Medellin: Model City for IDB; Paramilitary Repression for the Poor

The "model city" of Medellín whitewashes the violence and poverty of everyday life in the comunas. [Source: www.skyscraperlife.com]

I arrived in Medellin to participate in a series of events called “IDB: 50 years of Financing Inequality” held parallel to the annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). It was late and the airport was filled with escorts who shepherded the suit-and-tied official delegates to waiting cabs. The usual response at these meetings when you say you’re with the alternative civil society groups is a shrug that means “you’re on your own,” so I was surprised when the IDB guys insisted I go in one of their free cabs.

I later realized the insistence was part of the campaign to make sure that Bank visitors experienced only the official version of Medellin. The city has been billed as the hemisphere’s success story in the drug war. In October of 2002 the government came in with Black Hawks and troops, rooting out leftist guerrillas and drug cartels and killing scores of residents. The second phase was demobilizing paramilitaries. Homicides dropped from a world record rate in the mid-nineties and a series of heavily financed infrastructure projects helped polish the city’s new image.

But I couldn’t help noticing the way camouflage-garbed soldiers with machine guns that suddenly appeared along the side of the road like a shoot-‘em-up video game. Or how when the hotel’s street was barricaded by armed police and shields, the cab driver wouldn’t let me walk the half block by myself.

The stories and rumors of a very different reality in Medellin began surfacing immediately. One friend was assigned a security escort to accompany him to the university, with the instructions, “If there’s a bomb or shooting, just do what he does.” Another was full body-searched as he stood talking to a group of young men. Bogota papers reported that an anonymous note was sent out throughout the city warning mothers that if they wanted to keep their sons alive they should keep them in the house after 10 o’clock at night. Four thousand police were sent into the slums to make sure the poor behaved for the bankers’ reunion. Gay men, prostitutes and bums had been rounded up and removed from public view.

What I was seeing and hearing contradicted the official propaganda so I set out to make sure I wasn’t exaggerating and confirm the rumors. But things just got worse. A local organizer explained that the 10 p.m. curfew had been announced not only in Medellin but throughout the department of Antioquia. Nobody knew for sure who made the threat—the paramilitaries or the army itself. Newspapers and residents confirmed the other rumors.

As we set out to visit a poor comuna—slum area—the driver described the “vacunas” or vaccinations, a form of extortion where the paramilitaries charge small businesses for protection. Payments are in cash or a promise to buy from paramilitary-run businesses. The paramilitary forces are far from demobilized here. They are armed and active.

In fact, the homicide rate has been rising sharply in Medellin. In some areas, inter-mafia turf wars have erupted again. Violence touches so many lives here. In some neighborhoods in the Santo Domingo comuna where we met with a resident organization, 70% of residents are “desplazados” who moved there after being uprooted from their homes and losing loved ones. The residents explain that government repression against citizen movements is so heavy that major public protests are out of the question. When the neighborhood forum broke up and the participants marched a few blocks together, nearly fifty police emerged from where they had been monitoring the event and moved on to another area.

I know the differences between Mexico and Colombia. But I can’t help thinking we could end up like this if Mexico continues with present policies. The militarization of society is already a reality and in some places citizens have lost freedom of movement. A corrupt government emboldened by the war on drugs extends its own power while criminalizing dissidence and youth.

Let’s hope Medellin is not a mirror of Mexico’s future.


For More Information:

IDB annual meeting to showcase Medellin renaissance (People'sDaily, 27/03/09)

Medellin cleans up its act (Los Angeles Times, 26/03/09)

Report Calls for End to Drug War, As Obama Moves Toward Reform

The Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy issued a report that marks a turning point in drug policy in the hemisphere. Following a year’s work, the report concludes that the “war on drugs” is a failed war and recommends a “paradigm shift” centered on public health, reducing consumption and focusing resources on organized crime.

The report was drawn up by a prestigious 17-member commission, chaired by former presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, Cesar Gaviria of Colombia and Fernando Enrique Cardoso of Brazil.

