Last month, Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom declared a “state of calamity” as Guatemala experiences the worst drought in 70 years. Approximately half of the population lives below the poverty line and 50 percent of children are suffering from chronic malnutrition. But these are only the surface casualties of a vulnerable nation ravaged by 36 years of civil war, genocide and now, the encroaching drug war spilling over from the northern border with Mexico.

Worldfocus special correspondent Martin Savidge hosts Anita Isaacs, Carlisle Johnson and Sam Lowenberg. Some highlights of the conversation include:

• Guatemala in 2009 looks a lot like Guatemala of the 1960s and 1970s
• Malnutrition is connected to poverty, which is connected to the ownership of land
• There is almost no basic infrastructure in rural areas, including access to clean water and sanitation
• The U.S. CIA-orchestrated coup in 1954 gave rise to 36 years of genocidal armed conflict
• Lawlessness on the streets, drug trafficking and rural violence have contributed to the deaths of 6,000 people in 2008
• Indigenous systems of justice punish by means of lynching and public humiliation
• The sitting vice president has called Guatemala a “failed state”
• There has been no justice for war crimes and the civil war hangs over everyday life in Guatemala
• Is Guatemala a feudal society that never stopped being a banana republic?
• Guatemala has the highest per-capita income in all of Central America at $4,000/person, but income distribution is woefully underreported
• As the capital of Central America with it’s entangled history with the U.S., Guatemala does matter

GUESTS:

Dr. Anita Isaacs is a political science professor at Haverford College in Pennsylvania. For the last decade, she has researched democracy, justice and the peace process in Guatemala. She conducts field research in the country four to five times a year. Anita is writing a book with the working title At War with the Past? The Politics of Transitional Justice in Postwar Guatemala. She has also served as consultant to the Ford Foundation, the Inter-American Dialogue, Freedom House and the Open Society Institute.

Stephen C. “Carlisle” Johnson is the producer and host of the television show “Inside Guatemala.” He has worked as a venture capitalist in about 50 countries and traveled to more than 120 countries. Carlisle has lived in Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, France, England, and currently, Guatemala. He is the former publisher of the “Guatemala Post” and the former host of the English radio program “Good Morning Guatemala” on ABC Radio International affiliate. He is a chartered interpreter in English and Spanish.

Samuel Loewenberg is a journalist who covers public health and politics. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Economist, The Atlantic Online, The Washington Post and many others.  He has reported from Latin America, Europe, China, Africa, and the former Soviet Union. His work in Guatemala was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Lisa Biagiotti, Ben Piven

Is Mexico taking the right approach in ending the prosecution of people caught with small amounts of marijuana and other drugs? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

John Walsh, a senior associate on drug policy for the Washington Office on Latin America, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the new law, U.S. concerns and the larger drug war in Mexico.

Read what a Worldfocus contributing blogger had to say: In Mexico, drug legalization is a mixed bag.

Read Worldfocus blogger Peter Eisner’s take on the meeting: Hollow words as Obama praises Mexico’s war on drugs

One of the biggest problems the federal government in Mexico is confronting in its war on drugs is police corruption. This week, in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, officials ordered the municipal police not to sit in parked patrol cars observing traffic because they suspect those police are actually spying for the drug cartels.

Andres Martinez, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the Americas summit, the drug war and the U.S. commitment to Mexico.

President Barack Obama with his Mexican and Canadian counterparts at a trilateral meeting in Guadalajara on Monday. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

I’ve had some telling glimpses over the years of how politics and diplomacy really work. There was the time years ago when I sat in a U.S. ambassador’s office in Bolivia and listened to him brazenly giving orders to the country’s interior minister.

Or when I watched how an American official tried to cajole the president of Honduras into a military dispute with Nicaragua.

And the time when I was told that a top U.S. official was traveling to Mexico City to observe Mexico’s drug interdiction program.

“What drug interdiction program?” a confused Mexican government spokesman asked me. I had gotten advance warning of the visit. “We don’t have a drug interdiction program.”

