Drugs, Law and Conflict

**The Nogales port of entry at night. Photo by Simon Norfolk for the NYTimes, via (Notes on) Politics, Theory and Photography.

The US and Mexican governments have reached an agreement to refer some Mexicans caught in the US for drug smuggling, on a case-by-case basis, to the Mexican criminal justice system for prosecution.

The New York Times reports that the agreement is being tested in Nogales, on the Arizona-Sonora border, and will be implemented all along the border if deemed successful. Authorities chose Nogales because it is a relatively “controlled setting,” which allows for simpler prosecutions. The Times explains how the new plan works, based on its first test case:

The first referral, last weekend, involved Eleazar González-Sánchez, 27, of Sonora, Mexico. He was detained, Customs and Border Protection officers said, after they found the marijuana hidden in a compartment in the trunk of the car he was driving.

Mr. González-Sánchez was turned over to immigration agents, who, after consulting with federal prosecutors in the United States, informed Mexico’s attorney general’s office.

Mexican prosecutors reviewed the evidence, including sworn affidavits from United States law enforcement officials, and agreed to accept the case, taking custody of Mr. González-Sánchez and a sample of the marijuana for use in the prosecution.

What’s particularly interesting about this development is that the cases most likely to be referred to Mexico are those which US federal prosecutors often reject as too insignificant, and which state and local prosecutors fail to take up based on insufficient resources. Where previously (and still, along the rest of the border) this situation will lead to simple deportation proceedings, these individuals will now be brought into the criminal justice system, with all that entails. How this will turn out for Mexico remains to be seen…

Photo courtesy of Boston.com Bringas

It seems that the 2009 UN World Drug Report, available here, has inspired The Boston Globe to come up with a compelling photo essay chronicling the War on Drugs and its effects throughout the world – definitely worth a look.

Mexico City’s historic center. Photo via Luis A. De Jesus R.

President Calderón finally signed a law decriminalizing possession of small amounts of drugs yesterday, four months after Mexico’s congress approved it. This law, while viewed by many as controversial, is not a surprise: it was even proposed by ex-president Vicente Fox, before he vetoed it under pressure.

See news coverage from the AP, and in Spanish from El Universal. Also, policy analysis from Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Penales (in Spanish), and the UK-based Transform Drug Policy Foundation.

Blackwater planes dropping supplies to US troops in Afghanistan.

In the the Yucatan Peninsula in July, I had the fortune to run into two friendly engineers from Ciudad Juárez. Over a round of drinks, we shared thoughts on US-Mexico relations and the escalating drug war.

When the subject of US private security contractors came up, though, our lively conversation suddenly turned into a kind of interrogation. There are private citizens serving alongside the US military in Iraq? they asked me in disbelief. They assist with coca fumigation in Colombia, and then hire Colombians to go to the Middle East to share their experience with “urban terrorism”? And these contractors are largely unaccountable under the law?

Unfortunately, I responded.

Moreover, as Reuters reported recently and I scoped here last October, these companies are set to receive a huge amount of funds within the Merida Initiative. That is, most of the $1.4 billion promised to Mexico and Central America will never cross the border.

My new friends shook their heads. Pinches gringos.

And the story of private security firms in US anti-drug efforts just gets more and more interesting. Border Lines noted that last week’s Border Security Conference, attended by Janet Napolitano, was sponsored by big firms Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics and SAIC, among others.

Then, yesterday, a truly interesting article from the New York Times on the role of Blackwater contractors in a CIA scheme to kill top al Qaeda leaders. According to the Times,

Executives from Blackwater, which has generated controversy because of its aggressive tactics in Iraq, helped the spy agency with planning, training and surveillance. The C.I.A. spent several million dollars on the program [from 2002-2009], which did not successfully capture or kill any terrorist suspects… Officials said that the C.I.A. program was devised partly as an alternative to missile strikes using drone aircraft, which have accidentally killed civilians and cannot be used in urban areas where some terrorists hide.

(We can see that Blackwater, now Xe Services, really covers its bases via today’s Times article, which reveals they also have contracts to assemble the drones.)

Let’s look briefly at how the CIA program developed:

- Although the CIA is banned from carrying out assassinations thanks to a 1976 presidential order, targeted killing of al Qaeda members was considered exempt, since it’s considered to be parallel to attacking enemy soldiers in battle.

- Since the CIA had legal authority to kill al Qaeda leaders, Cheney told the agency there was no need to inform congress that they’d actually contracted out the work.

- The contracting was never “formal,” but through “individual agreements with top company officials.”

