With the arrival of arms and money for the Colombian armed forces, the violation of human rights, the displacement of entire communities, and assassination of civilians has become so widespread as to be alarming even to proponents of Plan Colombia. In the recent authorization of new funds for the plan, the House of Representatives approved a version that cuts military aid, reduces fumigation, and conditions aid to more stringent human rights requirements. The total aid to Colombia's government continues to be huge and largely military, but along with the likely rejection of the Free Trade Agreement with Colombia due to human and labor rights concerns, it marks a minimal recognition in Congress that the drug war model in that nation is simply not working as intended.
The upshot today is that a drug user has equal if not greater access to cocaine on the streets of U.S. cities and it's cheaper and more potent than ever. 11 Colombia continues to be the number one source of cocaine to the U.S. market. Over 300,000 people have been displaced from their communities, paramilitary groups responsible for 80% of human rights violations run rampant, and Colombia is a militarized society trapped in internecine violence.
This experience should be carefully analyzed before replicating a failed model with heavy collateral damage to the social fabric of an allied nation. Although Mexico is a very different country-there is no civil war or widespread guerrilla activity-many of the lessons of Plan Colombia are worth taking into consideration on the eve of Plan Mexico. The failure of the drug war model in Colombia, and Afghanistan, would seem to warrant at the very least a cautious attitude toward applying it in other countries-especially one as geographically and economically close as Mexico.
Unfortunately, Mexican security forces are presently often more part of the problem than the solution. The State Department 2007 report on human rights 12 in Mexico notes, "Corruption continued to be a problem, as many police were involved in kidnapping, extortion, or providing protection for, or acting directly on behalf of organized crime and drug traffickers. Impunity was pervasive to an extent that victims often refused to file complaints."
Ranking members of Mexican security forces on local and national levels maintain close links to drug traffickers, working for them directly in many parts of the country. The army has traditionally been more independent of this dynamic, but its deployment within the country in the drug war is increasing its involvement and leading to human rights violations. Many armed forces deserters, that totaled 17,000 last year alone, receive counternarcotics training and then pass it along in service to high-paying drug cartels. The infamous Zetas (a drug trafficking network comprised of former law enforcement and military agents) illustrate the lethal capacity of military-trained groups that operate with drug cartels.
Military equipment also ends up in the hands of the cartels. The U.S. Office of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms reports that 90% of arms decommissioned from organized crime in Mexico came from the United States, many registered to the U.S. Army. 13 Senator Alfonso Sanchez Anaya reported to the Mexican Congress that 15 million arms circulate illegally in Mexico. 14 In Iraq an investigation revealed the existence of thousands of "missing" arms thought to be in the hands of insurgents and delinquents. The black market in arms is booming. Given this situation, the likelihood that U.S. military equipment ends up in the wrong hands is more like an inevitability.
By excluding community prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation programs, neighborhood watch initiatives, and other measures that create a more active role for civil society, the initiative tends to convert the citizenry into a protectorate of the armed forces. The redefinition of crime as a national security threat also removes it from the community realm.
The point is not to vilify the Mexican armed forces, police, and government. Many honest and brave individuals can be found among their ranks and some have given their lives fighting corruption. Extreme statements like that of Tom Tancredo on Nov. 8, 2007 who said, "The degree of corruption inside the government and the military is so great that it's hard to see where the government ends and where the cartels begin," respond more to a Mexico-bashing mentality than a serious concern for the real challenges Mexico faces.
But this is the reality of the situation and the challenge for U.S. binational policy is to support effective measures to clean up the corruption and end the impunity while developing mechanisms of cooperation in combating transnational crime.
Giving arms, military equipment, spy and surveillance capacity, and training to security forces with a history of abuses that the justice system is unable or unwilling to check is like pouring gas on a fire. Ignoring root causes of criminal activity and market demand makes it very likely that military aid will empower delinquency and feed corruption.
The model of confronting the trafficking, sale, and consumption of drugs with military means increases violence and weakens democratic institutions. In countries where these are already weak it can create serious obstacles to a transition to democracy.
Former UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Louise Arbour warned of using the army in the streets on her last visit to Mexico. "I understand there are those who say that at times you have to turn to a more powerful force such as the army, but it seems to me that in the long term it is frankly dangerous," Arbour told television network Televisa. "The army should not be doing the job of the police."15
General José Francisco Gallardo, the major proponent of human rights guarantees within the Mexican Army and a constitutional scholar who was imprisoned for his efforts states, "Here what should be done is to form a national police force that carries out these functions and is not under the military ... The presence of the Army in matters that are not under their jurisdiction displaces the constitutional faculties of the civil, federal, state, and municipal authority and goes against Art. 21 of the constitution."16
When asked if the Calderon strategy of militarizing the drug war could lead to a return to the "dirty war" of the 70s, Gallardo-as a young soldier, one of the few members of the armed forces to protest the torture and assassination that marked that period-told the author, "We are already experiencing a return to the dirty war."17 He cited the widespread practice of torture and arbitrary detentions as proof of systematic human rights violations in contemporary Mexico.
The 2007 report of the Mexican National Commission on Human Rights 18 recommended the gradual withdrawal of the army from the internal drug war. Militarizing society by involving the army in internal functions beyond its constitutional mandate constitutes a threat to democracy. As is well known in Latin America, the Cold War militarization of society and ideology paved the way for military dictatorships that murdered civilians and set back progress toward democracy by decades. Human rights violations are expected to rise.
The corollary to increased military support in internal matters is the rise of uncontrolled paramilitary forces as has happened in Colombia. In Mexico, the use of paramilitaries has been largely confined to attacks on Zapatista communities in the southern state of Chiapas. 19 Since 2006, paramilitary organizations have been used in the state of Oaxaca to repress social and indigenous movements there. It is likely that an increase in militarization of Mexican society will lead to an increase in the scope and activity of these groups.
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