Current Trends in Latin America and the Caribbean

Current Trends in Latin America and the Caribbean Noref Report Compiled by Augusto Varas Introduction The last European Union (EU)-Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) summit recently convened in Madrid (May 18, 2010) produced a six point action plan as part of its strategy Towards a new stage in the bi-regional partnership: innovation and technology for sustainable development and social inclusion. However, the main actual accomplishments were the relaunching of the European Union-Mercosur trade talks, stalled since 2004, and the signing of the bilateral Free Trade Agreements with Peru and Colombia; the latter a highly controversial issue due to massive human rights violations in Colombia which have prevented the United States from moving forward in this regard. At the end of this action plan the global drug problem was mentioned and the parties agreed to strengthen bi-regional dialogue and effectiveness of joint efforts to tackle the world drug problem, by strengthening the EU-LAC Coordination and Cooperation Mechanism on Drugs. Given the devastating effects the drug problem is producing in the LAC region, the EU action plan highlighted the importance of strengthening regional security cooperation structures against the diversion and illicit trafficking of chemical precursors and money laundering; prevention programmes including health assistance, drug addiction, social treatment and social re-integration to reduce drug consumption; alternative development programmes and commercialization of products of alternative development. This approach dramatically contrasts with current policies implemented in Mexico and Colombia with United States assistance. In this new issue of Current Trends in Latin America and the Caribbean, three international relations analysts describe the outcome of the last EU-LAC summit, and the dangerous evolution of the war on drug and its effects in Mexico and Colombia. Augusto Varas, Noref consultant, is currently the president of Fundación Equitas, Chile. Latin American and Caribbean report 1

From bi-regional cooperation, to global governance: challenges of the European Union-Latin American partnership José Antonio Sanahuja Recent analysis of the European Union (EU)-Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) relationship showed a sceptical mood and seems to agree in the growing irrelevance of the bi-regional summits: neither LAC had improved its position in the external relations of the EU, nor has the EU fulfilled the EU s promise as an external partner for LAC. For many years, talks for the so-called Association Agreements has stalled, particularly the EU-Mercosur talks. EU political initiatives and development aid is increasingly focused on other regions more relevant for EU security interests in the neighbourhood of Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, where migration, energy security and political instability are the primary concerns. LAC attention is also shifting to East Asia, where China is becoming a major market for Latin American commodities. The disagreements about Cuba and the coup in Honduras revealed that the bi-regional consensus about democracy is eroding, and the EU is also hesitant about its regionalist approach, due the crisis of regional integration in Mercosur and the Andean Community of Nations (CAN). As a matter of fact, a bilateral approach seems to be gaining ground in the EU strategy towards LAC. Europe s low profile In addition, both regions are stuck with their internal problems. With a fractured Latin America and an exhausted EU, it isn t easy to weave as the European Commission states it, an association of global players, able to improve the governance of globalisation. The EU is going through a long stage of self-inflicted irrelevance as a result of its institutional crisis and the failed attempt to adopt the Constitutional Treaty. After entering in force, the Lisbon Treaty hasn t give birth to a true global player or a stronger common policy, as was promised. This has been demonstrated by the low profile and performance of its new foreign policy representatives, and the evaporation of the EU in global climate talks in Copenhagen. The goals of growth, competitiveness and employment up to 2010 of the Lisbon Strategy a strategy designed to confront globalisation now appear as irrelevant in the context of the economic crisis. For months, the crisis failed to become a catalyst for collective action: parochial views and domestic imperatives imposed self-interested policies, to the point of a substantial weakening of the euro and the confidence of markets in the EU economic policy. On the other side, LAC is suffering from deep political divisions, bilateral clashes, and the crisis of the regional integration groups, set up to push the so-called open regionalism strategies that now seem exhausted. The region now seems divided between those countries involved in a growing number of north-south free trade José Antonio Sanahuja is a researcher at the Complutense Institute for International Studies (ICEI), Madrid. Latin American and Caribbean report 2

