Action Alert: New Commander of Colombian Army Oversaw Civilian Killings, Tell Congress no US Aid

Note from the Americas Program: We encourage our readers of the Americas MexicoBlog to sign on to this message. Although it relates to Colombia and not Mexico, it is directly related to our work to stop U.S. support for the bloody drug war and support human rights. As you know, SOAW is one of our partners in the Mesoamerican Working Group (MAWG), as is John Lindsay-Poland, who is doing ground-breaking human rights work on the false positives. The US government is holding up Colombia as the model for security in the region--we must talk about the . Our program is working on research now to ascertain what SOA graduates in Mexico are linked to human rights violations and therefore subject to Leahy Law restrictions. 
If anyone would like to help with that research, please drop us a line at: lecarlsen@gmail.com

Take Action: Send a message to the State Department
School of the Americas Instructor Who Oversaw Dozens of Killings Leads U.S.-Backed Army

In the wake of Colombian military scandals earlier this year, General Jaime Lasprilla Villamizar has been appointed commander of the Colombian Army. He had just served as commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, and previously as commander of Joint Task Force Omega – both units that have been the focus of U.S. assistance in Colombia.

The special operations unit, known by its Spanish acronym CCOES, has been a key vehicle for U.S. military aid in Colombia. A Washington Post investigation in December reported that the unit is sent in after bombing runs to gather bodies of guerrillas and other material. CCOES is the Colombian counterpart to the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, which conducts secret targeted killings around the world.

A former instructor at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (the SOA's new name), General Lasprilla previous commanded Task Force Omega, which received tens of millions of dollars in U.S. training, supplies and equipment, under Washington’s ill-conceived drug war and ‘war on terror.’

There is just one catch. In 2006-2007, Lasprilla directed the Ninth Brigade in Colombia’s Huila Department, which was responsible for at least 75 killings of civilians under his command. Under the U.S. Leahy Law, aiding a foreign unit is prohibited if there is credible information that the unit’s commander committed gross human rights abuses. To abide by Leahy Law, Washington must end its assistance to the Colombian Army, until those responsible for the killings committed under Lasprilla’s command are brought to justice.

Take Action: Click here to send a message to the State Department. Most of the killings committed under Lasprilla in Huila are called “false positives,” many under investigation by Colombian human rights prosecutors. “False positives” were executions of civilians by troops who then claimed the victims were guerrillas killed in combat. The Army reportedly carried out more than 4,000 such killings from 2002 to 2010.

Lasprilla was an instructor at WHINSEC in 2002-2003, and studied for a year at the National Defense University in Washington in 2005-06, just before his deployment to Huila.

Take action: Send a message to Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, Tom Malinowski, and urge him to apply Leahy Law to the Colombian Army under General Lasprilla’s command: http://SOAW.org/colombia

Article by John Lindsay-Poland, one of the authors of the upcoming report The Rise and Fall of “False Positive” Killings in Colombia. The research in the report shows that the 25 Colombian WHINSEC instructors and graduates from 2001 to 2003 for which any subsequent information was available, 12 of them – 48% - had either been charged with a serious crime or commanded units whose members had reportedly committed multiple extrajudicial killings.

The New Face of Forced Displacement in Latin America

InSight Crime: Written by Sibylla Brodzinsky

Forced displacement has a long history in Latin America. For decades - and even centuries in some countries - entire villages, families and individuals have sought refuge in the nearest town or neighboring country, fleeing the crossfire between two groups and threats to their lives.

Today, millions of Latin Americans are facing a new challenge that is leading to a familiar scenario. Organized crime -- which takes the form of large narco-trafficking cartels, street gangs, local drug dealing groups, leftist guerrillas, and private armies -- is displacing thousands of people in the region.

“Violence perpetrated for criminal rather than ideological ends remained a primary cause of displacement,” notes the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, which recorded 5.6 million Latin Americans living in displacement in 2011, mainly in Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala and Peru.

