Mexico

On July 18th, the Mexican Navy intercepted a mini submarine that was transporting more than 5 tons of cocaine. This is a significant operation that highlights the ability of Mexican armed forces to combat drug trafficking by air, land, and sea. Bilateral cooperation between the United States and Mexico contributed to the capture of the submarine. Given the current context, it is important to ask whether foreign assistance in the form provided by the Mérida Initiative or Plan Colombia actually reduce drug trafficking.

Answering such a question is not an easy task. Indeed, there are methodological issues that do not allow to test whether military assistance provided by one country (or countries) to another actually reduce drug trafficking. A large transfer of resources to combat drugs is public information. Drug cartels can observe this transfer. Having observed the transfer, they can modify their activities accordingly. However, this modification is not observable—although intelligence agencies should be able to observe these activities. Cartels can improve their efforts and become even more difficult to catch (they become better drug traffickers); or they can reduce their efforts, thus giving the impression that the aid is working (they play a low profile). This last event is a response to the transfer, not a response to the actual implementation of the funds provided by the transfer.

But high office is run by politicians and not by researchers. Indeed, it is always good to show the photos of a submarine being taken over by Special Forces. We can expect observing more dramatic seizures of drugs under a new bilateral relationship between Mexico and the United States. The question is whether those seizures will be masking other types of illegal operations that make use of even more fantastic ways of transporting drugs across countries.

Members of the Senate have declared that the Mexican Center for Research and National Security (CISEN) has been spying on them. According to some Senators, the executive branch, through the CISEN, has been gathering information about them without authorization. The Senators’ outrage comes from three sources. First, information about them was collected without permission. Second, it was discovered that the Center did not collect the information itself, but hired a private company to do so. Third, the director of the company in charge of collecting the information happens to be closely linked to the ruling National Action Party. With this evidence in hand, it is not surprising or completely unreasonable that the Senate has asked for the dismissal of Guillermo Valdés Castellanos, director of the CISEN.

Of course, the appointment and dismissal of high ranking public officials is a prerogative of the President and not of the Senate. This was clearly stated by the Ministry of the Interior in a response to the agreement reached at the Senate. In the press release, the Ministry of the Interior denies any accusations of espionage and makes a reference to the outstanding record of Valdés Castellanos as head of the CISEN. In spite of this clear demonstration of support, it seems that members of the Senate will continue to keep this event as an issue in Mexican politics.

Manlio Fabio Beltrones, Senator from Sonora, has formally placed an accusation of espionage at the Attorney General’s Office. This is quite a turn of events for Beltrones, a former high ranking official linked to the political police that was part of the PRI-led administration that ruled Mexico for more than 70 years. Beltrones, a fomer governor of Sonora, was accused by American intelligence of having ties to drug traffickers in the late 1990s. Today, Beltrones is the PRI leader at the Senate.

So for this month’s scandal, the intelligence services hired a consulting company to collect information about members of Congress. The consulting company came up with a fictitious form that Senators had to fill out for the purposes of publishing an academic book. Naïve and not-so-naïve members of Congress fell for the trick. Once they found out they were subject to an unauthorized collection of information—espionage for short, according to them—they have asked for the resignation of the head of intelligence services.

If Valdés Castellanos becomes a political liability, Calderón is likely to remove him regardless of his past record as head of intelligence. Unlike Valdés Castellanos, who can be removed quickly, Beltrones and other Senators can only be removed—or in fact prevented from reaching office—by their electorates. This usually takes up to 6 years. For better or worse, that is how fixed terms work.

The June 30 signing by President Bush of House Resolution 2642, the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2008, not only includes the Merida Initative to help Mexico crack down on drug cartels, it also funds wide-ranging American policies of which Latin America forms part of the global war on terror (see the President’s remarks here).  To the dismay of Congress, the Merida Initiative was largely negotiated without their consultation, and passed onto the appropriations bill.  Significantly, its passage represents an important compromise between Congress and the President.  First and foremost, it provides funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq without timetables or other restrictive conditions.  Secondly, it expands educational benefits from the GI Bill, as demanded by Democrats, and also includes $2.7 billion for natural disaster relief. It also represents somewhat mended fences between the Executive and Legislative branches.

