Introducing the Real Mexico

Mexico is more than revolutions, drug smugglers, and undocumented immigrants. The country's probable new president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, founded the political party, Movement for National Regeneration (Morena), that expects to bring him to power in tomorrow's election on July 1, 2018. Victory over the earlier ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRD) and the National Action Party (PAN) would be much different from the bloody revolutios that once brought, for example, a Victoriano Huerta to his provisional presidency.

     Northern Mexico reaps prosperity from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Unskilled, cheap labor initially attracted US. factories south of the border, but these opportunities in Mexico helped create a new, educated cadre with up-to-date experience. Sister city mayors of Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego, California, think in terms of a single urban region. A privately financed bridge enables travelers to walk back and forth between San Diego and the Tijuana Airport.

     As a presidential candidate, Lopez Obrador tapped into the feelings of southern Mexicans watching norther Mexicans thrive. He promised to pave roads through the south's mountainous Oaxaca state and to add oil refineries in the southern states of Tabasco and Campeche. In an effort to eliminate food imports, he proposes price guarantees for crops grown by southern farmers. Rising oil prices also expect to help Mexico recover from export revenue losses when prices collapsed in 2014. Yet, to gain electoral support, Mr. Lopez Obrador made a variety of expensive proposals, including a pension for the elderly and disabled, scholarships, and water system improvements. In one instance, Mr. Lopez Obrador is known for an extreme measure.  Residents in Tabasco, at his suggestion, did not pay their electric bills for two decades, thereby costing the company money and causing power to be disconnected periodically.

     From China, the new president is likely to accept an offer of loans to build a railway north of Guatemala to connect the states of Quintana Roo and Chiapas and to builld another road/rail connection through Tehuantepec to the Oaxaca and Veracruz states west of Mexico's southern isthmus. By working with China, Mexico would demonstrate how different international relationships are from 1823, when the Monroe Doctrine told Europe the United States considered any attempt to extend its influence in the Western Hemisphere a threat to its "peace and safety."

     Mexico's new leadership will have only one term to deal with two traditional problems. Drug gangs and the associated increase in murders and violence provide President Trump with justification to build a border wall. Yet, the US demand for cocaine and other illegal substances perpetuates the drug trade. Related turf wars among dealers cause violence and murders in the US and foreign countries, and the arrests of drug dealing criminals fill US prisons. In 2018, Mexico is on track to break the record for murders it set in 2017. With 22 homicides per 100,000 people, Mexico has one of the world's highest rates. The Tijuana arts council building on the site of a concrete-encased structure reminds those on the roof viewing California and those escaping across the border that the art gallery below them is in a tunnel that once carried drugs into the United States.

     Besides inheriting a traditional drug transit destination, Mr. Lopez Obrador also would inherit Mexico's reputation for corruption. Implementation of a National Anticorruption System (NAS) has been on hold pending the results of the presidential election. NAS requires:

• An independent national anticorruption prosecutor devoted to investigating and trying criminal cases,
• An autonomous Federal Administrative Court specializing in serious cases of bribery, vanishing public funds, benefits from campaign contributions, and other acts of corruption by administrative officials,
• Adoption of local anticorruption systems in each Mexican state, and
• A national computerized data platform capable of supporting NAS's objectives.

Facing an increased crackdown on corruption, companies doing business in Mexico are wise to finance serious compliance programs, and Mr. Lopez Obrador would be wise to make good on his presidential campaign promises to eliminate corruption and to abide by Mexico's rule of law.


     

Cut Off the Head and the Colombian Snake Dies?

 In fact, eliminating the head of a drug cartel can spawn a host of little drug organizations, Jack Devine wrote in his book, Good Hunting. What happened after Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and Qaddafi were eliminated? What have those who watched the TV version of the successful hunt and death of Pablo Escobar, Colombia's notorious drug lord, witnessed after Colombia's June 17 election? The 2,000-member National Liberation Army (ELN), though smaller than FARC's once 18,000 guerrillas, is demonstrating the challenge separate dedicated cells can present.

During 50 years that resulted in 220,000 deaths, the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of  (FARC) used drugs to finance efforts to overthrow the Colombian government. Coca cultivation for the cocaine trade continues to grow, reaching a new high in 2018 with a 17% increase over 2017. Security forces have failed to stop the violence occurring in former FARC areas where cocaine production continues on the Colombian border.