agreements geared towards the North American and Asian markets, and those countries committed with the renewal of south-south regionalism and foreign policies aimed at achieving greater regional autonomy. However, it would be unfair to ignore a number of facts that could lead to a more hopeful appraisal. In the EU, the Greek crisis and the subsequent threats against the eurozone triggered the historic agreements of May and June 2010 that set up new mechanisms for fiscal coordination and the economic governance of the eurozone, thus increasing the credibility of the EU as a global actor. Latin American resilience In the past years Latin America also increased its international position, by diversifying its external relations. To date, it has proved more resilient in the face of the crisis, and it is pushing for a rebalancing of its relationship with the EU and the US. Some countries became more proactive players in the existing and/or emerging structures of global governance, such as the G-20 or the OECD, and Brazil has become a regional and global player. It could also be said that the crisis of regional integration is more related with open regionalism than with regionalism as such. New post-liberal strategies are emerging, emphasizing political and security cooperation, policy coordination in fields such as energy or infrastructure, regional asymmetries, or south-south cooperation. The South American Union of Nations (UNASUR) already revealed itself as an effective framework of crisis management, dealing with the political violence in Bolivia in 2008. Despite pessimistic forecasts about the bioregional relationship, the Madrid Summit, convened by the EU Spanish Presidency in May 2010, seemed to unlock the situation of stalemate of these relationships. The summit adopted a specific plan of action with concrete goals a positive step for the follow-up and the evaluation of the outcomes in the next summit; the setting up of the LAC-UE Foundation a device to promote, follow up, and analyze the situation of the bioregional relationship; and the Latin America Investment Facility (LAIF), a capital fund to support investments in regional interconnectivity infrastructure. But it s in the realm of the negotiation of Association Agreements agenda where the most significant outcomes can be found. First, both sides reached an agreement to relaunch the EU-Mercosur trade talks, stalled since 2004. It s true that important obstacles remain concerning market access for Mercosur agricultural products to the EU market, and Mercosur countries are reluctant to make concessions in intellectual property rights, and to grant EU business broad access to their markets in fields such as manufactured goods, and public procurement. But the agreement of Madrid seems to confirm that the context and the interests at stake are changing. Trade concerns The growing presence of Chinese exports and investments in LAC is a common concern for the manufacturing sector of Mercosur specifically in the automotive sector, in which EU firms have a strong presence. An important incentive comes from the EU concern about a probable US proposal to negotiate bilateral FTAs with Mercosur countries. This is a feasible scenario if the opposition leader José Serra wins the next presidential election in Brazil, because his party supports a more flexible Mercosur to Latin American and Caribbean report 3

ask for those agreements. Another factor is the concern to close the EU-Mercosur agreements before the accession of Venezuela, and the interest of Brazil s government to end Lula s Presidency with some success in trade policy, assuming that an agreement in the Doha Round of the WTO isn t feasible. Additionally, the EU signed bilateral FTAs with Peru and Colombia, albeit the last one has been controversial due to human rights concerns significantly, the US is unwilling to endorse the agreement with Colombia for this reason. The first interregional agreement between Central America and Panama and the EU was also signed after two years of trade talks. All of these are important steps in the old goal of building up a network of Association Agreements between the EU and LAC. They also showed that the EU combines bilateral and interregional approaches in its relationship with LAC. Considering all these results, the Madrid summit could be considered a relevant milestone in the EU-LAC partnership, but it s important to remember that summits must be assessed in the light of present challenges, and not only in the context of goals set up some years ago. To confront the economic crisis and other global problems requires a more ambitious agenda of interregional cooperation. Making the EU and LAC the global players that global governance is demanding. Latin American and Caribbean report 4