It's well worth it to read the full statement of the commission, "Drugs and Democracy: Toward a Paradigm Shift." Here's a brief run-down.

The report begins with a flat-out denouncement of the war on drugs emphasis on criminal enforcement measures.

“Prohibitionist policies based on the eradication of production and on the disruption of drug flows as well as on the criminalization of consumption have not yielded the expected results. We are farther than ever from the announced goal of eradicating drugs.”

At the teleconference held on Feb. 11, members of the commission criticized the "prohibitionist policies" of the past and urged formation of a Latin American policy based on harm reduction focus and collaboration with the United States and European consumer countries to reduce demand. The report lists three specific actions under the new paradigm: treat addicts as patients in the public health system, evaluate decriminalization of cannabis possession for personal use, and reduce consumption through public education campaigns primarily directed at youth.

The section on the expensive, bloody and largely ineffective U.S.-sponsored drug wars in the Americas is particularly damning:

Colombia, recipient of over $6 billion in U.S. drug war funds, illustrates drug policy failure:

"Colombia is a clear example of the shortcomings of the repressive policies promoted at the global level by the United States. For decades, Colombia implemented all conceivable measures to fight the drug trade in a massive effort whose benefits were not proportional to the vast amount of resources invested and the human costs involved. Despite the country’s significant achievements in fighting the drug cartels and lowering the levels of violence and crime, the areas of illegal cultivation are again expanding as well as the flow of drugs coming out of Colombia and the region."

Mexico, which has just begun to receive drug war training and equipment from the U.S. government under the Merida Initiative, is seen as a chance to change course before it's too late:

"Mexico has quickly become the other epicenter of the violent activities carried out by the criminal groups associated with the narcotics trade. This raises challenges for the Mexican government in its struggle against the drug cartels that have supplanted the Colombian traffickers as the main suppliers of illicit drugs to the United States market. Mexico is thus well positioned to ask the government and institutions of American society to engage in a dialogue about the policies currently pursued by the US as well as to call upon the countries of the European Union to undertake a greater effort aimed at reducing domestic drug consumption. The traumatic Colombian experience is a useful reference for countries not to make the mistake of adopting the US prohibitionist policies and to move forward in the search for innovative alternatives."

Although it stops short of mentioning the Merida Initiative and Plan Colombia by name, the report makes it clear that given the poor results, military/police programs like these that stress enforcement and interdiction should be seriously reevaluated and reoriented. The commission criticizes the high costs in violence, and corruption among police forces and politicians within countries employing the war and drugs strategy.

Referring to another aspect of the drug wars that has sparked controversy in Latin America, the report says this about efforts to eradicate cultivation of illicit drugs:

"It is important to speak not only of alternative cultivation but to envision a wide range of options, including the social development of alternative forms of work, democratic education and the search for solutions in a participatory context. Such initiatives must also take into account the legal uses of plants, such as the coca leaf, in countries with a long-standing tradition of ancestral use previous to the phenomenon of their exploitation as an input for drug production. Accordingly measures must be taken to strictly adjust production to this kind of ancestral use."

The mere recognition of the legitimacy of ancestral use is a step forward. This time, the implicit reference is to the Bolivian government where President Evo Morales’ “Coca sí, Cocaina no” policies collided with US DEA politicized eradication efforts, to the point where the DEA was barred from operating in the country. Here too the report opens up long-overdue debate on policies whose collateral damage to society and the environment cannot be justified by their poor results.

The goal of the commission report is to build a united Latin American platform on drug policy. When asked if they thought they could accomplish that by the time the Vienna conference is slated to reach an agreement on a new 10-year UN policy, Commission members noted that only the Colombian government has explicitly balked at the proposed paradigm shift.

But it also targets its message to the U.S. government, which in the past has tried to impose the drug war model on its Latin American allies:

"[The U.S.] policy of massive incarceration of drug users, questionable both in terms of respect for human rights and its efficiency, is hardly applicable to Latin America, given the penal system’s overpopulation and material conditions. This repressive policy also facilitates consumer extortion and police corruption. The United States allocates a much larger proportion of resources to eradication and interdiction as well as to maintaining its legal and penal system than to investments in health, prevention, treatment and the rehabilitation of drug users."

