Drug War in Latin America and Complicity in North America - Essay Example

December 18, Corruption, Poverty, Hopelessness, Violence: The Drug War in Latin America and Compli in North America Somewhere in America, teenagers celebrate the holidays by getting high. A businessman in London reduces his stress, after work, with a snort of coke at the country club. A middle-aged truck driver, trying to stay awake until his load delivers, takes a hit of something and feels better. A heroin addict shoots up in a dark alley. A couple of giggling 12 year olds smoke a joint. One thing all have in common, although they do not know it, is blood on their hands from unthinkable atrocities in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and elsewhere. It attached itself to the drugs they purchased, although the peaceful scenes of their lives do not betray this ugly secret. They are the periphery of the corrupting influence of drug gang activity. Somewhere in Mexico, a policeman looks the other way when his colleague takes a bribe. Somewhere in Brazil, a soldier, assigned to kitchen duty, serves up a satisfying meal to men with blood on their hands and violence in their hearts. Somewhere in Colombia, a boy carries a message for a piece of bread. In a US government office, photographs are taken of smiling US officials and a Mexican official who have allegedly declared war on the cartels. Somewhere in Latin America, a frightened mother of four frightened children, closes her door and remains quiet about what they saw. Dead bodies are everywhere but they do not understand or intend their part in it. They are a middle area of corrupting influence. Bad Guys and Good Guys are not distinct from each other, in this war. The countries involved are not distinct. Drug money and drug enforcement money are not distinct. There is extensive overlap in personnel, territory, and funding on both sides of the war (Finnegan). In fact, it is difficult to talk rationally about “sides”. There is overlap in drug lord customers and drug lord victims, torturers and the tortured (Finnegan). America is an outspoken supporter of Latin America’s attempts to stop the atrocities and slow the drug flow, and the most convenient pathway and customer supply for those drugs and the weapons that protect them (Finnegan). The Baja California state attorney general’s top liaison to U.S. law enforcement, Quinonez, who worked with the Americans against El Teo’s gang in Mexico, and at the same time worked for Arellano Felix’s cartel, was entertained, three weeks after his arrest, at the swimming pool of the U.S. consul-general in Tijuana, along with Leyzaola who was robustly praised in the consul-general’s speech (Finnegan). Probably no one is as brutal and violence-hungry as Leyzaola, who leads the war on drugs and drug terrorism in Mexico, wreaking terror, arbitrarily, without benefit of legal process, thought also to be supporting a cartel (Finnegan). Even the President of Venezuela turns a blind eye to the involvement of Colombian FARCguerillas and their activities in his country (Vincent). The corruption goes well beyond street level, and holds hands with American officialdom (Finnegan). The President of Mexico sent 10,000 army troops to solve the problem of drugs and organized crime and street violence (Reraud and Reraud). Many of them became part of the problem. Some began working for the drug cartels. Others became as brutal, in their response, and even as arbitrary in applying violent measures as the cartels (Finnegan; Reraud and Reraud). They disarmed the police, due to widespread corruption, but even the non-corrupted police were reduced to carrying slingshots, though they were up against organized crime syndicates with massive resources (Finnegan). Furthermore, half of the police force was fired for corruption and now the army has to be phased out as well (Reraud and Reraud). They failed to stop or even slow down the violence for more than a few months, and now it is worse than ever (Reraud and Reraud). Imprisoned drug lords continue to manage their extensive operation by cell phone, from their prison cells (Vincent). In the past four years, thirty thousand people have died in this war (Finnegan). In Brazil, the rate of drug related homicide is 50 for 100,000 population (Vincent). Poverty has something to do with this mess. The policemen in Mexico are so poorly paid and so under-resourced that they had to buy their own bullets for target practice (Finnegan). In order to feed their families, they resort to accepting bribes and doing favors. That corruption involves the army and even the federal police (Finnegan). Peasants in Columbia and Peru grow Coca because there is money in doing so, and without it there is no way to live. Now they are cutting deals directly with Mexican cartels. In Brazil, the drug cartels set up business, and their own version of justice, in impoverished areas and keep the police away (Vincent). People have lost hope (Reraud and Reraud). Sister Donna built a women’s center and, for 14 years, brought in money that successfully helped children and women to sustain hope and do something with their lives. The cartels effectively stopped that hope by making it too dangerous for Sister Donna to continue her involvement (Reraud and Reraud). Quitting drugs is no longer safe. Recently, at the Aliviane Drug Treatment Center, three cartel gunmen lined up and executed, with AK47s, 17 people trying to quit drugs (Reraud and Reraud). Alivane is not the only drug treatment center to be targeted in this way. A young boy who came to Aliviane with his mother, after his father, a drug trafficker was murdered, said, “We are living through a war in Juarez. No one can be trusted. I don’t see the value in life (Reraud and Reraud).” What is the sense in all this violence and pain? What do the cartels want? They want money and power (Vincent). They want the biggest, “baddest” name. They want a monopoly on the drug trade and they want to crush all resistance and competition (Finnegan; Vincent). That is the most obvious answer to this question, but I think there is another, also. As Gandhi and the Dalai Lama and other great teachers have taught, violence breeds violence. I felt my stomach turn when I read about the sheer joy in violence disclosed in the words of Leyzaola, who said, “But at night I do what I enjoy.” He patted his weapon and gave a wolfish grin. “Me voy a la caceria.” (“I go hunting.”) (Finnegan). This paper has briefly summarized evidence of the corruption involved, its periphery as well as its center. Reasons for why it is difficult to root out the drug cartels and the violence associated with their work have been discussed: corruption and overlap with lack of clear distinction in “sides” of the war; American involvement as a source for customers, routes and weapons and as a quasi-official source of encouragement; poverty; loss of hope; the hunger for money and power and the hunger for violence that is perpetuated by violent responses. Terrorism around the drug trade in Latin America, on all sides, is out of control. Usually I have good ideas about what should be done in bad situations, but I am completely without ideas on this one. Works Cited Finnegan, William. "In the Name of the Law." The New Yorker (2010): Web. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/18/101018fa_finnegan. Reraud, Brent and Craig Reraud. "Return to Juarez." 2011. New York Times: World/Americas. Web. 18 December 2011 . Vincent, Isabel. "Where the Drug Lords are Kings." 6 February 2007. Macleans. 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