Five minutes later, the same Mexican spokesman called me back and said — without a trace of irony — that I was invited to attend a meeting between U.S. and Mexican officials who would be discussing Mexico’s “drug interdiction program.” It had somehow materialized.

Those anecdotes are the product of the last century, but I was reminded this week that things haven’t changed much.

The U.S. government arrogantly figures that the governments of other countries can meet the imposed values that the United States expects. One can respect the people of Mexico and honor that country’s heritage and sense of pride, but still say: The Mexican government is over-gunned by drug dealers and will not be able to stop the violence and out-of-bounds profits earned by the narcotics trade.

For some sense of the absurdity of the fight, have a look at the New York Times story about Mexican prisons, headlined: War Without Borders: Mexico’s Drug Traffickers Continue Trade in Prison

The cycle of violence and death waxes and wanes, but the reality hasn’t changed for decades; there is too much money in drug dealing to stop the industry. Drug cartels practically own the Mexican prisons where they are held. Plagued by corruption, drug producing nations have been unable over the years to control the production and flow of illegal narcotics.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon won praise from President Obama this week during the annual North American summit in Mexico:

We will work to make sure Mexico has the support it needs to dismantle and defeat the cartels.  And the United States will also meet its responsibilities by continuing our efforts to reduce the demand for drugs and continuing to strengthening the security of our shared border — not only to protect the American people, but to stem the illegal southbound flow of American guns and cash that helps fuel this extraordinary violence.

I have to say that the words are mighty, but if history is a guide the U.S. Congress will do little if anything to halt the sale of guns southward. And the United States has not shown signs of augmenting Mexican security efforts to the degree needed. International money laundering of drug trafficking  appears beyond control. I’d love to end up being surprised that I’m wrong.

A must-read to see the depths of the problem is an extensive report in the Washington Post by my old colleagues Steve Fainaru and Bill Booth.

This paragraph sums it up:

Beyond the reach of the U.S. and Mexican governments in their fight against drug traffickers is an intimate, complex world of communal violence and crippled institutions. At the center of the drug war is Michoacan, a rugged, rural state in the southwest where all forms of traditional authority — city hall, the military, police and even the Catholic Church — have been unable to protect the people against the assassinations, kidnappings and extortions associated with the narcotics trade.

The United States has acknowledged the obvious many times: that U.S. consumption of drugs is a driving part of the problem of the international narcotics trade. But no politician in the United States will seriously consider drug decriminalization, or broad social programs and education that will change the formula of drug consumption, or laws that — heaven forfend — would curtail gun sales.

The promises are all words, and nothing changes.

- Peter Eisner

Issues on the agenda included trade, the H1N1 flu pandemic and the battle against illegal drugs.

Shannon O’Neil, a fellow in Latin American studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the summit and the biggest challenges ahead for the U.S.-Mexico relationship.

Police search bags for drugs and weapons in Mexico.

PUERTO LAS OLLAS, Mexico — The Mexican army has carried out forced disappearances, acts of torture and illegal raids in pursuit of drug traffickers, according to documents and interviews with victims, their families, political leaders and human rights monitors.

This was the lead last week in the Washington Post, in a well-reported piece by Steve Fainaru and Bill Booth. Over the last quarter century, it’s been amazing and shocking to see how U.S. policy and world condemnation have always focused elsewhere in dealing with stories about drug trafficking and the impunity with which it takes place.

The first Bush administration invaded Panama (for something like the 14th time in history) in 1989, supposedly to staunch the disease of drug trafficking through that country. The second Bush administration paid billions to Colombia from 2001-2009 to fight a drug war that looked a lot like a license for corruption and human rights abuses among security forces.