The Commission’s message coming at this time reflects the hope that the Obama administration will have a more open attitude toward re-evaluating the failed policies.

That hope is not unfounded. The Obama administration had a few false starts on the issue, reflecting more the built-in inertia of Washington than its own policies. Earlier this month, the U.S. delegation reportedly blocked harm reduction measures at talks toward a new UN strategy in Vienna. Then, a series of DEA raids on medical marijuana providers in California raised questions about Obama’s commitment to respect state laws on the matter.

Those fears have been somewhat allayed over the past two days. On the international front, Obama broke publicly from the “zero-tolerance” line of the Bush administration and announced support for needle exchange, although she still called “harm reduction” an “ambiguous term”.

At home, Obama received criticism for the contradiction between campaign promises and a reality that looked a lot like no change regarding federal government repression of medical marijuana. White House spokesperson Nick Shapiro stated that the medical marijuana raids would not continue:

“The president believes that federal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws, and as he continues to appoint senior leadership to fill out the ranks of the federal government, he expects them to review their policies with that in mind."

Now the Seattle press is speculating that Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, will be appointed national drug czar. This would be another important sign a changing tide. Kerlikowske worked in law enforcement in Washington state, a state that permits medical marijuana use and in Seattle, a city that approved a measure to give marijuana "lowest enforcement priority". Drug policy reform groups have celebrated his probable nomination.

Merida Initiative, NAFTA renegotiation on Obama-Calderon Agenda Today

Don´t expect anything big to come out of today’s meeting between Mexican president Felipe Calderon and U.S. president-elect Barack Obama. The meeting is a courtesy call that past incoming presidents have established to give a nod to the close relationship between Mexico and the United States, an easy meeting considering the normally cordial relationship between the two countries.

This time there will be some thorny issues on the table though. Some of them will be discussed obliquely and others will be mutually acknowledged but explicitly ignored.

One will be Obama´s promise to renegotiate NAFTA. Calderon announced that the economic crisis will be on the agenda and he has often expressed his views that the solution is more free trade and upholding NAFTA. Obama´s calls to renegotiate the agreement have the Mexican president trembling in his boots. Since NAFTA went into effect in Mexico fifteen years ago, the nation´s economy has become dependent on the U.S. market and investment, with domestic small and medium industries forced out of business. The concentration of wealth and financial and productive power propelled by NAFTA created huge oligopolies that are the major pillars of support for Calderon’s National Action Party and severely weakened the small farmer and worker organizations that form the backbone of opposition to Calderon’s neoliberal policies and that call for immediate renegotiation. Calderón is so desperate to avoid renegotiation he issued a subtle threat, stating that if the U.S. renegotiates NAFTA, Mexican migrants will pour over it´s southern border.

The second hot-button issue is security, in particiular the Merida Initiative. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico is really worried that the Obama administration may not want to carry through with this dangerous boondoggle. Last Wednesday, it issued a statement that was picked up in the Mexican press as the release of $99 million of the $400 assigned to Mexico under the 2008 Merida initiative package. The embassy stated that the funds are for aircraft (helicopters and two CASA surveillance planes) and “non-intrusive inspection equipment” (ion scanners) and come out of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, a Defense Department agency. Ambassador Tony Garza noted that the equipment could begin arriving in the fall. He stated that funds have also been released to USAID for training justice officials and civil society in transparency and accountability although no details were provided.

Turns out most all the available funds were actually released when the Letter of Agreement was signed on Dec. 3 and are at various points of the pipeline. When asked about the purpose of the recent press statement, an embassy spokesperson said that the Dec. 3 press reports had been unclear and the embassy wanted to show that the funds were flowing. But the core reason can be found in this statement from Amb. Tony Garza:

“I am confident that the incoming administration will remain committed to our shared goals with Mexico under the Merida Initiative, reducing the threat of crime and violence associated with narco-trafficking on both sides of the border. Our successes in this shared fight over the past years will help cement that commitment and continue building the secure, safe communities that Mexico and the United States deserve.”