The reasons are many. Organized crime removes people who interfere with their business. They take over key territories for smuggling drugs, people, weapons or other merchandise. People also flee when criminal groups forcibly recruit their children, their neighbors. Sometimes these criminals simply want to flex their muscles, forcing people to leave to prove their point.

Since organized crime in Latin America knows no borders, neither should journalistic coverage of its effects on citizens. To investigate how criminal organizations affect fundamental rights, an alliance of digital media in the region -- under the coordination of InSight Crime and with the support of the Internews non-governmental organization in Washington DC -- explored the new face of displacement in Latin America. Read more. 

Ecuador: Battleground Between Mexican and Colombian Cartels?

InSight Crime: Mexican and Colombian groups may soon start battling it out for control of drug trafficking routes in Ecuador, something that could further threaten the country’s already precarious security situation.

The drug trade through Ecuador has historically been controlled by Colombia’s criminal groups who, until recently, essentially held a monopoly over corridors moving through and out of the country. This is gradually changing however, with Mexican transnational criminal groups interested in moving further down the drug chain to cut out Colombian middlemen. As one anti-narcotics agent told El Comercio, “Colombian cartels no longer have the same power.”

Mexican gangs linked to Ecuador’s drug trade had traditionally played the role of buyers from Colombian cartels, due to the fact that they didn't have the operational capacity to move their own product from Ecuador northwards, another anti-narcotics official told the newspaper. Read more. 

Top Colombian cop advising Mexico’s president-elect suggests elite counterdrug units

AP: BOGOTA, Colombia — The top security adviser for Mexico’s next president said Friday that he is recommending the creation of elite units of police and troops who will target not just major drug traffickers but also lower-level cartel hitmen as a way of swiftly reducing violence.

The proposal newly retired Colombian police director Gen. Oscar Naranjo explained in an interview with The Associated Press offers a glimpse of how President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto might fulfill his promise to slash the number of murders and kidnappings by 50 percent during his six years in office.

Similar to the approach that Naranjo employed against Colombian traffickers, the proposal raises the question of whether the widely respected general can reproduce his success in a very different country. Read more. 

Mexico Drug War: Enrique Pena Nieto Could Target Small Gangs

AP: MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's next president has boldly promised to halve the number of kidnappings and murders during his six-year term by moving law enforcement away from showy drug busts and focusing on protecting ordinary citizens from gangs.

Yet Enrique Pena Nieto said remarkably little specific about his anti-crime strategy during the three-month campaign that ended with his still-contested victory in Sunday's election.

That ambiguity has fed fears at home and abroad that Pena Nieto might look the other way if cartels smuggle drugs northward without creating violence in Mexico. Many analysts wonder if Pena Nieto is holding back politically sensitive details of his plans, or simply doesn't know yet how he'll be prosecute the next stage of Mexico's drug war.

Some hints are starting to seep out. A close acquaintance, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, told The Associated Press that the president-elect has discussed a new offensive against the smaller, local gangs that have cropped up in many Mexican states and earn money through kidnapping and extortion in addition to drug dealing. Read more.

Colombia's legendary police chief heads to Mexico

AP: BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- A signature trophy that Gen. Oscar Naranjo has carefully displayed in glass at Police Intelligence headquarters is odd by any measure: the neatly folded uniform of a rebel commander slain in 2008, clearly showing the holes from the shrapnel that killed him.

The four-star general, who retired as Colombia's police director this week, is proud of that and the others that line a hallway at the Police Intelligence Directorate in northern Bogota. They are testament to an intelligence empire he built that is unrivaled in Latin America.

Naranjo, 55, has played a central role in the capture or death of nearly every top Colombian drug trafficker, beginning with Pablo Escobar. The dismantling of the Medellin and Cali cocaine cartels and the splintering of successor trafficking organizations into ever-smaller groups was, as much as anyone's, Naranjo's doing.

On Thursday, Mexican presidential front-runner Enrique Pena Nieto said Naranjo has agreed to serve as his adviser on fighting drug trafficking if Pena Nieto wins the July 1 election. Read more.