That Cheney. Give him an inch and he’ll take a mile… Seriously, though, these revelations have ramifications for US counterdrug activities in Afghanistan, especially considering the Senate just indicated a desire to include certain traffickers on the military’s joint integrated prioritized target list. There is certainly an argument to be made in favor of targeted killings of terrorists, as well as to the benefits associated with classifying insurgency-supporting drug lords as military targets. Yet it’s starting to seem feasible that if we continue in this direction, we could have a “war” between two groups formerly known as noncombatants: (private citizen) contractors, planning the killings of (private citizen) drug traffickers. Or do we already, Mr. Cheney?

**The U.S.-Mexico border crossing in Ciudad Juárez. Photo courtesy of the AP/Miguel Tovar.

…for Mexico, where the lead federal investigator in the murder of prominent journalist Armando Rodriguez has been killed. This is not a good sign for journalists, or for justice.

Monday, June 29: Mesa de Debate: “Crimen organizado, seguridad y política transnacional.”
9am, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte en la Ciudad de México (Casa COLEF), Francisco Sosa 254. Col. Barrio de Santa Catarina, Del. Coyoacán. Limited space. RSVP at 5554-3390 or 5554-3545, or to  casacolef at colef.mx

Tuesday, June 30: “Seminario Sociología del crimen organizado, derechos humanos y sociedad civil.”
9am – 3pm, Auditorio Santa Fé del CIDE. See more information here.

Human Rights Watch before the UN Human Rights Council for the Universal Periodic Review of Mexico:

Since President Calderon deployed thousands of troops to combat drug trafficking, there has been a dramatic increase in complaints of military abuses. The dysfunctional Mexican military justice system routinely takes over the investigation of even the most egregious abuses, including alleged rapes, killings, arbitrary detentions, and torture, by adopting an excessively broad definition of what constitutes an “act of service.” This broken system has led to impunity. As of April 2009, the military attorney general has been unable to provide a single example in the last ten years in which a member of the military accused of committing a human rights violation was convicted by military courts.

Read the full oral statement here.

Also check out this joint oral statement on the independence of judges, delivered with the Miguel Austin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center (Center Prodh), among others. Centro Prodh is doing some really important work on civilian control over the armed forces in the drug war here, as evidenced by their recent reports.

Media from the Universal Periodic Review is available from the OHCHR’s website.

Media are reporting that the Government Accountability Office will release today a report connecting weak and uncoordinated US gun policy to Mexico’s surge in violence. It’s not available on the GAO website yet, but the Washington Post has a link to the pdf. As the Wall Street Journal reports,

GAO investigators cited multiple problems in trying to collect enough data to complete a comprehensive study of arms trafficking from the U.S. The investigators faulted the lack of a coherent anti-arms-trafficking strategy, as well as turf battles among agencies charged with enforcing laws and government policy on the issue.

The study also cited bureaucratic problems in Mexico that reduced the number of weapons submitted to the U.S. for tracing. In addition, congressional restrictions limit the amount of data the bureau can collect and publicly release about gun sales…

The study says that despite claims from critics that Mexican cartels may also be getting weapons from Asia and elsewhere, law-enforcement officials believe that scenario is unlikely.

CNN adds that the report was scheduled to be released at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere regarding arms trafficking.

While on the subject, this Daily Show clip comparing the investment opportunities in the AK-47 versus the AR-15 is truly wonderful.

Small Wars Journal recently published a clear, short and insightful article by Roger Pardo-Maurer on the US-Mexico security relationship.

Titled “How to Think about Mexico and Beyond,” it wisely moves beyond questions of immediacy to look at the tough long-term challenges. Pardo-Maurer, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Western Hemisphere affairs, writes,

Destroying the drug cartels must be an urgent priority, and there is much the U.S. can do to help, not least because we are a huge part of the problem. But the selection of our strategic ends is of crticial importance in applying the means. If the U.S. objective is to help a friendly democracy eliminate the threat that druglords and narcoterrorists pose to the state, we have a broad array of successful experience to draw on. If on the other hand, our goal is to “stop the flow of drugs”, we might as well wave the white flag now.

He continues on to describe the challenges facing Mexico in an unusually comprehensive manner — looking at water and oil issues, economic competitiveness and inequality. My only question is exactly what “broad array of successful experience” the author refers to with regard to US institution building and stabilization efforts… especially given his former work with the Contras in Nicaragua. Still, a highly recommended read.

Human Rights Watch is hiring researchers for Brazil and Mexico, two countries where they have strong work related to rights violations in the drug war.

They recently released an important 76-page report on Mexico, “Uniform Impunity,” focusing on the lack of justice for human rights abuses committed during counter-drug and public security operations. The Mexico country page features all related letters, reports and denuncias. Job description for the researcher here.

In Brazil, HRW’s work has focused on the abysmal prison system and police violence. See the country page for more information, and check out the Brazil job description here.