The embassy staff is desperate to build U.S. and Mexican public opinion in favor of the initiative beforee it gets the boot. Their palpable nervousness no doubt stems from the fact that the Merida Initiative and Calderon’s war on drugs do not demonstrate “successes” and much less a move toward “secure, safe communities.” Last year the number of drug war-related violent deaths in Mexico doubled to over 5,800. The majority of the population believes the drug war is “unwinnable” when set up as a war between the government and the cartels, and since Calderon sent some 45,000 troops into the field many communities report feeling as threatened by the army as by the drug traffickers.

Although Obama supported the Merida Initiative in his Latin America platform, an announced cutback in planned foreign aid levels, public protest over the program in both countries, and heightened violence combined to push the incoming administration to rethink the aid package before the 2009 appropriations. Obama has indicated that a drug policy based on reducing demand rather that exclusively focusing on supply interdiction could be more effective. Meanwhile in Mexico calls increase for selected legalization to diminish the power and wealth of organized crime, expanded rehabilitation and prevention programs, and serious moves to reduce the flow of illegal arms from the U.S. Expect a very vague statement of "bilateral commitment" and "shared responsibility" to come out of the meeting.

Same for immigration. Obama will have to continue to handle this as a domestic issue due to the landmined politics of the issue in the U.S. Calderón knows this and won´t push hard Finally, an unspoken issue at the meeting will be Calderon’s role in a new Latin America policy. The Bush administration named Colombia and Mexico—the continent’s only two major countries ruled by the right—as bulwarks against what it saw as the pink tide in Latin America, a growing number of nations that elected left-center governments. While many experts lamented a policy of “ignoring” Latin America, in reality the administration carefully seeded division between the nations that support its policies of free trade and military hegemony and others that have embarked on a path toward independence of the modern-day Monroe Doctrine.

Now Obama will have to decide if he really wants to place political eggs in the basket of a president who arguably has minimal leadership in the region and lacks credibility among large segments of his own populace. The 2006 elections that brought Calderon to power were marked by accusations of fraud that the courts never resolved. Although Calderon has been far more effective than his predecessor in dealing with Congress, resentments from the elections still simmer, kept alive also by the increasing polarization between rich and poor in the country. Obama may be even less inclined to consider Calderon a point person for his policies in Latin American when he recalls Calderón's endorsement of rival John McCain for the presidency.

To his credit, Obama has shown a willingness to seek reconciliation within the hemisphere. He promised to meet with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela—defined as part of the “axis of evil” by Bush, and prioritize visits to Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina during the early part of his administration. With the aim of reconciliation in mind, he'd do well to take a stance of cool cordiality at today´s meeting.

Coping with Crisis, Latin America Seeks New Paths

As the U.S. economy tumbles into greater depths of disaster and ignominy—dragging the rest of the world with it—countries in Latin America have decided it’s time to strike out on their own.

At a Nov. 26 meeting in Caracas, barely mentioned in the U.S. press, the nations that make up Alba (the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas) agreed to form a regional monetary zone. The idea is to immediately create a new accounting unit to be called the “sucre” (standing for Unitary System of Regional Compensation and also the name of a historical figure) and move toward adopting it as the legal tender. The financial ministers of the six Alba countries (Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Cuba, with Ecuador) subsequently met to begin the technical studies required to carry out the measure.

Venezuela’s finance minister, Ali Rodríguez, stated to the press, “When there’s a crisis that has among its factors the weakness of the dollar—profoundly affected by extremely high levels of speculation—that means that other regions must seek their own solutions, and that’s what is happening.”

While proposals from Venezuela to reduce U.S. influence in the region are nothing new, the other countries at the meeting showed equal enthusiasm for paths that would enable them to escape the shadow of the now not-so-mighty dollar.

