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Entries in Global Post (10)

Friday
Apr172009

Crisis in Guatemala?

guatemala-flagAs the Summit of the Americas opens and after attention to drug-related violence and its political effects in Mexico, Mark Schneider of Global Post looks at another Latin American country where crime and drugs are unsettling the system.

Guatemala: the next to fall?


While U.S. attention has rightly been focused on Mexico's drug wars — with high-profile trips by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before this weekend's Summit of the Americas — Mexico's southern neighbor is in far more serious danger of becoming a failed state. Reeling from gangs, corruption and pervasive poverty, Guatemala now faces well-armed, well-financed drug cartels.

Narco traffickers and organized criminals dominate an estimated 40 percent of the country, from the Mexican border to the Caribbean coast, as well as in the little-populated Mayan jungle and forest preserves of the Peten. Opium poppy fields grow freely. The major threat, though, comes from more than $10 billion in cocaine passing through Guatemala each year, with a tenth of the money laundered in the country and used to bribe officials.

The drug lords and their friends have become the self-ordained local governments and police, either directly or by buying off others. The Sinaloa Cartel, which has run cocaine trafficking in Guatemala for the past several years, is pitted against the Gulf Cartel newcomers. Their "Zetas" (paid assassins) are ratcheting up violence that inevitably hits "civilians." Last year there were more than 6,200 homicides reported in Guatemala.

As I walked the streets of Guatemala City a few weeks ago, the fear of local citizens boarding the city's buses was palpable, and it's no wonder. Bus drivers are a prime target as gang members tied to organized crime extort protection money from bus company owners and the bus drivers union. In the past year, more than 135 bus drivers in Guatemala City were assassinated, and in one case a grenade was exploded on a bus.

Marauding gang members rule entire urban neighborhoods, routinely abusing women and children. Kidnapping doubled last year to 438 cases, and there have been dozens more victims this year. Most suspect "dirty" or former police are behind the snatchings.

Read rest of article....
Thursday
Apr162009

Global Post: 10 Facts on Mexico's "Lightning War"

Related Post: The “Lightning War” and US-Mexico Relations
More Global Post coverage of Mexico....

mexico-flag1 A recent U.S. government report suggests that “Two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico.”

2 Mexico has one of the highest kidnapping rates in the world: An average of 70 people are abducted each month.

3 More than 1,100 guns found discarded at Mexico shooting scenes or confiscated from cartel gangsters were traced to Texas gun merchants in 2007.

4 One of Mexico’s most notorious drug kingpins, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, escaped a maximum security prison in 2001 by driving out in a laundry truck.

5 This year Forbes magazine included Joaquin Guzman, a Mexican drug lord, on its annual billionaires’ list.

6 A drug cartel hood named “The Cook” reportedly dissolved the bodies of 300 victims in acid as part of the grisly work he committed for crime bosses.

7 The FBI has reported 75 open cases of Americans kidnapped in Mexico.

8 In a poll by the daily newspaper La Reforma, Mexico City residents ranked public insecurity as a worse crisis than the economy by a 5-to-1 margin. In the past year, 20 percent were crime victims.

9 In the past year, Mexico's civil drug war has claimed some 6,300 lives.

10 Grammy-nominated singer Sergio Gomez was kidnapped and his genitals were burned with a blowtorch in December 2007, presumably for singing narco corridos, or “drug ballads.”
Thursday
Apr162009

The "Lightning War" and US-Mexico Relations

Related Post: 10 Facts on Mexico's "Lightning War"

mexico-drug-warsViolence in Mexico is drawing increased attention, as drug producers and sellers fight a running battle with Mexican security services. More than 800 policemen and soldiers have been killed since January 2008.

The violence is far from new --- and it's not just a "Mexican" situation, as even a cursory glance at the US will show --- but it is a challenge to the institutional stability of the country. And, inevitably, there will be a spill-over into American political culture, as the toll from drugs becomes entangled with the US discourse over the "border" and immigration.