New alliance: Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile

Associated Press: SANTIAGO, Chile—There's a new group of nations in Latin America: the Pacific Alliance, uniting Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile.

Presidents of the four nations formally launched the economic integration pact Wednesday, and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos says their first big move will be to drop visa requirements so citizens of all four countries can travel freely between them. Read more.

Panetta Hails Colombian Gains in Drug War

Voice of America: "U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says Colombia - a nation once battered by drug wars - is becoming a leader in efforts to crack down on drug trafficking in Latin America. U.S. defense chief on Monday began a week-long tour of South America that will also take him to Brazil and Chile.

Eleven years after the signing of a military cooperation agreement with Colombia under which Washington has provided billions of dollars in equipment and training, the United States is praising the gains that Colombia's military is making in its war on drug-traffickers. read more

US not afraid to debate drugs at Summit of the Americas

Notimex: (Americas Program original translation) The United States ambassador in Colombia, Michael McKinley, denied that his country feared a debate on drugs at the Sixth Summit of the Americas next weekend in Cartagena.

In an interview published in the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo on Monday, the diplomat said that Washington is open to debate in the forum that will be opened by more than ten countries in the region.

“We are not afraid to debate policy and strategies related to the fight against drug trafficking. Rather, we hope that in Cartagena there will be an opportunity to speak openly about strategies,” he said.

McKinley reiterated the US opposition to the proposal put forth by some Central American countries which would legalize drugs, arguing that “it’s not the way to solve the problems facing the region.”

He said that although the region supports the debate, each country’s positions are different, as in Central America, where “for example, two weeks ago, three governments declared they were opposed to legalization.”

“The important thing is to have a serious and objective debate. Our position is and will continue to be opposition to legalization. And we also believe that there has been major achievments and advancements in the last 10 or 15 years,” he added.

In his opinion, any policy to combat drug trafficking begins with international cooperation, thus insisting that “this is not an issue that the US can unilaterally define.”

McKinley made it clear that Washington has tried in recent years to “‘denarcotize’ its relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean,” because, in his opinion, “we must focus on other issues that impact the region.”

According to the ambassador, alongside the debate surrounding public safety, including drug trafficking, crime, and human trafficking, should be policies for economic development, social inclusion, and combating inequality. See Spanish original 

Translation by Michael Kane, Americas Program

'Colombia Drug Lords Tried to Turn in Sinaloa Cartel Boss Chapo Guzman'

Plaza Pública. Translation of excerpt Insight Crime. By Julie López. Costa Rican Alejandro Jimenez Gonzalez, alias “El Palidejo” (pictured above), had 16 reasons to feel afraid. Jailed in Guatemala, accused of planning the killing of Argentine singer Facundo Cabral (July 9 2011), Jimenez could become involved in a drug trafficking and money laundering trial against 16 defendants in a Brooklyn, New York court. The accused belong to gang the Rastrojos, and their leaders, brothers Javier Antonio and Luis Enrique Calle Serna, are identified as the people who planned to protect Jimenez when he arrived in Colombia, according to the president of that country, Juan Manuel Santos. Palidejo was arrested nearly two weeks ago off the Colombian Pacific coast, where he’d arrived via boat from Panama. Days later, he was extradited to Guatemala for the Cabral case.

It was no coincidence that Jimenez arrived to the Colombian Pacific coast. The zone is the stronghold for Javier Antonio and Luis Enrique Calle Serna, alias the “Combatants” or “Comba,” due to [Javier Antonio's] previous service in the Popular Liberation Army (EPL) in the southern Putumayo department. Some media sources identify them as former paramilitaries (AUC), as are many of the Rastrojos. Read more: Full article in Spanish, English excerpt

Attorney General denies that drug violence affects democracy in Mexico

El Excelsior: The Attorney General of Mexico, Marisela Morales, said that it is necessary to open a debate about “other exits” to the drug problem today in the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo.

