Mexico's
70,000 Dead Demand Rejection of U.S. Pressure on Drugs (La Cronica
De Hoy, Mexico)
"As long
as the focus imposed by the White House remains the phenomenon of drugs and the
strategy of all-out-war against its traffickers, efforts to restore peace and
social tranquility in our country will be futile. ... The efforts of the White House's Nobel Peace Prize winner are designed to continue the war against drug trafficking. In four years, he has yet to lift a finger to change the repressive approach of the anti-drug strategy imposed by his country on the entire world."
President Obama with Mexico President Enrique Peña Nieto in Mexico City, May. 2. Smiles on the outside, was President Obama pressuring Nieto to embrace an anti-drug strategy Nieto campaigned against?
As much as President Enrique Peña
Nieto's government tries to de-narcotize the bilateral agenda with the United
States, the central topic - acknowledged or not in meetings of heads of state -
remains drug trafficking. On account of which, "public safety" in our
country is nothing but a fiction.
In the five months of Peña's term,
there has been little or no change in the level of drug-related violence encouraged
and bequeathed by Calderon. It couldn't be any different.
As long as the focus imposed by the White House remains the phenomenon
of drugs and the strategy of all-out-war against its traffickers, efforts to
restore peace and social tranquility in our country will be futile.
But the occurrences of terrible bloodshed over the past five
months gave Barack Obama's Administration an excuse to pressure President Nieto
under the table, even while in public, Obama smiled and praised Nieto, even
recognizing the sovereignty of Mexicans to define their own strategy in this area.
Through the prominent gringo press - The Washington Post and The
New York Times - and their informal decoders in Mexico, the Obama
government has been working to disqualify Peña's
security policy, which is overseen by [Interior Secretary] Miguel Osorio Chong,
[Defense Secretary] Salvador
Cienfuegos and [Attorney General] Jesus Murillo Karam.
The federal government's strategy "doesn't work," pronounced
a resounding opinion leader in our country, concerned because Peña Nieto doesn't follow the dictates of Washington and
refuses to see the yellow lights of caution - that have been turned up! - in the
important offices in the empire's capital.
Even worse, this interpreter of Uncle Sam in Mexico has
already let slip a poisonous statement, according to which the government's
goal of reducing violence - unveiled by Interior Secretary Osorio Chong not only
in Washington but in 305 Paseo
de la Reforma [the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City] -
means there is now "a pact between President Nieto and the drug cartels."
According to these decoders and duplicators of the interests
and intentions of the Pentagon, such a pact is implied in the supposed bilateral
anti-drug cooperation declaration and the reduced public visibility of the
security forces on our national territory.
The concern of these pro-Pentagon decoders and duplicators is
that cooperation-domination no longer be maintained as it was in the era of
Felipe Calderon, when, as The Washington
Post said, even incursions of armed drones over Mexican territory were
sought in pursuit of drug traffickers. In regard to which, by the way, the
current government cannot behave as if nothing had happened.
Peña's security strategy, it is
true, has shown poor results. But that is due precisely to the fact that the
government can't even talk about making radical changes to what the power next
door demands, and to what a kneeling Calderon accepted.
We are talking about a relatively small withdrawal of the
Army, Federal Police and Navy - not a policy of idleness. This is what should
be done as long as the drug business is a phenomenon that the U.S. requires be
fought abroad, but avails itself of and consents to within.
The policy of turning a blind eye to drug trafficking in the
United States prevailed until Vicente Fox, and especially Calderon, submissive
and even grateful, abided by the commands of Washington. The terrifying results
are now evident after two presidential terms.
To put things pointedly, the oracles of interventionism, those
for whom Peña's security policy "doesn't work"
and has even led to an explosive cocktail of narco
violence, unions, students, social groups and even guerrillas - should tell us
what the policy applied during PAN governments did for social peace. [The
current governing party is the Institutional Revolutionary Party - PRI.]
Let us not be fooled. The Hollywood-glorified U.S. press and
the pawns of Calderon who supply these reports - for example, former director of
the National Security and
Investigation Center Guillermo Valdes - on the closeness of bilateral
cooperation during Calderon's term which is supposedly at serious risk - in
addition to the interpreters of these encoded reports and orphans of the former
president in some local media, are attempting to tighten the screws on Peña Nieto.
The objective is obvious: to continue the anti-drug war,
which means a windfall for the United States, despite the cost of another 70,000
Mexican dead.
To this end, to begin with, the aim is to prevent elements
of the many U.S. agencies - DEA, ATF, ICE, CIA, FBI - which are stuffed to the
gills in Mexican affairs, from being, let us say, expelled, nor even delicately
invited to leave due to a lack of progress, and to dismantle their many
operation centers on Mexican soil.
The bilateral agenda is extensive and a review of issues
like migration and the economy are pressing. But overshadowing everything else
is the issue of drug trafficking, which admitted or not - is on top of the
priority list for the U.S. administration.
This is why it was so important last Thursday when Mexico's
head of state said that his security strategy is designed to combat organized
crime in all of its forms, from drug dealers to kidnappers to extortionists,
but that first of all, it seeks to reduce the level of violence. These two aims
are in no way contradictory.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
On the eve of Obama's arrival in Mexico, Foreign Secretary José
Antonio Meade said that "the agenda with the U.S. should not only be
about security."
And Obama, two days before his visit, said something that Economy
Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo said in his raw assessment of NAFTA, has foreseen
since before Peña Nieto was elected president.
"A major focus of my talks with President Peña Nieto will be how to strengthen our extraordinary
economic relationship. Increasingly, our economic partnership is defined not
only by the goods we trade, but by the products we manufacture together," the
U.S. president said.
Last November, Secretary Guajardo had already announced plans
"toward a strong integration of production to maximize NAFTA."
This is a necessity, according to Guajardo, because when NAFTA
was signed, Mexico accounted for 18 percent of the global export market, and
now it accounts for 12 percent - a drop of six points. And "almost 50
percent of all our exports are handled by just 44 large companies," 15 of
them multinational.
Hours before his arrival, Obama also said that during his
visit, "he would motivate our partners to see public safety from a broader
perspective, recognizing that security can only be maintained in communities that
have an effective government presence and services, as well as trained police,
health, education, and employment opportunities." Hollow words.
The efforts of the White House's Nobel Peace Prize winner
are designed to continue the war against drug trafficking. In four years, he
has yet to lift a finger to change the repressive anti-drug
strategy imposed by his country on the entire world.
