truly dramatic.

“Why do I say this? Because five years ago the country was literally taken over by organized crime. At the local level, many were co-opted by crime or threatened by the authorities.”

The major general, with four decades experience in the armed forces, said that many mayors were extorted, even with the budgetary resources that the national government provides for them to exercise their mandates… In this situation, an individual who was elected to lead a municipality could not possibly carry out duties and without that function there is no governance. And if people vote for someone who can’t carry out his or her duties, where’s the democracy in that? It’s not right! Because we have a de facto power that is ursurping the popular will, national sovereignty…

“Clearly the rule of law and freedom are affected. There were lots of rural roads and highways where criminals set up roadblocks and if you didn’t pay a quota, you couldn’t pass.”

With these examples, he said, we understand that security in the country is impaired, and the president has to exercise his constitutional powers to reverse a situation that poses a serious risk to national institutions and could escalate to endanger the very existence of the Mexican state. That is the reason why he ordered the armed forces to intervene against organized crime.

Corruption and incompetence in the police, especially local authorities, and the justice system is another reason to keep soldiers in the streets, said Lozano Espinosa. Read Spanish Original

AUTHOR: Laura Carlsen
URL: www.cipamericas.org and http://americasmexico.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: lecarlsen [at] gmail.com

Close-up US-Mexican border fence

During his meeting with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in Mexico City on Monday, President Felipe Calderon told Biden that the only way to win Mexico’s “war with the drug cartels” combat organized crime gangs as well as arms trafficking along the border. He also included in his list of priorities the ceasing of rampant cross-border money laundering, according to a press statement.

“There are a number of tools that can be utilized when it comes to laundering cash domestically and internationally,” claims former forensic accountant John Politi, an expert in financial and cyber crime.

Politi told the Law Enforcement Examiner that one such tool is Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, which authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to prohibit US financial institutions from maintaining certain accounts for foreign banks if they involve foreign jurisdictions or institutions found to be of primary money laundering concern.

“To make this finding, Treasury officials examine several factors and generally issue proposed rules announcing its intent to apply Section 311 restrictions. At the request of the US Congress, Government Accountability Office analysts reviewed financial and investigative US government documents and met with government officials and representatives of affected bank,” Politi said in a phone conversation.

Treasury’s informal process to implement Section 311 was consistent with requirements in U.S. law. From 2002 to 2005, Treasury identified 11 cases — 3 jurisdictions and 8 institutions — as being of primary money laundering concern and issued proposed rules for 10 of these cases, according to Politi, a former agent with the IRS.

As required, Treasury consulted with the Departments of Justice and State prior to issuing the proposed rules. However, Justice and State officials said that it was difficult for them to effectively assess the evidence on some Section 311 cases because Treasury provided them limited time.

In April 2008, Treasury withdrew two of three notices — all open for between 3 and 5 years –after the Government Accountability Office discussed the cases with Treasury officials. Contributing to this lag was the absence of required timeframes for completing the action and of written guidance specifying a Treasury office to finalize the actions. Treasury views Section 311 as effective because it isolates target institutions from the US financial system and encourages some foreign governments to strengthen their anti-money laundering authorities, according to GAO analysts.

However, some foreign government officials said that Section 311′s implementation precluded their own enforcement or regulatory actions against targeted institutions as U.S. action was unilateral or provided too little information for them to act.

Justice Department officials said that if Section 311′s application is viewed as unsubstantiated, some countries may be less likely to cooperate with the U.S. government on other law enforcement matters or sanctions. Treasury officials said they recognized the concerns, but did not believe they diminished Section 311′s effectiveness.

AUTHOR: Jim Kouri
URL: http://www.renewamerica.com/
E-MAIL: COPmagazine [at] aol.com

Sebastian Albuja, representative of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said the federal government is responsible for resolving the lack of data and reliable statistics on this subject, but has not done so because that would imply its admitting that there are displaced persons as a result of its public safety strategy, and that would be political suicide.

Laura Rubio, a researcher at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico, said the lack of accurate statistics on the number of internal displaced persons makes it difficult to attend to the matter, and makes the phenomenon continually grow worse.

Oscar Torrens, director in Chiapas of the United Nations Program for Development, said that the armed conflict in Chiapas in 1994 generated 25,000 displaced people in that state, who to date have received virtually no attention, although there is a law in the state Congress which would help analyze the issue.

Leticia Calderon, Mora Institute specialist on immigration issues, said to admit the large number of internal displaced persons in the country–it is one million 600 thousand according to the company Parametría–would imply that the government admits its responsibility.” Spanish original

AUTHOR: Reed Brundage
URL: http://americasmexico.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: Americas [at] ciponline.org

Joe Biden

Like a drowning man desperately clutching a lifesaver, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon on Monday demanded that more be done by the United States law enforcement community to curtail arms trafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border, a U.S. drug enforcement agent informed the Law Enforcement Examiner.
During his meeting with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in Mexico City, Calderon said the only way to win his country’s war with the drug cartels is to jointly tackle organized crime including arms trafficking along the border as well as ceasing the rampant cross-border money laundering, according to a press statement.

The Mexican government has waged a war to eradicate organized crime gangs that has killed more than 47,700 victims over the past five years, according to figures released earlier this year by the Attorney General’s Office.

Calderon claimed — and Biden on behalf of the Obama administration agreed — that the drug cartels have challenged the military and police with advanced weapons, most of which are trafficked illegally from the United States.

But Thomas McMahon, a former police commander and proponent of Second Amendment rights, tells the Examiner that these are no conclusive studies to support the claims of Calderon, Biden, Obama, or Attorney General Eric Holder.

“Trying to prove the canard of rampant gun-smuggling is what cost so many lives due to the Operation Fast and Furious debacle. That entire operation was politically-motivated and more about gun control in the U.S. than solving drug and gang problems in Mexico,” said McMahon, now a private security executive.

Calderon and Biden then jumped to the immigration issue which they agreed needed a commitment from both governments to further cooperation and emphasized the importance of the contributions made by migrants to their communities of origin and destination.

“During their conversation it appears that both leaders used the term migrants. We’ve gone from illegal aliens, to undocumented immigrants to migrants to describe lawbreakers,” said Mike Snopes, a former police detective and military intelligence officer.

Calderon stated that his countrymen expect to help generate more jobs in the United States and in return expect economic assistance from the Obama administration, the anonymous drug enforcement agent said.

The White House said in a statement that Biden’s agenda in Central America would focus on combating organized crime and discussing the Summit of the Americas to be held in April in Colombia.

AUTHOR: Jim Kouri
URL: http://www.renewamerica.com/
E-MAIL: COPmagazine [at] aol.com