And yet, all the while, Mexican drug trafficking has trundled along, with organized crime corrupting generals and privates, police chiefs and mayors — or killing them if they didn’t play ball. Mexican officials have never been able to control the trafficking and the crime surrounding it. But they do launch military campaigns that don’t resolve the long-term problem — and people die in the crossfire. We’re in a long-lasting crescendo now — some U.S. officials have said the Mexican government is in a dire situation akin to the failed state status of Pakistan.

We’re not allowed to say that though — Mexican officials don’t want to hear it, and U.S. officials don’t want to push the issue too far ahead toward the front burner.

The reality and the danger are evident.

Early in her tenure, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that the United States shares responsibility. She said this on a visit this spring to Mexico:

We know very well that the drug traffickers are motivated by the demand for illegal drugs in the United States, that they are armed by the transport of weapons from the United States to Mexico; and therefore, we see this as a responsibility to assist the Mexican government and the Mexican people in defeating an enemy that is committing violence and disruption that is very harmful and which is something that all people of conscience should attempt to defeat.

The State Department is now preparing to issue a report on Mexican efforts to police drug crime, and accountability in meeting accepted norms on human rights. Human rights organizations, such as the Washington Office on Latin America [WOLA], are calling on Congress to recognize the questions surrounding Mexico’s pursuit of the drug war before releasing further funding that supplies aid to the Mexican army and police.

Reacting to the Washington Post story, WOLA said this:

The growing number of military abuses is illustrated by amount of complaints received by Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH). During the first six months of 2009 the CNDH received over 2,000 complaints against the army, a dramatic increase from the 1,231 registered for all of 2008.

What role will the United States play in recognizing the dire situation — and who will deal credibly with the problems surrounding drug dealing and the accompanying violence?

- Peter Eisner

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Prometeo Lucero under a Creative Commons license.

Deborah Bonello is a multimedia journalist based in Mexico City who works for The Los Angeles Times. She blogs at Mexico Reporter, where she writes about attending a survival training session. 

Training Day 

My breath is tearing out of my lungs and my leg muscles are screaming for a reprieve. I just scaled a 60-degree hill coated in thorny brambles and poisonous plants whilst being pounded by rain. In the dark. I thought it couldn’t get any worse, but it did. Later that night, my fellow journalists and I were kidnapped by masked guerillas who jumped onto our bus.

Our only comfort? That none of this was real. But it could have been, which is the point of the survival course 18 journalists who live and work in Mexico attended last week in Toluca, just outside of Mexico City.

During the five day survival program, the journalists dodged tear gas and Army tanks and learned how to survive in the wilderness. The psychological stresses were addressed, too; they learned strategies for dealing with emotions.

In Mexico these days, that may be the most important lesson of all.

“Once in Apatzingan a cameraman and I were taken,” says Miguel Garcia Tinoco, a 40-year-old journalist and owner of the Notivideo video news website based in Michoacan.

“They took us to talk with a drug-trafficking boss on a street in Apatzingan, and they wanted to make us write what they wanted, what they wanted to communicate.”

This group of traffickers gained infamy three years ago when they tossed the severed heads of six enemies onto the dance floor of a nightclub.

“They wanted us to publish an explanation of why they’d murdered those six people. What we told them was that we couldn’t make a decision in terms of what we published or didn’t publish in the newspaper - that it was up to the editor. And in the end my editor decided not to publish anything at all.”

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

On Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama arrived in Mexico City to meet with his counterpart, Mexican President Felipe Calderon.  The issue of drug violence quickly took center stage, with the president again promising that the U.S. will do all it can to help Mexico win its war with the drug cartels.

Rodolfo de la Garza of Columbia University joins Martin Savidge to discuss U.S. concerns about Mexico, Mexico’s military strategy and issues relating to the economy and immigration.

For more perspective on Obama’s trip, read Worldfocus editorial consultant Peter Eisner’s analysis: No room for optimism in Mexico’s war on drugs.

Police corruption is one problem facing Mexico. Photo: Megan Thompson

U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled to venture to Mexico on Thursday for talks with President Felipe Calderon. Officials from the Obama administration say the president will work to curb the flow of U.S.-made firearms to Mexican drug traffickers.

