Corruption

I flew into Mexico City last night to attend the Winds of Change: Drug Policy in the World conference on Monday and Tuesday. I'll be blogging about and reporting on that next week. But today, I want to provide you with one example of how much the narco-violence and the Mexican government's response to it dominates the political discourse in Mexico these days. In today's print edition of the well-respected, slightly left-leaning Mexico City newspaper La Jornada, we have the following headlines on the front page and adjoining main news section: The front page is mainly a come-on for the rest of the paper. The big headline is "In Cancun, [Bolivian President] Evo [Morales] Announces a New OAS Without Canada or the United States." Then there is a half-page photo of the secretary of defense and two generals with a bikini-clad woman facing them, her upturned bottom getting plenty of space. The generals are announcing a pay raise for the troops. I have no idea what the bikini-clad woman was doing there. Then there are some teasers... Page 2--letters to the editor Page 3--The politics page. A story about Cuban-Mexican relations. Page 4--"The PAN [ruling party] 'Unauthorizes' Criticisms by [PAN Sen. Manuel] Clouthier [of Sinaloa]. Clouthier had accused the federal government of coddling "a state government that colludes with delinquency [the narcos]." Clouthier is talking about the state government of his own state, home of the Sinaloa Cartel. Page 5--"Secretary of Defense: It is Inconvenient and Undesirable to Make Permanent the Military Fight Against the Narco." On the same page, a cartoon with the defense secretary saying, "We need a legal framework for the drug war," and President Calderon replying, "Yes, a law that prohibits persecuting El Chapo [Guzman, head of the Sinaloa cartel], for example." Page 6--"The Defense Department Reinforces Security at its Headquarters Fearing Possible Attacks From the Hampa (Narcos). The subhead reads: "The Navy is Also Taking Measures After the Death of [cartel head] Arturo Beltran Leyva," who was gunned down by Naval Marines a few weeks ago." Also on page 6: "Complaints Against the Army Increase 400%, Says the National Commission on Human Rights.' Page 7--"It's Not the Army's Role to Fight the Narcos, Say Senators of the PRD, PRI, and PT." Those, of course, are the opposition parties. Also on page 7: "Initiatives Over Military Participation" about a legal framework for the military's role in the drug war. Also on page 7: "Colin Powell Singles Out the Work of Intelligence Against the Cartels" at a speech in Monterrey. The subhead reads: "He Recognizes the Role of the US in the Growth of Violence Here." Page 8--"The Federal Government Will Inaugurate an Office in Ciudad Juarez to Make Social Programs More Responsive." Also on page 8: "Yesterday's Wave of Violence Leaves 31 Executed, 11 of the Victims in Chihuahua." It is only by page 9 that La Jornada gets around to rest of the national news. The violence in Mexico may get the occasional 30-second treatment on the US networks and the occasional story in the US press, but down here it is a very big deal, all day and every day.

The SPIRIT of 1776 was the HOLY SPIRIT and is our TRUE NORTH! The American dream is, "for the power of love to overcome the love of power." We will overcome!

Having rested up from my abortive February trip to Mexico, where I was unable to get my pick-up truck past the frontier zone and into Mexico proper for obscure bureaucratic reasons, I am now about to return to Mexico for a couple of weeks of on-the-scene drug war reporting. I'll be in South Dakota Thursday morning and Mexico City in time for dinner Thursday evening. I will spend a week in Mexico City. Among other things, I will be meeting with a member of Congress who has introduced a marijuana decriminalization bill, along with a select group of Mexico City marijuana activists involved in the campaign. I think I will also be spending some time with folks working with hard drug users and drug-using street youth in the city, and I will be interviewing as many academic and other experts as I can about Mexico's vicious drug prohibition-related violence (the death toll this year must be at 900 by now), the Mexican government's resort to the military to try to suppress the drug trade, and the looming multi-billion US drug war aid package. After that, it gets a bit hazy. I have been making efforts to get out into the countryside in some of the conflictive zones, in particular, the mountains of Guerrero (between Mexico City and Acapulco) and the state of Sinaloa, a traditional drug trafficking hotbed, and home of one of the violently competitive so-called drug cartels. But in both places, I've been receiving strong signals that people don't want to talk; that they are scared. I don't know at this point how this will play out, but I strongly suspect I will be heading to Sinaloa at the end of the month, where on April 29 and 30 a local newsweekly is holding a conference on "Drug trafficking, the Merida Initiative and the experiences on depenalization," which will feature a number of high-powered speakers, including a former Mexican attorney general and the Drug Policy Alliance's Ethan Nadelmann. This should be interesting. Look for some blog posts starting this weekend and some feature articles in the Chronicle for the next couple of weeks (and perhaps beyond). I'm taking the DRCNet camera, too, so maybe I'll get some good pics. If I do, you'll see 'em here. Speaking of photos, check out the one accompanying this Associated Press story from Tuesday. That's right: It's a "help wanted" banner for the Zetas, the former military elite anti-drug unit members who switched sides, calling on current and former soldiers to call them if they're looking for more remunerative work. That's the country I'm headed to! Hasta la vista, baby.

One of the most widely ignored consequences of the drug war is its negative influence on the men and women who carry it out. Two disturbing stories from local papers illustrate the drug war's profound ability to criminalize our public servants.

First, a revealing story of police misconduct from The Journal Inquirer in North Central Connecticut:

A Hartford police detective arrested days after his retirement in 2004 on charges of falsifying an arrest warrant has been granted a special form of probation that could lead to his arrest record being expunged.

The decision came after a hearing in which [Sgt. Franco] Sanzo's lawyer, Jake Donovan of Middletown, called another retired officer who said that police frequently sign their names to warrants - and swear before judges - that they've seen things they haven't.

So basically Sanzo's defense was that this type of misconduct is a matter of routine at his department. And it worked! I don't know if I'm more shocked that a defense attorney would offer an argument so contemptuous towards the Fourth Amendment, or that a judge would actually be persuaded by an attempt to rationalize police misconduct.

Sam Smith's Progressive Review summarizes the beguiling story http://prorev.com/2006/10/fading-days-of-asa-hutchinson.htm of Barry Seal, a major cocaine smuggler who operated undisturbed in Mena, Arkansas while Asa Hutchinson was the Republican United States Attorney and Bill "Vacuum Cleaner Nose" Clinton was Governor.

UPDATE: Check out Phil's book review of De los Maras a los Zetas here. Despite the daily toll of arrests and busts in the United States, America's drug war is waged largely in other countries. Mexico, for example, is likely to see more police killed in a bad weekend than the US will see in an entire year. And in Colombia, the drug war is now part of a messy civil war/war on drugs/war on terrorism with casualties—police, soldiers, guerrillas, paramilitaries, civilians—on a daily basis.