Mexican Senate leaders and cabinet officials are holding a closed door meeting this afternoon to discuss the administration’s Drug War strategy. The high level meeting comes after yet another bloody weekend in Mexico.
Eight people died in drug-related violence in the border state of Tamaulipas and an explosive device was thrown at the US consulate in the city of Nuevo Laredo. The consulate remains closed to the public today as part of the ongoing investigation.
Mexican states immediately south of Texas have been experiencing a surge in drug-related violence as the Gulf Cartel battles with its former enforcement wing, The Zetas, for control of strategic territory. Thousands marched Sunday in the cities of Tampico and Monterrey calling to an end to the violence.
Meanwhile, the vicious turf war in Ciudad Juarez may be tapering off, according to an FBI assessment leaked to the Associated Press. Mexican newspapers are widely citing statements by the FBI spokesperson in El Paso that the majority of drugs passing through Ciudad Juarez now belong to the Sinaloa Cartel.
The battle for the Juarez drug route has killed more than 5,000 since 2008.
A report on bribery practices in Mexico released by the non-profit association TRACE International has found that authorities account for 85 percent of the country’s reported bribery demands – with Mexican police officers the most frequent offenders.
Official corruption is suspected behind a major jailbreak near the northeastern border city of Matamoros. The 41 inmates simply walked through the front doors of the high-security prison to waiting vehicles. Most were in prison for federal crimes. Two guards disappeared along with the inmates. The prison’s director has been fired and all 200 staffers are under investigation.
Most of the escaped inmates allegedly have ties to organized crime. Their jailbreak comes at a time when the Gulf Cartel is said to be battling its former enforcement wing, The Zetas, for control of valuable drug trafficking territory in northeastern Mexico. The warfare has included heavy intimidation of the press in the region, resulting in very little on-the-ground coverage outside of posts on social networking sites.
North of the border, the Department of Justice says that Mexican cartel activity has expanded to every region of the US and the tonnage of drugs trafficked has increased despite a 1.4 billion dollar military aid package aimed at reducing supply.
Headlines from Tuesday’s high-level security summit emphasize the announcement of a more social approach to the issues at the root of Mexico’s Drug violence.
That may sound like good news to a public that has grown weary of the military strategy that has claimed 18,000 Mexican lives in the past 3 years, but the announcement was short on specifics on just how this new social strategy will be carried out. Also without concrete details was the US promise to try to curb demand at home – the world’s most lucrative drug market.
Other new bi-national initiatives will include the sharing of information on convicted criminals deported to Mexico, tougher penalties for people traveling with forged documents, and a joint security program for the violent border metropolis of Ciudad Juárez. Both countries also agreed to tackle the flow of arms and laundered money from the US into Mexico.
Financing for the plan comes from the 1.4 billion dollar Mérida Initiative – a military spending program similar to Plan Colombia.
Drug violence swept through Mexico’s Pacific Coast state of Guerrero this weekend, killing at least 45 people – more than 30 in the beach resort town of Acapulco. Among the dead are policemen killed in drive-by shootings, suspected members of the drug trade targeted by assassins or killed in a gun battle with soldiers, and at least one civilian hit by a stray bullet.
While there’s no official explanation for the surge in violence in Guerrero, widely circulated rumors tell of a new alliance among 3 powerful cartels to eliminate another.
Weekends with double digit death tolls are usually only seen in Ciudad Juarez. The northern border city located across from El Paso, Texas was also the site of violence this weekend. Among the dead are 3 people connected to the US consulate in Juarez.
They were shot in front of their children in two separate attacks after leaving a child’s birthday party. Two of the children were injured. The State Department has since authorized consular employees in 6 border cities to move their families to the US.
President Calderon has carefully cultivated his tough-on-crime image since deploying the military to fight the Drug War just days after taking office. While the military strategy sparked some of the worst bloodshed Mexico has seen in decades, the administration insists the violence means cartel infrastructure is crumbling.
So, it came as a surprise to some when Calderon himself proposed a measure to decriminalize the possession of small quantities of illegal drugs. At the height of the Swine Flu scare in late April, Mexico’s Congress passed a bill that would allow users to carry up to 5 grams of marijuana, half a gram of cocaine, 2 grams of opium, and smaller doses of heroin or methamphetamines.
Symbolic Importance
“When you’re decriminalizing possession like this, it has essentially no international consequences,” says Ethan Nadelmann, Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a US-based organization that promotes alternatives to the Drug War. “This is not about the production, sale, distribution – it’s none of that sort of stuff. So, there’s no reason to think that this is going to make marijuana much more available in Mexico or lower its price coming across the border. It’s really about changing a small element of the legal relationship between the cop and somebody who’s picked up with marijuana or maybe some other drug in a small amount.”
The bill creates three different legal categories for drug offenders; users, addicts, and small time dealers. What separates a user from an addict will be up to a police investigator, but what sets a dealer apart from the rest is quantity; anything over the tolerated limit. Dealing offenses also carry mandatory minimum sentences harsher than those under current law.