The war on drugs in Mexico and US cooperation Raúl Benítez-Manaut Fighting drugs in Mexico is not a new phenomenon. In the 1940s, responding to the growing demand in US markets, mainly in California and large cities like Chicago and New York, marijuana and heroin production in Mexico soared. Later, to control the border, the US government initiated in 1969 several campaigns to control drug trafficking and the Mexican army implemented Operation Condor aimed at destroying crops. Cocaine appeared in US markets in the late 1970s, and since sea and air access routes from South America had been interrupted, it was not until the 1990s that Mexican cartels became the main purveyors into the United States. What is now called the war on drug trafficking in Mexico whether a misnomer or not falls into the more general category of what have been labeled from a US military perspective as asymmetrical conflicts, low-intensity warfare, irregular wars, or wars without borders. Since Mexico is a transit country for cocaine, located between US consumers, where the profit is made (the US government recovers very little of the revenues from this criminal activity) and where the cocaine is produced (Colombia), this is undoubtedly a transnational conflict. This leads us to stress that this conflict does not exclusively involve Mexico, but a plurality of other state actors and that, accordingly, strategies have to be coherently multi-national. This conflict has also been called a war on drugs because the main instrument to cope with it has been the military. On the US side of the border, the fight against drugs has also been militarized with an increasing number of National Guard members involved. Pentagon and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) intelligence services closely collaborate with their Mexican counterparts, and it is openly recognized that most of important operations are carried out with US collaboration. US intelligence services understandably know a lot about drug trafficking in Mexico since it is from this country that drugs are taken into California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, and distributed from these collection sites to all 50 US states and even to Canada. A large part of the profits are also laundered and legalized in the United States, where weapons used by drug lords are bought in armory and weapon fairs protected by the US Constitution and laws on self-defense that make it easy for any citizen to purchase them. Since President Felipe Calderón took office in December 2006, Mexico has reported approximately 24,000 casualties in this war, 90 percent of whom were drug traffickers, 5 percent government officials and 5 percent innocent by-standers. These figures have alarmed the Mexican people and the international community. When Mexicans watch and hear stories about beheadings, executions, and bodies dissolved in acid every day on television, radio and in the newspapers, they are shocked and think the government Raúl Benitez Manaut is President of the civil society organization Colectivo de Análisis de la Seguridad con Democracia A.C. (CASEDE) and researcher at the the Centro de Investigaciones sobre América del Norte (CISAN), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Latin American and Caribbean report 5

is incapable of controlling the country, particularly drug traffickers. In this context, the national security debate has been focused on whether the war on drug trafficking is being won or lost, a discussion that is far from the recognition that Mexico is a failed state or that it is leaning that way (even though in some cities and states the argument could be made). Institutional fractures Criminal organizations are taking advantage of the weaknesses of Mexican national security structures for their own benefit. One of the most noteworthy dimensions is the lack of cooperation and coherence among the police, the military and the judiciary. The main arguments of the Mexican government s critics is that the constitutional and legal structure particularly the division of federal, state, and municipal powers is the main vulnerability of the Mexican state. This is why two of the main strategies implemented are trying to transform the federal government s capabilities. In the first place by reforming the sub-systems of national security, defense, intelligence, justice, and the police at the federal, state, and municipal government levels. And, secondly, by accepting US assistance to start up these structural reforms, and to get technology which is unavailable in the local market. Consequently, controlling violence and murder have surprisingly become new indicators of governability and government efficiency, indicating the real reason why President Felipe Calderón took the unprecedented step of recognizing the Mexican state s inability to fight big drug cartels alone and asked for help from the United States through the Mérida Initiative, a programme, which in its first phase (2008-2010) involves $1.4 billion. The future of the war on drugs in Mexico will depend on whether state institutions can be rebuilt; whether corruption the drug traffickers main weapon in weakening the state can be eliminated; whether all mechanisms of international cooperation such as the Mérida Initiative, among others, can be successfully articulated; and whether the fight against drugs can be demilitarized by implementing parallel programmes against addiction on the demand side, as well as preventive social and economic measures on the supply side. Latin American and Caribbean report 6

