Latin America

The last few weeks have shown some interesting stories coming from Mike Coe and Alejandro Quiroz Flores of FPA’s Mexico Blog. I encourage those interested in not only South America, but Mexico as well to read of few of their posts regarding Mexico in the last few weeks.

Alejandro took to task the events unfolding in the Mexican Senate and Congress. In an earlier posting in the Latin America blog we focused on the activities of the government in hiring private investigators to watch senate members, and the response in the Senate when the story became public. For the actions of the government in quelling internal political pressures, please read Alejandro’s posting here. Alejandro in his most recent post focuses on how kidnapping, one of the most active criminal movements in Mexico, is now being considered to carry a penalty of life imprisonment for anyone participating in the activity. The consideration of such a tough penalty came from the kidnapping and death of the son of one of Mexico’s most important business leaders. Mexico was traditionally known for smaller kidnappings, often having the victim beaten and taken to various bank machines to withdraw cash. On occasion, larger cases that often characterized kidnappings in Colombia and Brazil and involved wealthier people and millions of dollars also became more common in Mexican society. With the recent drug war taking hold and more and more kidnappings against Mexico’s elite with tragic outcomes, an official response may be too late to affect and real change in Mexico’s kidnapping industry. Please read Alejandro’s posting here.

Mike Coe of the Mexico blog also has taken to addressing some interesting topics. In a few postings, Mike set to address the international AIDS Conference which took place in Mexico City last week. To highlight the conference, which focuses on the HIV epidemic in the developing world, Mike set two posts on HIV in Tijuana Mexico which is an often unspoken about issue in many communities in Mexico. Posts can be read here and here.

Mike Coe also addressed some economic issues in the last few weeks. In one posting, Mike discusses the desire for oil reform/privatisation in Mexico City, which overwhelmingly rejects any proposals to nationalise Mexico’s oil industry and principal source of national income. In another posting, Mike discusses the effect on Mexico after the failure of the Doha Round on WTO talks. With countries like India rejecting the agreement due to fears of local agricultural and local industries in the developing world being dominated by those in the developed world via the agreement, countries like Mexico who are considered semi-developed must now rest on the merits of their trade agreements to fulfill their goals of open trade with other nations. With Mexico signing the most trade agreements worldwide, eventually a continuation of the policy might allow Mexico to benefit from free trade, albeit with many more treaties and a lot more paperwork. While Doha was a far reaching goal for the neo-liberal economic model, the success of India and China from such policies might be a role model for Mexican economists, but with their new power it also ironically has capped the progression of an international agreement on trade for Mexico and everyone else. In any case, it is a good time to be a Mexican trade lawyer!

Thanks again to the Mexico Blog. Hasta Luego Amigos..

Update: ISN writer Sam Logan publishes his piece on Mexico called Mexico infiltrated where he discusses the slow infiltration of the cartels into Mexico’s government institutions and the eventual failure and disappearance of the government in the process. A must read and powerful complement to these FPA posting on Mexico. 

Fellow FPA blogger Alejandro Quiros Flores has done another magnificent job these past few weeks discussing the involvement of Drug Cartels running many of Mexico’s towns and evidence that the Mexican Center for Research and National Security (CISEN) has been using third parties to spy on many member of Mexico’s Senate. His postings can be found here at FPA’s Mexico Blog.

In Alejandro’s post on July 16th, he discusses a report by Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office which claims that more than 80 of 2,500 of Mexico’s municipalities are currently being controlled by Drug Cartels. In the report, many of the Cartels are seen as operating as a type of de facto government in many of those municipalities, providing some services, but mostly concerned with running the drug trade and prostitution in many of these communities. While 80 municipalities are still a small number, the rise of the Drug Cartels in recent months and the killing of many Government officials and gun battles in many of Mexico’s municipalities does not help Calderon and Mexico’s government, police and army claim any real victories in its recent internal conflict. With successes in Colombia by Uribe’s government and the world media focusing on the terror from FARC guerillas, years of internal conflict inside Colombia may mirror the future of Mexico in its fight against well established drug cartels. The FARC, who for many exist solely for the expansion of the narcotics trade, still govern many parts of Colombia itself, including many smaller municipalities. With forty years of the FARC and at least thirty years of the narcotics trade in Colombia, Mexico might do well by working with Colombia to win back its towns and avoid a second FARC style government in Mexico.

In Alejandro’s July 12th posting, an interesting turn of events has placed many of Mexico’s Senators in conflict with the Mexican Center of Research and National Security (CISEN) for spying on many members of the Senate, without knowledge by the Senators and by using a third party to gather the personal information. The realization of the activities has placed the ruling PAN party at fault, as the director of the organization that was commissioned to collect the information is closely tied to the PAN itself. Calls from many Senators for the resignation of the head of CISEN, Guillermo Valdés Castellanos will no doubt give the opposition in the Senate a lot of ammunition in attacking President Felipe Calderon and his PAN party. The Mexican Senate has always been a source of stress for PAN party leaders, especially for Fox and Calderon who campaigned on their wish to tackle corruption in Mexican politics, but now have been tainted by scandal themselves. With the conflicts over narcotics and political pressures in the Senate, Calderon is likely wishing to return to the days where he was a brand new President, with only Lopez Obrador to contend with on occasion.

Much thanks to Alejandro Quiroz Flores and Mike Coe for their work on the Mexico Blog. Cheers Amigos!!

In the FPA’s Mexico Blog, fellow bloggers Alejandro Quiroz Flores and Mike Coe have written a few intelligent and interesting posts on Mexico’s recent Drug violence and how the US and Mexico have addressed the issues in a positive and negative manner.

In a May 19th posting by Mike Coe, the role of the US in addressing Mexico’s drug violence is criticized. Beyond the US being the end market and focus for much of the drugs coming from Mexico, the illegal gun trade coming from the US plays a large part for arming many of the drug gangs in Mexico along with over $10 billion USD going to arm drug cartels and train new recruits from the US into Mexico according to the blogpost.

In a May 14th posting, Blogger Alejandro Quiroz Flores discusses the role of the Mexican military in combating Mexico’s drug problems. In a move to avoid problems with Mexico’s often corrupt and under-equipped local police forces, the Mexican Army is often the security force which patrols towns and maintains security against drug trafficking. Problems discussed by Alejandro include a problem of desertion in the Army due to poor condition and lack of pay. A contributing factor as well is the historic human right violation during the Dirty War in the 60’s and 70’s which contributed to 1,500 disaparecidos in the past. Despite the Army’s separation from political forces and its good reputation as compared with the local police, they are still Mexico’s strongest security force against the Drug cartels in Mexico and have greatly improved their human rights record since the 1970s. For Alejandro’s piece on the attack on FARC leaders in Ecuador and consequences in Mexico and Ecuador, read here.

On May 13th, Mike Coe wrote a piece on where drugs in Mexico originate. Mike discusses how the killing of Mexican official Edgar Millán Gómez was done through a drug cartel from Sinaloa in response to Millan’s arrest of a number of their members were arrested by Millan’s agency. Mike has placed detailed maps of the regions which grow much of the Heroine and Marijuana grown and exported in Mexico. Please see the posting here. As well, please see his posting on the killing of Millan here.