Politics Outside US

The Mexican Army's military jurisdiction privileges are being reviewed by Cto determine the nature of several cases in which drug traffickers bribed troops and military leaders. Emeequis Magazine revealed some of the files being reviewed, showing how members of the Juarez and Sinaloa drug organizations infiltrated Mexican military intelligence, particularly the Anti-drug Information Center (AIC). In addition, transcripts of several phone calls involving active and former military personnel show how they worked as an information network that would alert drug traffickers regarding possible military operations against them.

It has been a year since Prime Minister John Key declared war on the drug P (methamphetamine). The authorities, and Mr. Key, had hoped to see P prices rising as evidence that the anti-P campaign was working. But that hasn't happened.

With killings and disappearances to assert their authority, Mexico's prohibition-created drug trafficking organizations are beginning to interfere with everyday government activities in pockets of the country, keeping workers off their turf and interrupting some of the most basic services. Not only do they maintain checkpoints and kill police or mayors to control territory, they now try to keep everyone from mid-level officials to delivery truck drivers and meter readers out of rural areas they use to transport drugs, stash weapons and kidnap victims, and hide from authorities. In the process, they are blocking deliveries of gasoline, pension checks, farm aid and other services to Mexicans.

Criminals who are addicted to drugs will be spared jail and sent for treatment instead under plans being drawn up by Kenneth Clarke. He has publicly questioned whether prison is the best place to deal with offenders who are addicted to drugs.

While some Mexicans expressed relief that California’s Proposition 19 was defeated in Tuesday’s election, others felt that the fight in Mexico was just beginning. The proposition, which essentially would have legalized marijuana in California, had a renewed sense of urgency south of the border, where the body count in the government’s crusade against drug trafficking organizations continues to rise.

Erika De La Garza, program director of the Latin American Initiative at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice, and William Martin, the Harry and Hazel Chavanne Senior Fellow in Religion and Public Policy at the Baker Institute, opine on the general failures of drug prohibition and what direction Latin America should go.

The Jakarta Police are considering handing drug traffickers hefty fines rather than locking them up, arguing that imprisonment did not appear to be an effective deterrent and was getting too costly for the state. According to Jakarta Police Chief Inspector General Sutarman, it would be much wiser if drug users were not put in jail but in a rehabilitation center, which is currently not an option. "If jails are already full and people who violate the law are also set to become a burden for the state, why don’t we change this? I think we need a strategic decision, to be taken by the government and the legislature," he said.

It was in February 2007 that Amnesty International raised concerns over Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s decision, two months earlier, to send thousands of troops across the country to attempt to control Mexico’s spiraling drug prohibition violence. Echoing worries voiced by the United Nations, the rights group warned that sending the army onto Mexican streets to do the job of the police was a bad idea. Almost four years into the fight, it would seem Amnesty, the U.N. and a host of other rights groups were right.

Authorities have dug at least 18 bodies out of the grave. Authorities found a note saying a "narco grave" was on the site.