Honduran economic minister Pedro Paez affirmed “At a time when the international financial crisis creates a horizon of compression of traditional markets, we are creating new markets to guarantee the adequate flow of resources and defend employment in our countries.”

Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador which is an “observer” to Alba, excoriated the dollar system. “Imperialism of the XXI century is no longer boots, no longer planes, no longer aircraft carriers, ships, or cannons. It’s called ‘dollars’, that’s how they seek to dominate us, and we’ve had enough of these pressures.” Ecuador switched to the dollar in 2000 (last time I was there you bought your sancochos with Sacajawea dollars, which solves the mystery of whatever happened to the second failed attempt to circulate a woman’s image on U.S. currency).

Other proposals to come out of the meeting include decreasing reliance on the International Monetary Fund and other U.S.-dominated international finance institutions (IFIs). The Group of 20 wealthy nations and President Bush have urged using these to bail out developing economies hard-hit by the same policies they promote.

“We’re not going to wait here with our arms crossed for the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund to come and solve the problems that this great threat unleashed on the world,” Chavez said at the Alba summit in Caracas. Although Chavez stopped short of calling for withdrawal from the IMF, both the IMF and the Inter-American Development Bank came under fire for placing political conditions on loans that limit countries’ political options in dealing with the impact of the crisis.

Chavez also criticized the Andean Development Corporation, a regional bank made up of governments and private banks, for operating along the same lines. Chavez proposed strengthening the role of the Bank of the South, and pledged $500 million of Venezuelan funds to establish a regional “common monetary fund” for the region and asked other countries to commit portions of their reserves to back up economies in crisis.

Correa slammed “certain international bureaucracies” in reference to the IFIs and their legal apparatus. He was quoted in the Ecuadorean newspaper El Telegrafo saying, “As usual, they are accomplices to the lenders and exploiters of our country, but they will find a new Latin America, one full of dignity, that will know how to respond in case they try to blackmail us.” Ecuador recently completed an audit of its foreign debt that shows that a large part of the debt was contracted illegally and under unfair terms. At the Alba meeting he got the support of the other six nations to face down the global financial system regarding payment of the illegitimate debt.

It’s true that experience shows that real results in building Latin American regional integration fall far short of the pronouncements. But the recent flurry of diplomatic activity—to be followed up by more meetings and a summit on Dec. 17 in Brazil—has an unprecedented urgency now: the result of not acting could be chaos.

The World Bank’s “optimistic” estimate is for about 2% average growth in the region, while other estimates predict a slight contraction. This compares to an average 5% growth a year over the past five years. In countries where so many people live on the edge, a few points uptick in inflation or a couple of percentage points drop in GDP affects survival. This isn’t a game of statistics.

The macroeconomic statistics, gloomy as they are, don’t even show the worst of it. In the most unequal region of the world, some will suffer more than others—and some will make money off disaster hand-over-fist. Although a few major companies are taking mega-losses, it’s the poor who feel the pain. In Mexico, the average real wage fell again, as inflation ate up the tiny nominal rise. Currency devaluation has pummeled consumers reliant on U.S. imports, and over a quarter of a million jobs were lost in the third quarter. Central American countries are suffering a drop in remittances from family members working in the United States, strangling the many small businesses and family economies that depend on that money. Inter-American Development Bank analyst Santiago Levy says employment will come to a standstill in the region in 2009, announcing plans to divert $6 billion of Bank funds to address the crisis.

The international financial institutions are salivating at the prospect of lending massive amounts of money to rescue Latin American countries and restore indebtedness in the region. Many countries, sick of the neoliberal conditions placed on loans, have turned their backs on the IFIs in recent years and their portfolios were seriously dwindling. Crisis means new clients—unless the Alba plan and others like it take off.

No-one knows how far this declaration of independence from U.S. financial hegemony will ultimately reach. Or even what “independence” looks like, beyond cutting ties to the dollar system. The Alba group promotes a trade model called the Trade Agreement of the Peoples as an alternative to U.S. Free Trade Agreements. While the Central American members have the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with the United States, the other members have refused to sign FTAs.