“There are many opinions and voices on the topic. Without a doubt, none of the countries can close themselves off from debate, dialogue, and meaningful analysis of the issue. It’s important, but with objective information,” asserted Morales in an interview with El Tiempo.

The head of the Attorney General’s Office in Mexico (PGR in its Spanish initials), who visited Bogotá last week, considered that the drug problem needs a clear and precise diagnosis.

Morales stated “on many occasions, problematic numbers and figures are given that don’t have the scientific basis to be able to propose a change in strategy” that would guarantee efficacy.

“I am convinced that, yes, we need to have a hemispheric meeting to talk about this diagnosis and to be able to propose a change in strategy,” added Morales.

Several Latin American countries have proposed that this debate needs to happen during the sixth Summit of the Americas that will take place from April 14th to 15th in the Colombian port city of Cartagena.

Morales explained that in Mexico drug trafficking “is a problem of a few states, where the violence that has been witnessed is generated by these criminal organizations fighting for territory and drug markets.”

“The situation is not how it sometimes looks, it’s not throughout the whole country, but rather in a few specific areas,” said the Mexican attorney.

The Attorney General denied that the violence from drug traffickers has affected democracy in her country and claimed that “no criminal organization is stronger than the state.”

“The state has demonstrated that it is capable of confronting this crime and is doing so in a manner decided with local governments and establishing partnerships and strategies through international cooperation,” Morales said.

Taking about the presence of Colombian drug traffickers in Mexico, Morales affirmed that major dealers haven’t been identified, but that that some people who collaborate with narco-networks have been found in Mexican territory." Spanish original 

Translation: Mikael Rojas, Americas Program 

Drug War Debate: US "willing to listen to 'legitimate' debate on drugs" at Summit of the Americas

Milenio/EFE: "The U.S. government said today that it is willing to listen to the views of all countries in the  "legitimate" debate about the war on drugs at the Summit of the Americas, but insisted that, for the administration of President Barack Obama, legalization "is not the solution."

"We are ready to have a good dialogue between all countries to hear their views," said John Feely, coordinator for the Summit of the Americas for the U.S. State Department, in a conference at the Center for Analysis for Inter-American Dialogue in Washington.

"The United States recognizes that the debate on new policies for the war on drugs" is legitimate," but "for us, frankly, legalization is not the solution," said Feely. For the U.S., which admits its "responsibility" in relation to drug use, "legalization" is not on the table," he reaffirmed.

The Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, who will host the summit to be held in Cartagena on April14 and 15, has said that one of the topics to be discussed is the problem of drug trafficking and the measures taken to combat it in recent decades, without the expected results for the continent.

The president of Guatemala, Otto Perez, advocates the decriminalization of drugs and will meet with his Central American counterparts on March 24 to discuss their proposal prior to the Summit of the Americas.

The coordinator for the Summit of the Americas from the Foreign Ministry of Colombia, Jaime Giron, said, at the same conference, that to initiate a discussion about drugs at Cartagena "is a good start," even though no consensus is reached. read more

Drug Policy Debate: Santos will Encourage Discussion on Drugs in the Summit of the Americas

El Milenio- After admitting that the fight against drug trafficking “is failing,” President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, host of the sixth Summit of the Americas, announced today that he will encourage a debate about illicit drugs in the upcoming continental forum April 14th and 15th.

According to the President’s comments, after looking at what has transpired over 40 years of combat against drug traffickers, Colombia has spilt the most blood. Santos declared that everyone must be willing to analyze all options to this problem during the meeting which will take place in the Colombian resort town of Cartagena.

“I am open to any option that might be better than what we have today and that the world stands beside. Colombia cannot even think about taking any unilateral actions,” said Santos, pointing out that for his country, the battle against drug trafficking is “an issue of national security.”

Colombia “can’t afford to lower its guard,” affirmed Santos in a television interview with “El Gran Reportaje (Grand Report).” “I believe that we have the moral authority, as a country, to open the discussion” in the upcoming Summit of the Americas where the 34 heads of state from each of the continent’s countries will meet.