In perspective, the $465 million to combat drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America pales in comparison to the massive spending in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Nevertheless, it represents an important step forward in bilateral and multilateral relations between the US, Mexico, and Central America.  All parties have signed a free trade agreement, which has now led to a security agreement against illegal drugs.  The passage also represents a balancing act between Mexico and the United States.  Both parties weighed the desire to protect human rights against concerns of sovereignty and efficacy.  Its passage is a great step forward, and ideally will reduce the influence of illegal drugs cartels and, if not more importantly, bring Latin America into America’s foreign policy spotlight.  Perhaps the next step will be immigration reform…

On June 30th, President Bush signed into law the Merida Initiative. The initiative is part of the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2008, and provides $465 million dollars for the war against drugs in Mexico and Central America. Mexico will receive $400 million dollars.

The Senate passed the controversial bill on June 27th. The original bill had produced strong reactions in Mexico because it required the fulfillment of conditions that were considered unilateral and against Mexico’s sovereignty. In addition, the administration of President Bush criticized Congress for jeopardizing a necessary initiative that would certainly contribute in the War against Drugs in both Mexico and the United States.

Having reached a deadlock, it seems that the inter-parliamentary session between members of the US and Mexican Congresses in early June contributed to the progress of the bill. After the usual exchange of comments between the US Congress and the Mexican and the American governments, the bill was modified and finally approved by everyone. The Bush administration finally got it passed in both chambers, which represents a victory for the administration; and the Mexican authorities stated that the new initiative does not infringe Mexico’s sovereignty and even represents a new bilateral relationship.

This is not the first time that the US government has contributed with large amount of resources to the fight against drugs in Latin America. Although Plan Colombia—conceived in the late 1990s—did contribute to the war on drugs in that country, it was also correlated with instability in the region and human rights abuses. The situation in Mexico is not as volatile as it was in Colombia, but it is beginning to get there. Hopefully, the initiative will stop this process.

On June 18th, the Swiss government announced that it would hand over approximately $74 million dollars to the Mexican government. This is just part of the assets that the Swiss Government confiscated from Raul Salinas de Gortari, brother of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, former President of Mexico. The remaining part of the assets would be returned to other claimants.

In 1994, Mario Ruiz Massieu, a Deputy Attorney General investigating the murder of his brother, resigned to his position during a famous press conference in which he said that “the demons are out there”. With this phrase he informally accused high ranking officials of interfering with his investigation. One of those high ranking officials was Raul Salinas de Gortari, who was later found guilty of planning the assassination of Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, former governor of Guerrero, Secretary General of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and former brother-in-law. Raul Salinas was imprisoned in 1995 and released 10 years later due to insufficient evidence of his participation in the assassination. However, he was also charged with corruption and illicit enrichment after the Swiss government found that millions of dollars linked to him could be traced to drug cartels.

On the basis of Swiss and Mexican investigations, it was demonstrated that at least $74 million dollars were linked to criminal activities. These assets are being returned to the victims of the crime. The Swiss government assumes these victims are the people of Mexico. I am sure that the Mexican government will be happy to be the representative of these victims. Hopefully, the government is now free of all those “demons” that were out there in the mid 1990s.

The Merida Initiative would provide $950 million dollars in two years to Mexican law enforcement agencies to support their efforts against resourceful and elusive criminal organizations. The Mexican government needs the aid and the executive branch in the US is willing to provide it. But the US Congress would only grant the funds conditional on the improvement of human rights in Mexico. At these crossroads, the positions of these actors are not precisely original.

First, key members of the US Congress—like Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont and member of the Senate’s Committee on Appropriations—believe that Mexican law enforcement agencies are not trustworthy and that tax dollars should not produce further corruption and human rights abuses. This is not the first time the US Congress conditions the use of tax dollars abroad and definitively not the first time the Mexican government is accused of corruption and human rights violations.