Security sector reform in contexts of drug-trafficking and organized grime: Colombia Mónica Serrano As in Colombia in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the spiral of violence in Mexico has prompted a new period of intense anti-narcotic cooperation with Washington. In July 2008, nine months after the joint US-Mexico Mérida Initiative declaration, the US Congress approved a package of $465 million $400 for México and $65 for Central America for a collaborative effort to tackle the drug problem and associated violence. Notwithstanding, the efforts of the Mexican authorities to dissociate the Mérida Initiative from the Plan Colombia (PC) the parallels speak for themselves. Perhaps more telling than similarities is the growing divergence in current assessments of Plan Colombia and Uribe s democratic security policy as a viable route to Security Sector Reform (SSR). Despite recent calls, including by former President Bill Clinton, for Mexico to go further down the road travelled by Colombia, there remain serious doubts about the wisdom of this approach. The implementation of the Mérida Initiative has brought into question the relevance of the Colombian model of institutional security reform. Colombia s achievements, particularly in bringing down the homicide and kidnapping rates, have often been cited in support of that model. Supporters of PC have also drawn attention to the re-assertion of the presence of state authorities, and more specifically the police, throughout the national territory, and the cornering of the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia). While these results have positively impacted the security perceptions within and beyond Colombia, achievements registered on certain fronts have been clearly eclipsed by developments in other areas. These include: the resilience of a robust cocaine economy, the rise of the parapolítica a dense network of political, business and rightwing paramilitary actors and the troublesome developments registered on the human rights front. Human rights costs: a long neglected reality The deployment of PC has coincided with the rise of the internally displaced population (IDP), turning Colombia into the country with the second largest IDP population, after Sudan. Underlying the massive and violent displacement of more than 3 million people lay powerful economic and political factors, which include the expansion of cattle ranching, the development of oil fields and the rise of the cocaine sector. Such a disheartening human rights landscape has been further aggravated by the persecution and violent repression of union leaders and human rights activists. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and AFL-CIO have borne witness to a horrific trend by which civilians and activists have been targeted and/or caught in the crossfire between the insurgents and the paramilitary. The dark numbers which, in the period between June 2006 and June 2008 had surpassed 3,000 were enlarged by a parallel rise in forced disappearances (319 in the same period) and the practice of extra-judicial executions by Mónica Serrano is Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, Professor of International Relations at El Colegio de México, and a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for International Studies, Oxford University. Latin American and Caribbean report 7

members of the armed forces. Already in 2004 Human Rights Watch had concluded that the dimension and extent of such abuses could not be explained without the consent, collusion and tolerance of the police and the armed forces. While the institutions of justice in Colombia have secured historic gains against the paramilitary and their powerful tentacles involving the political and business domains, it would be wrong to assume that those achievements have reached a conclusive point. Not only do they remain tentative and fragile, but also dependent on the fortune of a fortuitous and no less courageous coalition among a select group of judges and prosecutors, the Constitutional Court, as well as national and international civil society organizations and the media The economic costs of Plan Colombia and the Democratic Security Policy Efforts to recover minimum conditions of security in Colombia have not only consumed considerable human capacity and human lives, but also economic and material resources. In the period between 2000 and 2008, the US government allocated $6.2 billions to drug control efforts in Colombia ($4.9 billion were channeled to the military and the national police, and $1.3 billion to social, economic and justice sector programs). The Colombian government has not been far behind, increasing its security and defense expenditure by 30% between 2001 and 2006 reaching $ 4.4 billion. This trend has led to a considerable increase in the size of the armed forces and the police. While the armed forces grew from 181,000 troops at the end of the Pastrana administration to 285,554 troops under Uribe, the national police force increased from 110,123 officers in 2002 to 152,519 policemen in 2009. The drug predicament Colombia s predicament and Washington s uncomfortable stake in it has everything to do with the sheer resilience of the illicit drug economy. Years of intensive and concerted joint efforts to tackle the drug problem have not resulted in a clear-cut victory. While corruption scandals continue to harm the reputation of Colombia s security agencies, their ability to contain the drug economy remains in question. Behind the massive resources channeled to anti-narcotic efforts lies an unsettling reality: in the years between 2000 and 2006 cocaine cultivation in Colombia increased by 15% and cocaine production by 4%. Originally designed to dismantle the drug-economy, Plan Colombia can thus not be considered as an effective drug-control strategy. Although PC has been repackaged in some sectors as a successful counter-insurgency plan, the core problem facing Colombia today is not the insurgent threat but the buoyant illicit economy which raises significant doubts about the sustainability of recent security and justice reforms. Conclusion: a country divided Behind the recent shifts in voter opinion during the presidential campaign lie deeper rifts. While the success of PC has been celebrated by the Uribe administration and certain sectors in Washington, human rights organizations have called into question the policies that lie at the heart of the military success. The result has been a country divided between those ready to embrace the improvements perceived in their immediate security, and those who have come to the conclusion that the triumph cannot come at the expense of human rights. Latin American and Caribbean report 8