Worldfocus editorial consultant Peter Eisner writes to argue that unless political leaders are willing to commit to real change and take the resulting flak, it will be impossible to alleviate Mexico’s drug problem. See more on our coverage of Mexico’s Drug War.

When President Obama meets with Mexican President Felipe Calderon in Mexico on Thursday, how many people will be thinking about the history of efforts by the two countries to deal with drug trafficking? Anyone who does will have to be listed as a skeptic about possibilities for real change.

Mexico has been stuck in the middle of modern drug trade ever since the rise of the Colombian cocaine and marijuana cartels more than three decades ago. But the United States preferred to look elsewhere. The Reagan administration declared a war on drugs and spent billions of dollars on eradicating crops in Colombia and Peru; the first President Bush invaded Panama, and imprisoned Manuel Antonio Noriega claiming he was a drug dealer. The United States also helped hunt down and kill Pablo Escobar, and even blamed Fidel Castro and Raul Castro for the drug trade. Cynicism abounded and little, if anything, was accomplished.

All the while, the Mexican narco industry was thriving and growing, and no one came up with the key to change the reality –- drug dealing and the associated violence in Mexico operates with impunity. The Mexican drug business is successful because of corruption, weak justice and police structures in Mexico, and because of the driving market right across the border.

Consider this report from the Washington Office on Latin America, prepared in the leadup to Obama’s one-day trip:

The ability to identify, prosecute, and punish drug traffickers is a key element in containing the drug trade. There were over 10,000 drug-related killings in Mexico in the past three years. As staggering as these numbers are, it is noteworthy that the majority of these murders may never be solved. The Mexican Citizen Institute for Research on Insecurity (INCESI) found that initial investigations are begun for only 13 percent of the reported crimes and in only 5 percent of these crimes are the alleged perpetrator brought before a judge. (1) The same institute estimates that of every 100 investigations, only 4 cases result in sentencing the person responsible.

What are the real prospects for change? Well, the American president is stymied by mistrust from the Mexican side –- where officials and the public always feel the United States is trying to bigfoot Mexican government policy. And at home, there’s no possibility on the horizon of ever decriminalizing drugs to puncture the market.

Meanwhile, what American politician would ever get away with curbing the sale of guns, which Mexican traffickers can easily haul in and use in their murderous business? Without meaningful change brought on by officials who see the reality and are willing to take the political flak, there isn’t much room for optimism.

- Peter Eisner

To discuss the implications of Clinton’s visit and Obama’s upcoming visit, Worldfocus speaks with Leonardo Martinez-Diaz of the Brookings institute.

Watch our signature series and listen to our online radio show on Mexico’s drug war.

Christopher Sabatini, the senior director of policy for the Council of the Americas and an expert on Latin American affairs, joins Martin Savidge to discuss Secretary of State Clinton’s visit to Mexico,  whether the newly announced initiative to increase security along the U.S.-Mexico border will help end the drug violence and if talk of Mexico becoming a failed state helps or hurts the situation.

Read more analysis from Worldfocus editorial consultant Peter Eisner: Border fence can’t hide growing challenges in Mexico.

A fence at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Over the last year, Mexico has been swept up in a tidal wave of drug violence. Things have gotten so bad that, according to a recent Pentagon report, the country risks a “sudden collapse.” For more, listen to our online radio show on Mexico’s war on drugs.

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Mexico for a series of high level talks. Not only does the Pentagon assessment have Mexican officials bristling, there are lingering resentments over other issues too — there’s a growing trade dispute and ill will over the construction of that giant border fence.

Worldfocus editorial consultant Peter Eisner, the former deputy foreign editor of the Washington Post, writes about engaging with Mexico and its troubles rather than building fences.

“Show me a 50-foot fence, and I’ll show you a 51-foot ladder.”

That quote from Janet Napolitano when she was governor of Arizona makes more sense every day. Napolitano, now the Secretary of Homeland Security, was referring to the multibillion dollar, 700-mile long fence being built along the U.S.-Mexican border.