Second, high ranking Mexican officials like Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino, as well as members of the political parties, have argued that the conditions established by the US Congress for the provision of the funds are not only unilateral, but also represent interference and even infringe national sovereignty. This is not only an old argument that could have been presented by a 19th century Mexican minister of foreign affairs, but also represents a myopic perspective that does not seem to acknowledge that there is nothing wrong with improving human rights in the country.

Third, the White House, right in between the US Congress and the Mexican government, has argued that conditioning aid to Mexico is counterproductive and that the funds are vital in the War Against Drugs both in the US and Mexico.

These three actors seem to agree on the fact that American support is important and necessary since the demand of drugs and the flow of arms from the US have fueled the conflict in Mexico. They also coincide on the structural inability of Mexican institutions to fight the drug cartels. However, this is not enough to guarantee the approval of the bill and the provision of the funds. Indeed, the US Congress, the White House, and the Mexican government need to find a middle ground that keeps constituents pleased with the efforts of the officials and lawmakers that represent them, while making sure that they engage in true bilateral cooperation to solve a multinational problem like drug trafficking and consumption.

Drug-related murders in Mexico have soared in the last two months. Municipal, state, and federal police officers have died in clashes against heavily armed commandos or have been assassinated on the orders of drug bosses. It has been argued that this rise in violence is a signal of the Mexican government’s progress in the War Against Drugs. The argument is that cartels, while retreating, have launched a series of desperate attacks on police forces. This “measure of progress” has been complemented by some dramatic drug and cash seizures.

These events have contributed to the recent advance of the Merida Initiative in the US Congress—both the Senate and the House have approved bills that include aid to Mexico, although they still have to agree on a single bill. But is Mexico receiving aid because its forces are doing really well and need further support to win the battle with the cartels or is the country doing so badly that it needs urgent assistance before it loses the War on Drugs? Carrying out the world’s largest cash seizure has definitively contributed to victory over drugs, but losing the chief of federal police has not, specially since this highlights the government’s inability to protect its main strategists and operatives against drug cartels.

The fact is that Mexico needs help to curve ubiquitous violence across the country and strengthen, professionalize, and protect the law enforcement agencies leading the War on Drugs. Indeed, not only are police officers resigning but also asking for asylum in the US. Furthermore, the country’s general population is now affected by drug consumption and fear caused by cartel members roaming through rural towns close to the trafficking routes.

In short, in a multi-front war against drug trafficking and consumption, the Mexican government’s efforts seem to be mixed. In order to recover the confidence of the population and the aid of foreign actors like the US Congress, the Mexican government must reach higher standards, particularly when it comes to the status of the police forces and their members.

Mexico is one of the largest exporters of corn. Nevertheless, it also imports almost half of what it consumes. In a world of skyrocketing food prices, this dependency is becoming a national security problem.

In order to reduce pressure over rising food prices, President Felipe Calderón has launched an initiative that promises to improve the situation of farmers and consumers. The initiative is composed of three elements. The first element will facilitate access to basic foods produced in the international markets. The second component attempts to enhance production and productivity in the agricultural sector. Finally, the initiative will try to protect the income of poor families against inflation. In May 26th the Mexican government cut food import tariffs. This measure will immediately reduce the costs of importing corn, wheat, and rice. Additionally, the government agreed to provide a monthly cash payment to some of its poorest citizens.

These measures will reduce some of the pressure over food prices in Mexico, but only temporarily. The program launched by the Presidency does not seem to address structural problems in the Mexican country side such as migration to urban areas—or to the US for that case. The structural problems are so severe that the Minister of Agriculture has stated that Mexico will not be able to produce enough basic foods for the country’s population. Thus the importance of reducing food import tariffs.