 President Juan Manuel Santos, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for the 2016 peace accord he negotiated with FARC, could not run for another term. Two potential presidential successors emerged from the May 27 primary this year:
     Ivan Duque, the conservative Democratic Central party candidate mentored by Alvaro Uribe, a     major critic of the Santos peace accord and Colombia's former conservative, authoritarian president, who is now accused of accepting a bribe (a charge he denies) from right wing paramilitary groups,
                                                                 ans
     Gustavo Petro, a pro-peace former guerrilla member and former mayor of Bogota who also           opposed President Santos.

Duque won with 45% of the vote and will take office as President on August 7. Petro may not be the only loser. When FARC controlled as much as 40% of the country, a diverse variety of species was untouched in this wide tropical area. Under Santos, scientists working on the "Colombia BIO" project began a comprehensive systematic survey in the former FARC territory with the idea of transforming biological assets into economic benefits, such as the eco-tourism Chile and Argentina plan to attract with their national park systems featuring biodiversity.  How important the new regime considers funding for "Colombia BIO" is unknown.

What is known is fragmented FARC and ELN guerrilla groups, as well as paramilitary forces, continue to fight for control of the coca fields still being cultivated to supply the demand for cocaine in the US and elsewhere. Infrastructure needed to switch to legal crops and approved funding for former FARC members to set up co-ops have not materialized 

ELN members live without uniforms in towns and villages as civilians who infiltrate political parties, local governments, progressive social movements, and universities. A 5-man central command, headed by Jaime Galvis, that uses encrypted computers to direct attacks has never engaged in serious peace talks.

Despite the problem of even getting ELN to a negotiating table, Duque's supporters continue to consider peace treaty terms with FARC too lenient. His congressional leader, Ernesto Macias, rejects the peace accord's provision that imposes no prison time on disarmed FARC leaders who agree to confess their crimes to a special tribunal based on the model South Africa used after apartheid. Ten non-voting members of FARC; including Sandra Ramirez, the lover of FARC's founder, Manuel Marulanda, now hold seats in Congress. Duque, who studied at Georgetown and worked for the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C., won election on a vague  plan to foster entrepreneurship, talent, and knowledge that had more appeal to voters than Petro's idea about replacing oil, the country's major export, with a green economy based on agribusiness. Duque needs the cooperation of Macias to pass legislation to reform Colombia's pension system by raising the retirement age, to improve court efficiency, and to reduce corporate taxes.

     In September, 2018, a referendum on seven measures designed to stem corruption was defeated, when only a third of the voters needed to pass it went to the polls. The death of Jorge Enrique Pizano in his home, apparently from cyanide poisoning in November, 2018, finds Colombia involved in one of the Odebrecht bribery cases spilling over from Brazil. Partners, the Odebrecht construction firm and the Grupo Aval financial group owned by Colombia's Luis Carlos Sarmiento, won a $1.6 billion contract to build Ruta del Sol, a road connecting Bogota with the Caribbean beaches. A Grupo Aval auditor, the deceased Mr. Pizano , had discovered $30 million of the $1.6 billion contract was paid for what were listed as consultancies that could have been a cover for what were, at least in part, political bribes. Grupo Aval and Nestor Humberto Martinez, Grupo Aval's attorney, denied prior knowledge about $11 million in bribes Odebrecht admitted to the U.S. Department of Justice it paid to obtain the Ruta del Sol contract. Yet in early 2018, Mr. Pizano had given the Noticias Uno TV program recordings of his secret conversations with Mr. Martinez about the consultancy payments. Mr. Martinez, who is now Colombia's Attorney General, has recused himself from all cases, including Mr. Pizano's death, relating to the Ruta del Sol contract. Public pressure urges his resignation. 

Colombia has seen an influx of as many as 1.5 million immigrants fleeing dire political and economic conditions in neighboring Venezuela. Work permits, health benefits, and study opportunities have been provided for at least 442,000 as a return favor for the hospitality Venezuela offered those fleeing FARC's reign of terror. To cover Colombia's growing need for revenue, Duque considered expanding the value-added-tax to include staples, including some foods, that are now excluded, but Duque is likely to find his approval rating drop the way Santos' did to 14%, when he raised taxes. In fact, Duque's approval rating in November already is half the 54% it was a month after he took office.


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