The idea of the controversial fence was to stop illegal immigration and drug trafficking across the border. Many people — including most people in the Mexican government — agree with Napolitano that the fence was a bad idea.

For many, the fence has come to symbolize arrogance and disinterest in dealing with real issues, such as poverty that fuels immigration, and consumer demand that supports the multibillion dollar cocaine, marijuana and heroin trade out of Mexico.

And if anybody in the United States still thinks the fence can hide the uncomfortable reality across the Rio Grande, they’re deceived.

The wave of drug violence in Mexico is bleeding over into the United States, and U.S. military officials fear a worse scenario: One Pentagon study says that Mexico, like Pakistan, faces the prospect of being unable to deal with the violence and could become a failed state.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is diving right into talks about drug cooperation, trade and other issues today and tomorrow in Mexico City and Monterrey. And President Obama is scheduled to go to Mexico in less than a month.

The administration has an opportunity to come up with answers that would include engagement with the Mexican government rather than building barriers. The answers will probably be costly, but there is rising sentiment in Washington that Mexico can’t be left, as one analyst recently said, to “muddle through somehow” on its own.

- Peter Eisner

Photo courtesy of Flickr user jcarter under a Creative Commons license.

During the last year, more than 6,000 people have been murdered as a result of Mexico’s escalating drug violence, which is now more deadly than the war in Afghanistan.

The Worldfocus signature series on Mexico’s drug war ventured to Tijuana, featuring its fearful residents, its corrupt officials and the popularization of “narco” culture among youth.

Drug violence is especially heavy on border cities like Tijuana or Ciudad Juarez, and has spilled over into the U.S. American officials have reported a spike in kidnappings and killings connected with Mexican cartels.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has placed some of the blame on the U.S., pointing to growing American demand and U.S. guns coming over the border illegally. He stated that the drug problem is “not an exclusively Mexican problem; it is a common problem between Mexico and the United States.”

Under the three-year Merida Initiative, the U.S. has pledged $1.4 billion to Mexico to help fight drug trafficking. But as violence continues to soar, critics worry that the money will end up in the hands of corrupt police or politicians.

Worldfocus.org’s weekly radio show explored Mexico’s drug wars, life on the border and U.S. policy in Mexico. Worldfocus anchor Martin Savidge hosted a panel of guests.

Natalia Almada is a Mexican-American filmmaker who splits her time between Mexico and the United States. Natalia and her family have lived in Sinaloa, Mexico for six generations. She directed and produced the award-winning feature documentary “Al Otro Lado - To The Other Side.” The film looks at immigration and drug trafficking through Mexico’s tradition of Corrido music. Her latest documentary film, “El General,” received the best director award at this year’s Sundance film festival and will be broadcast on PBS’s documentary program P.O.V.

Tony Payan is an associate professor of political science and an active researcher who resides on the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. He teaches subjects such as foreign policy of the United States, the politics of Mexico, Latin American politics and border issues, among others. His research agenda focuses on United States-Mexico relations and border issues, including border security and cross-border cooperation. He has written several articles on these subjects as well two pertinent books, “Cops, Soldiers, and Diplomats: Explaining Agency Behavior in the War on Drugs” and “The Three U.S.-Mexico Border Wars: Drugs, Immigration and Homeland Security.”

Ambassador Andrés Rozental has held numerous positions in the Mexican government, including deputy foreign minister, ambassador to the United Kingdom and Sweden, and permanent representative of Mexico to the United Nations. He served as ambassador-at-large and special envoy under President Vicente Fox, representing Mexico to surrounding nations, and in 2006 and 2007 he advised Felipe Calderón on foreign policy issues. He is also the founding president of the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Lisa Biagiotti, Katie Combs and Stephen Puschel

They discuss the global recession, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s attempts to revive the Middle East peace process and how Mexico’s drug war is impacting the United States.