These problems fill the Mexican headlines almost 15 years after the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) entered into force. In the early 1990s, several groups and organizations warned that Mexico would not be able to compete with its partners and that agriculture would be the economic sector most affected by trade. It seems that the Mexican country side—and with it the Mexican population—has been not only affected by trade in North America, but also by the powerful trends of a global economy. Hopefully, Mexico will also learn how to benefit from it.

The Mexican armed forces are a pillar of the war against drugs. Indeed, thousands of regular troops are patrolling several municipalities and large cities across Mexico while Special Forces make most of the arrests of high-profile drug lords. In a country plagued by corrupt police forces and heavily armed drug traffickers, the army (which also controls the air force) and the navy have become the country’s last resort in a war that has produced thousands of casualties. Unfortunately, the armed forces themselves are likely to become another victim of this war.

The Mexican army has experienced thousands of desertions in the last few years. According to an investigation of the newspaper Reforma, between 2001 and 2006, the army has lost an average of 30,000 members per year. Although the rate of desertion has decreased to 17,000 in 2007, this is still a very significant number; especially considering where these soldiers go after leaving the armed forces.

The likely cause of desertion in the armed forces is poor working conditions for the meager salaries. According to Benito Jiménez from Reforma, a regular soldier makes between $300 and $400 dollars a month. They could easily make a few more hundred dollars by joining private security companies. More alarming is when soldiers are paid much more for joining drug cartels. This makes the cartels much more deadly, for the trained soldiers are familiar with government procedures. In fact, cartels are now openly recruiting soldiers.

In addition to soldiers leaving for better-paid opportunities, the army is under close scrutiny regarding human rights violations. Although police forces are traditionally associated with violations of human rights in Mexico, the army is no beacon of virtue. Indeed, many military camps served as prisons during the Dirty War of the 1960s and 1970s that produced more than 1,500 disappearances. Even though the country’s human rights records have shown overall improvement, violations continue to occur throughout the territory.

As a result of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the armed forces were deliberately separated from politics. Their function was limited to the protection of the country from external threats and to relief efforts during national disasters. For decades, the army enjoyed legitimacy unmatched by other Mexican institutions. Lamentably, things have changed. Senior military officers have been tainted by corruption scandals, former member of Special Forces are now bodyguards for drug bosses, and young people aspire to work for drug cartels rather than the army.

So far, nobody knows how this other war within the armed forces will end. If the situation does not improve soon, the army, and the country, will lose the war against drugs.

On April 10th 2008, opposition legislators closed the podiums in both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. This action effectively forced the remaining members of Congress to take legislative action elsewhere and prevented a fast track approval of a key energy reform that affects the most precious natural resource in Mexico: oil. Between 2001 and 2006, on average, oil revenues constituted 7.9 % of Mexico’s GDP and over 34 % of the income of the federal government.

Two days before the storming of both chambers of Congress, President Felipe Calderón presented a bill that is considered a major reform to the antiquated oil industry in Mexico. The oil industry has been controlled by the State since 1938 and is considered a pillar of Mexican sovereignty. Based on this popular belief, members of Congress from a coalition of leftist parties literally closed Congress in order to “defend the nation” from foreign interests that would take over the oil industry if the bill is approved. The legislators demanded a broad and public debate on oil reform.

Once again, the response from this sector of the Left, led by former Presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has polarized not only Mexican society, but has also weakened the Left. A strong, coherent, and broadly supported Left is needed in a country that is mainly controlled by conservative sectors of society. For instance, a private organization called “Better Society, Better Government” (Mejor Sociedad, Mejor Gobierno) launched an advertising campaign that caused national controversy by comparing López Obrador with Adolf Hitler and other infamous heads of government.

After more than two weeks of negotiations on a national debate over oil reform, the podiums were liberated on April 26th. While this sector of the Left achieved its short term objectives, once again liberal democracy in Mexico lost another battle to political polarization. Yet, the war for a moderate political system has not been lost. Future battlegrounds like the State of the Union Address in September, and national elections in 2009, will constitute some of the major tests to Mexico’s evolving democracy. Hopefully, the Left will not have weakened more political institutions by then.