After commenting that the war on drugs “is failing,” he referred to the United States’ opposition to the legalization of hallucinogenic drugs. “The United States says that legalization is worse. Well, let’s analyze whether it’s better or worse. For example, if the number of addicts rises, how much will it cost to treat those addicts compared to the cost of having a half-million, or who knows how many, people in prison for using or selling drugs,” he said.

“We cannot do anything if we don’t have concrete data and if we don’t analyze that data with experts,” Santos added while insisting in the necessity of “discussing the topic.” However, he warned that he would not be “the spokesperson for any cause” nor “the flag bearer of any initiative.”

“Simply put, along with many other countries, we are going to bring the conversation to the table. And we are going to participate very actively in the discussion—because, what’s more, we are one of the countries with the most experience in this area and with more moral authority on this issue,” Santos pointed out.

Colombia, which according to the UN is the main producer of cocaine in the world, waged an especially bloody war against the powerful drug cartels of Medellín and Cali in the 1980s. Spanish original

Translation: Mikael Rojas, Americas Program intern 

Drug War Debate: US agrees to discuss drug legalization at regional summit

Hum? How will this be a discussion if the U.S. will only state its opposition to drug legalization and not listen to another point of view?

Colombia Reports: "The United States will discuss drug legalization in a multilateral setting for the first time at the upcoming Summit of the Americas in Colombia, reported newspaper El Tiempo Friday.

Despite their decision to join talks, there is no indication the U.S. position firmly against legalization has changed. "We are ready to discuss the issue to express our opinion on why it is not the way to address the problem," said Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Mike Hammer." read more

Laura's Blog: More Hokum From the Folks who Bring us the “Global War on Drugs”

By Laura Carlsen

The White House has been floating a new concept in its war on drugs—Colombia as an “exporter of security.” The phrase has popped up in government statements several times just over the past week.

Actually, this isn’t the first time. Then Defense Secretary Robert Gates praised Colombia as an “exporter of security” back in April of 2010. The phrase seems to have gone dormant for awhile after that, although the Pentagon and State Department have been talking about and using Colombian security forces to train regional forces, in part to avoid the domestic and international political costs of having U.S. agents on the job on foreign soil.

First, Under-Secretary for Political Affairs, Wendy Sherman, used it again on Feb. 28 to describe her Mexico-Colombia-Brazil tour

We also discussed Colombia’s growing regional and global outreach in support of international peace and security. For example, over the last three years, Colombia has trained over 11,000 police from 21 countries in Latin America and Africa, as well as Afghanistan. Colombia has also been a leader in the SICA-led Central American donor coordination process. Colombia is succeeding in leveraging its experience in the fight against cartels and terrorists in a way that positions it as a net exporter of security far beyond its borders.

Next up was Dan Restrepo in a March 1 press briefing for VP Joe Biden’s visit to Mexico and Honduras this week:

We've also continued to work, for example, with our partners from Colombia, who have become a very significant exporter of security to Central America -- work to ensure, for example, in the last few weeks, the head of the National Police of Colombia traveled to Guatemala as part of the new Guatemalan government's effort to revamp the national security strategy in that country to ensure that it is facing what we all recognize to be a growing challenge in the region.

In the globalized world where everything’s a commodity, we’ve gotten used to being told the world is just a giant conglomeration of products and consumers, but I’d never seen security commodified like this before. It’s a dangerously false concept.

What does “exporter of security” mean? You can export security equipment (aka weapons or intelligence hardware), but security? This is the dictionary definition of security:

So if security is the absense of threats and danger, how do you export it? If “security” pertains to a situation in a certain State how can it be shipped off to another country and context?

Even more baffling, how did Colombia get to be an “exporter of security”? Does that mean it somehow has produced a surplus of security that it can now export?

Last time I checked, Colombia had active organizations officially listed as “terrorist” operating within its borders (on both the left and the right). In January of this year, paramilitary organization called Los Urabeños paralyzed five departments in an “armed strike” just to show they could. Paramilitary forces were found to control 30% of the National Senate. Some five million people have been displaced from their homes and communities by violent conflict and the country has the second-highest number of landmine victims in the world. While a declining homicide rate is laudable, this just doesn’t like a surplus of security.