While many Mexicans would be revolted by the grisly murders, there is also a popular subculture that celebrates this sort of violence.

Worldfocus correspondent John Larson, producer Bryan Myers and field producer Ivette Feliciano report on “narco” culture. Megan Thompson shot the piece.

One Tijuana business owner who refuses to be named, pictured or recorded without voice modification tells the story of how he was kidnapped by organized crime and ransomed to his family.

There is also the growing problem of people simply vanishing. Known as the “disappeared,” Mexico’s kidnapping victims are often never heard from again — 97 percent of the country’s kidnapping cases go unsolved by police.

Worldfocus correspondent John Larson, producer Bryan Myers and field producers Megan Thompson and Ivette Feliciano report from Tijuana.

Teodoro Eduardo García Simental, “El Teo,” is a major player in Tijuana’s drug war, a larger-than-life figure who has escaped the law and left gruesome corpses in his wake.

Worldfocus correspondent John Larson, producer Bryan Myers and field producers Megan Thompson and Ivette Feliciano spend five days in Tijuana, where life in El Teo’s reach is surrounded by death.

Drug violence in Mexico killed more than 6,000 people in 2008, and has killed 1,000 so far this year and spilled over the border into the U.S.

Despite growing fears on both sides of the border that the cartels are out of control, Mexican President Felipe Calderon rejected the notion that Mexico is a “failed state.”

Last week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder discussed the results of “Operation Xcellerator,” an anti-drug initiative targeting Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. The U.S. has arrested 750 people in connection with Mexican drug cartels over the past two years.

Andrew Bast has reported from four continents for several magazines and newspapers and writes at “World Politics Review” about the state of the drug war and what can be done.

Under the Influence: Demand and the Mexican Drug War

The war looks eerily familiar: beheadings, assassinations of police and public officials, terrorized businesspeople, extorted schoolteachers, and in five years more than 230 American civilians dead in the crossfire. All this could easily describe the battle in Afghanistan or Pakistan, but the reality is closer to home, where an increasingly gruesome and threatening war is threatening to boil over the United States’ southern border with Mexico.

Summing up decades of policy, three former Latin American heads of state last week declared, “The war on drugs has failed.” Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, César Gaviria of Colombia and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, working together on the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, argued, “Prohibitionist policies based on eradication, interdiction and criminalization of consumption simply haven’t worked. . . . Today, we are further than ever from the goal of eradicating drugs.”

Considering the money and resources committed to the War on Drugs over the years, the claim is mind-boggling. Pinning down exact figures is difficult, but some experts estimate that nearly $1 trillion has been spent in total. In 2009, $14 billion more has been budgeted to programs spanning 12 agencies of the U.s. federal government, from the Small Business Administration and Veterans Affairs to State, Interior and the Department of Defense. Every one of them, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, is an “important partner.” Some experts say that the actual money spent this year will be twice as much.

Last week, a coordinated sweep cracked down on cartels operating in Canada, Mexico and across the United States, demonstrating that this is still the same old war. Without a doubt the 755 arrests yanked offenders off the streets. But the strategy of stemming supply has, over the long run, proven shortsighted.

More money and guns abroad will prove ineffective in increasing U.S. influence over cartels and drug supply routes flowing into the country. Instead, American influence over the scourge of international narco-trafficking will be best leveraged domestically: Quelling what is rapidly becoming an imposing foreign policy issue depends on increasing treatment at home rather than waging a bigger battle abroad.

Arresting traffickers and aiding the Mexican government to combat the cartels focuses on the supply side of the problem. Accordingly, Congress passed the Merida Initiative last June, providing a half-billion dollars in aid annually to Mexico as a partner in trying to shut down the supply chain. As the cartels grow more capable, as well as more brazen, it seems that taking them down is a logical first step. But a few harsh realities suggest that stepping up the offensive will do little, if anything, to actually cut the flow of narcotics into American cities.

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user dream2life under a Creative Commons license.