A lot has been written in the last couple of days about the Colombia experience. What if anything can Mexico learn from Colombia? I wrote a column last Friday on exactly this topic:
Lecciones colombianas
Ana María Salazar
26 de enero de 2007
De la dolorosa experiencia colombiana hay tres señalamientos que es importante considerar:
1. Los países deben evitar a toda costa el nexo entre los grupos guerrilleros, los paramilitares y los grupos de protesta social con el narco.
2. Es imposible reducir el poder y la violencia de los grupos del crimen organizado sin reducir la corrupción de funcionarios públicos y de las fuerzas de seguridad.
3. México en particular requiere una reforma integral de su aparato de justicia, pero es importante reconocer que el impacto no se sentirá sino hasta después de que concluya este sexenio.
En resumen, México aún no está colombianizado, pero si no se unen todos los sectores del país en torno de una estrategia frontal contra el crimen organizado, la colombianización estaría a la vuelta de la esquina.
For entire text click here.
For more info read this Reuters piece...
26-Jan-07 Colombia Mexico eyes Colombian experience in drug battle Patrick Markey Reuters
BOGOTA, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Mexico's top prosecutor on Thursday looked
to Colombia's experience in counter-narcotics and conflict for lessons
to help his government battle drug cartels whose violence has engulfed
parts of the country.
Mexico's President Felipe Calderon, who took office in December, has
started shipping imprisoned drug lords to face charges in the United
States in a intensifying fight against narcotics smugglers who killed
2,000 people last year.
Colombia, the world's No. 1 producer of cocaine, has received billions
of dollars in U.S. aid to combat the drug trade that has helped fuel
the country's four-decade conflict with Marxist rebels and illegal
paramilitaries.
"Colombia has very rich experience in this sense and we are here to
learn," Mexico's Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora told reporters
in Bogota before a meeting with U.S. ally President Alvaro Uribe.
"It is not about exporting models. Each country has its own problems,
with different actors and concerns, but certainly there are
parallels," he said.
He said the two governments would exchange intelligence and
information on fighting traffickers and confiscating their illicit
gains.
Calderon has already sent 7,000 troops to his home state of Michoacan
as gangs battle for control of drug routes there and in several other
regions. Authorities beefed up security for judges after extraditing
four major drug lords in January.
Colombia produces more than 600 tonnes of cocaine a year most of it
destined to the U.S. and European markets via routes including Mexico,
Venezuela and the Caribbean, experts say.
Uribe, a U.S.-trained attorney re-elected last year, has extradited
more than 500 suspected traffickers to face charges in the United
States as part of cooperation with Washington.
Violence and kidnapping associated with the Andean country's war has
decreased sharply after Uribe sent troops to retake parts of the
country once controlled by rebels and other illegal armed groups.
During the height of Colombia's conflict, drug lords declared war on
the government in a campaign against the policy of extraditing
traffickers to the United States.
With a slogan "Better a Colombian tomb than a jail cell in the U.S.,"
cartels set off bombs and killed judges, politicians and police
pressure the government. Colombia prohibited extradition in the 199Os
before later reinstating the policy.
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