As President Obama visits Mexico, Ioan Grillo writes for our partners Global Post:

Obama grapples with Mexico’s “lightning war”

TIJUANA, Mexico — The policemen had stopped their squad car for a few seconds on a major avenue in this burgeoning border city on Saturday evening when Kalashnikov bullets flew out of a passing Plymouth Voyager.

Enrique Monge, a 31-year-old beat cop, returned fire but his effort was in vain. A cap shot through his waist and scattered into several vital organs and he died hours later in hospital.

At the wheel, his 23-year-old partner Benjamin Hernandez was hit by a bullet directly in his thorax. By a miracle, he was still fighting for his life four days later as President Barack Obama readied to fly to Mexico City and discuss such violence with Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

Read the rest of the article...
Thursday
Apr162009

Somalia: "Why We Don't Condemn Our Pirates"

somalia-pirates1Yesterday Tristan McConnell of Global Post and Enduring America's Josh Mull offered analyses of Somalia, and the response to its political, paramilitary, and social situation, which went far beyond "Kill the Pirates" rhetoric. Writing for URB Magazine, K'Naan, a Somali-Canadian poet and musician, offers this perspective with the context of recent Somali history and ongoing "Western" activities off the Somali coast:


Why We Don't Condemn Our Pirates in Somalia


Can anyone ever really be for piracy? Outside of sea bandits, and young girls fantasizing of Johnny Depp, would anyone with an honest regard for good human conduct really say that they are in support of Sea Robbery? Well in Somalia, the answer is: it's complicated.

The news media these days has been covering piracy in the Somali coast, with such lopsided journalism that it's lucky they're not on a ship themselves. It's true that the constant hijacking of vessels in the Gulf of Aden is a major threat to the vibrant trade route between Asia and Europe. It is also true that for most of the pirates operating in this vast shoreline, money is the primary objective. But according to many Somalis, the disruption of Europe's darling of a trade route is just Karma biting a perpetrator in the butt. And if you don't believe in Karma, maybe you believe in recent history. Here is why we Somalis find ourselves slightly shy of condemning our pirates.

Somalia has been without any form of a functioning government since 1991. And despite its failures, like many other toddler governments in Africa, sprung from the wells of post-colonial independence, bad governance and development loan sharks, the specific problem of piracy was put in motion in 1992.

After the overthrow of Siyad Barre, our charmless dictator of twenty-some odd years, two major forces of the Hawiye Clan came to power. At the time, Ali Mahdi, and General Mohamed Farah Aidid, the two leaders of the Hawiye rebels were largely considered liberators. But the unity of the two men and their respective sub-clans was very short-lived. It's as if they were dumbstruck at the advent of ousting the dictator, or that they just forgot to discuss who will be the leader of the country once they defeated their common foe. A disagreement of who will upgrade from militia leader to Mr. President broke up their honeymoon. It's because of this disagreement that we've seen one of the most devastating wars in Somalia's history, leading to millions displaced and hundreds of thousands dead. But war is expensive and militias need food for their families, and Jaad (an amphetamine-based stimulant) to stay awake for the fighting. Therefore a good clan-based Warlord must look out for his own fighters. Aidid's men turned to robbing aid trucks carrying food to the starving masses, and reselling it to continue their war. But Ali Mahdi had his sights set on a larger and more unexploited resource, namely: the Indian Ocean.

Already by this time, local fishermen in the coastline of Somalia have been complaining of illegal vessels coming to Somali waters and stealing all the fish. And since there was no government to report it to, and since the severity of the violence clumsily overshadowed every other problem, the fishermen went completely unheard. But it was around this same time that a more sinister, a more patronizing practice was being put in motion. A Swiss firm called Achair Parterns, and an Italian waste company called Progresso, made a deal with Ali Mahdi, that they could dump containers of waste material in Somali waters. These European companies were said to be paying Warlords about $3 a ton, where as in to properly dispose of waste in Europe costs about $1000 a ton.