The prospect of a unified Latin America that could finally stand up, not only to the U.S., but to the global financial system is not on the near horizon.

Once again, though, a refreshing wind from the south has blown the dust off the conventional “wisdom” of the system. For people in the United States who want to see the crisis open up real avenues for change, building alliances to help our southern neighbors build alternatives makes a lot of sense.

Related Americas Program Articles:

G7 Plus G20 Equals the Rocky Road to Recovery?

http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5732

The WTO and Other Trade Tales

http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5714

Pictures from the Americas Social Forum in Guatemala

Join us at the Americas Social Forum in Guatemala

Three events in Guatemala City this week at the FSA:

If you can be in Guatemala for the Americas Social Forum (www.fsaguatemala.org) please come see our events, and pass along the information to friends/colleagues that might be in Guatemala for the Forum.

Plan Mexico/Merida Initiative

Oct. 9, 2-5pm, Auditorio EFEPM

Hungry for Justice: The Food Crisis

Oct. 10, 9-11am, S10-201

Remapping Latin America's Future

Oct. 10, 11-1, S10-201

Recent related materials from the Americas Program:

Resources on Plan Mexico

Re-mapping Latin America's Future

Hungry for Justice: How the World Food System Fails the Poor

Hundreds Gather to Confront Militarization of the Americas

It rains--A LOT--in La Esperanza, Honduras. Over the past weeks the rains have wiped out crops, rural roads and the little that campesinos here have to live on.

But even as the streets become giant puddles and mud holes, and the rivers plan their assault on the fields, the name of the town still translates as "hope".

That at times absurd persistence also characterizes the struggle of the over 700 people from organizations across the hemisphere, gathered in the Second Hemispheric Meeting against Militarization. Absurd, because in just the first few hours of presentations, we already had a vision of a hemisphere under attack. Persistent because despite the threats and hardships, people showed up from all over to find ways to stop militarization and instead of being discouraged by the magnitude of the challenges found real ways to move forward by sharing ideas and cultures, problems and solutions.

To understand the conference, it's important to have a working definition of militarization. To conceive of it as merely the presence of armed forces is insufficient. In Colombia and Chiapas, for example, paramilitary forces constitute a major threat. In many parts of the hemisphere police forces are being used as the shock forces to put down social protest--enforcing plans to wrest control of natural resources from rural communities and create a climate of fear in the cities. Under today's model, the U.S. government, whose overt military interventions are still fresh in the memory of many participants here, can now occupy a nation without being present by training subordinated national armies to their ends and controlling the defense and intelligence infrastructure.

In a major advance, participants mainly from grassroots indigenous, peasant and workers' organizations also analyzed how militarization stems from a mentality, the same mentality of the patriarchy that perpetuates violence against women. Not only by armed forces that see women's bodies as the spoils of war, but also in the household and the streets. Militarization could not flourish if it weren't for this mentality, along with colonial forms of education that feed racism and discrimination.

They also discussed how the justice system plays a dual role. Throughout Latin America, "sons of the Patriot Act" have been born and adopted into national legislation at the express urging of the U.S. government and international finance institutions. These anti-terrorist laws--of no real value in fighting global terrorism--have already been applied to social protest in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Mexico. While new laws criminalize dissidence, on the other side of the dysfunctional justice system lies the impunity granted security forces that have committed all sorts of crimes against their own people, including rape, assassination, assault and torture.

The men and women of the Anti-Militarization Meeting know they are swimming counter-current, in the context of policies such as Plan Mexico and the Merida Initiative, and megaprojects that bring "development" backed up by machine guns. No matter. To get beyond what might seem like a romanticized view of resistance, what I should do is recount the day to day work of the individuals and organizations here. That's probably not possible, so just imagine what happens when you merge the knowledge and commitment of nearly a thousand people from across the continent in defense of their land, their lives and their communities against military domination. Even after the grim recitation of woes, it's enough to inspire action and, yes, joy (pictures of dancing and discussing, along with more details on the meeting, to come soon.)