Or, following the trade logic set up by the Obama team, maybe it’s that Colombia has a comparative advantage in security. A comparative advantage in security would have to mean that a nation had few threats and a high level of public safety (see above definition).

Again, not the case with Colombia. The country still suffers from a longstanding internal conflict, and is home to violent drug cartels and unscrupulous land-grabbers.

When we add Sherman’s qualifier of “net exporter of security”, the concept gets even more semantically unbelievable. A “net exporter” means that the amount of exports are greater than the amount of imports. So Colombia exports more security than it imports? What does this security look like as it’s being shipped around? Sherman’s additional qualifier of Colombia as a “net exporter of security far beyond its borders” is just compounded silliness—you can’t export within your borders.

Safety is a consequence of preventing and eliminating threats, not importing and exporting some abstract entity called “security.”

The safety of a state or organization against criminal activity such as terrorism, theft, or espionage: "national security."

Drug War: The Cali cartel, Mexican smugglers and the war on drugs

The Los Angeles Times, Opinion: "If the often-frustrating 40-year war on drugs has taught us anything, it is that even success can have dangerous downsides. Here's an example I came across in researching a book on the downfall of the Cali cartel.

It all started in the summer of 1989, in the northeast San Fernando Valley. But first some background:

Throughout the 1980s, Mexican smugglers were traditionally paid as couriers for hire by the Colombian cartels. They transported cocaine across the U.S. border for commissions that started as low as 20% of a load's wholesale value. As the flow of drugs increased, so did pressure to raise that commission to 30%, then 35%, 40% and more, until the Colombians said: "No mas." No more." read more

Drug War: Colombia Makes Mass Arrest of Gang Linked to Sinaloa Cartel

InSight Crime:"Colombia's police have announced the arrest of 34 suspected members of the Galeano Clan, a drug trafficking group which allegedly had links with the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel and with Guatemalan criminal organizations.

Those arrested are suspected members of a group called the Galeano Clan, which the authorities say has ties to Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel and to Guatemalan trafficking groups the Lorenzanas and the Mendozas." read more

Drug War: Ecuador Captures Alleged Link Between 'Loco' Barrera, Sinaloa Cartel

InSight Crime: "Police in Ecuador have captured a man who allegedly serves as the link between powerful drug cartels in Colombia and Mexico, in a sign that the authorities could be moving closer to capturing Colombian kingpin Daniel "El Loco" Barrera." read more

Drug Legalization: Colombia President Calls Drug War a “Stationary Bike”

Pan-American Post: "President Juan Manuel Santos expressed more support for the legalization of illicit drugs while speaking at a panel at the Cartagena Hay Festival of Literature and Arts. As Semana reports, his remarks followed a comment by another panelist, Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramirez, who stated, “I know this cannot be an opinion of the state and the president of a republic cannot express this, but as an ordinary citizen, I can. The solution is decriminalizing drugs.”

Santos responded: ¨And I say it as president of a republic: this solution would be acceptable to Colombia, if the rest of the world goes along.” " read more

Drug Policy: US Ambassador to Colombia says legalisation debate is 'on the table'

Transform Drug Policy Foundation Blog: "In an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais on Monday (as reported in Colombia reports), US Ambassador for Colombia, Peter Michael McKinley, when the question of Colmbian president Santos' recent remarks on drug legalisation came up, said that the issue 'had to be addressed' ... McKinley, was clear however, said that even though the debate is taking place, the U.S. "remained opposed to legalization."

The significant part of this is the opening quote that acknowledges the active debate happening in Latin America, that legalisation is 'on the table' in that debate, and that it is important to analyze all the options. ... the statement is effectively an endorsement of the Santos position - that there needs to be a debate of the options, and legalisation (or as Calderon puts it 'market alternatives') needs to be amongst them." read more