In 2004, after Tsunami washed ashore several leaking containers, thousand of locals in the Puntland region of Somalia started to complain of severe and previously unreported ailments, such as abdominal bleeding, skin melting off and a lot of immediate cancer-like symptoms. Nick Nuttall, a spokesman for the United Nations Environmental Program, says that the containers had many different kinds of waste, including "Uranium, radioactive waste, lead, cadmium, mercury and chemical waste." But this wasn't just a passing evil from one or two groups taking advantage of our unprotected waters, the UN Convoy for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, says that the practice still continues to this day. It was months after those initial reports that local fishermen mobilized themselves, along with street militias, to go into the waters and deter the Westerners from having a free pass at completely destroying Somalia's aquatic life. Now years later, that deterance has become less noble, and the ex-fishermen with their militias have begun to develop a taste for ransom at sea. This form of piracy is now a major contributor to the Somali economy, especially in the very region that private toxic waste companies first began to bury our nation's death trap.

Now Somalia has upped the world's pirate attacks by ove r21 percent in one year, and while NATO and the EU are both sending forces to the Somali coast to try and slow down the attacks, Blackwater and all kinds of private security firms are intent on cashing in. But while Europeans are well in their right to protect their trade interest in the region, our pirates were the only deterrent we had from an externally imposed environmental disaster. No one can say for sure that some of the ships they are now holding for ransom were not involved in illegal activity in our waters. The truth is, if you ask any Somali if they think getting rid of the pirates only means the continuous rape of our coast by unmonitored Western vessels, and the production of a new cancerous generation, we would all fly our pirate flags high.

It is time that the world gave the Somali people some assurance that these Western illegal activities will end, if our pirates are to seize their operations. We do not want the EU and NATO serving as a shield for these nuclear waste-dumping hoodlums. It seems to me that this new modern crisis is a question of justice, but also a question of whose justice. As is apparent these days, one man's pirate is another man's coast guard.
Wednesday
Apr152009

After the Rescue: What Now with Somalia?

Related Post: Combating Somali Piracy - How Many People Can We Afford To Kill?

UPDATE (15 April): Pirates have attacked The Liberty Sun, a U.S.-flagged cargo ship bound for Mombasa, Kenya, but failed to board the ship. Four other ships have been hijacked in the Gulf of Aden since Sunday.

somalia-piratesIn the aftermath of the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates by US Navy SEALs, analysis has generally been dominated by cheerleading and a good bit of relief that the United States and (for supporters of the current Administration) President Obama have not appeared "weak". The New York Times breathlessly wrote, "To Rescue Captain, U.S. Snipers Held Steady Despite Many Moving Parts", while Watergate felon turned talk show host G. Gordon Liddy settled for, "Gman is joined by a former sniper who tells you what thoughts race through your mind when facing a killer".

Tristan McConnell, writing for our partners Global Post, goes an essential step farther. While Captain Phillips and his crew might be safe, the naval lanes off Somalia are not secure: "Short of escorting every one of the estimated 20,000 ships that use the Suez Canal every year, it is an impossible task to end piracy with navy patrols."

The obvious but difficult point? The piracy is connected to the economic and political instability in Somalia, and unless the US Government can dream up a military solution for the difficulties in Mogadishu --- "no one so far has managed to defeat Somalis by outgunning them, either on land or at sea" --- it's going to have to find a different approach that is far removed from the temporary solution of one-bullet sniping a pirate.

HOW TO STOP THE SOMALI PIRATES

Analysis: More Gunships May Not Be the Answer


NAIROBI — After the dramatic rescue of American captain Richard Phillips from the clutches of Somali pirates, U.S. President Barack Obama announced his determination to end piracy: “We remain resolved to halt the rise of piracy in this region,” he said.

Easier said than done. Dozens of international warships patrolling the Indian Ocean coastline have done little to deter the pirates.

And pirates seized an Italian tug with impunity even as the the world watched a small lifeboat of Somali pirates with their one solitary hostage facing down a flotilla of U.S. warships.

Currently the pirates hold more than a dozen ships with more than 200 hostages from a range of mostly poor countries.

Read rest of article....
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