SECSTATE Kerry - Latin America Relations (and Drugs)

What about John Kerry, the new SECSTATE? Here's one piece of advice for Secretary Kerry, but it's advice that Kerry's master, President Obama isn't likely to agree with:

En su nuevo cargo de secretario de estado norteamericano, John Kerry tiene una gran oportunidad para compensar el desinterés con el que Obama trató a América Latina durante su primera presidencia. Como veterano observador de los asuntos de América Latina, creo que las principales prioridades de Kerry en la región deberían ser: (1) revivir un enérgico programa de libre comercio, (2) aumentar el apoyo que presta Estados Unidos a las instituciones que hacen cumplir la ley en países plagados por la violencia como Honduras y Guatemala, y (3) hacer de la Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA) un vehículo más efectivo para promover y defender la democracia. Esas iniciativas enviarían señales positivas a los aliados y asociados democráticos de Washington. (Jaime Daremblum -- fue embajador de Costa Rica en los Estados Unidos) 

A friend of mine who works for USGOV explained the US ambivalence toward Mexico this way: It's difficult to get people to notice trouble in their own backyard. It's just tough - sort of like not cutting your own lawn because the neighbor across the street is shooting porno movies with the windows open.

President Otto Perez Molina

Secretary Kerry will continue to hand-hold with the authoritarian governments in Latin America because President Obama is more comfortable with them than he is with those governments who trend on the democratic side of politics. At the moment, George Soros (think what you will of him) is spending a lot of time in Guatemala, sleazing around with President Otto Perez Molina. Soros' official position is that he wants to combat illegal narcotics trafficking. If that's his intent, perhaps Perez Molina isn't the best of people to do it with because the esteemed president has been strongly alleged to be a major precursor dealer with Mexican drug cartels, Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion being the foremost. Maybe that's only in his past? Perhaps he has reformed and reinvented himself.

Even though Secretary Kerry doesn't seem to know it (yet), there are tense times coming for the Republic of Mexico as President Enrique Pena Nieto stands at the helm of the Mexican ship of state. That ship will be running over a lot of rocks and shoals this summer as they fight established drug cartels, all the time managing the drug business themselves more and more outside of traditional narco circles (with the intent of avoiding violence). It's like dancing on quicksand with a pogo stick. If Kerry and the Obama Administration link themselves too closely with the Mexican regime, they could very easily be accused of drug dealing themselves as the US closes on the 2014 mid-term elections.

The US is unlikely to give any serious attention to Latin America under an Obama Regime  (see the porno movie analogy above) because the President and the NSC is focused on Africa and the Middle East.

Corruption in the Mexican Government

This is hardly news to anyone who follows the situation in Mexico but I'm re-posting it here simply for the sake of context with my other contributions to the digital record.

Context

Edgar (La Barbie) Valdez Villarreal

Edgar (La Barbie) Valdez Villarreal (DOB 11 August 1973 - in Laredo, Texas) rose through the ranks of the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO) and became head of one faction of that cartel after it split following the death of Arturo Beltran Leyva in 2009. La Barbie was a particularly vicious and bloodthirsty narco, specializing in torture and decapitation on video tape. The Mexican Federal Police arrested him near Mexico City on August 30, 2010 and he faces charges in both Mexico and the United States.

On 27 November 2012, Erendira Joselyn Guerra Gutierrez, a lawyer representing Edgar Valdez Villarreal, submitted a letter to Reforma signed by his client. The letter was included in the 28 November edition of the paper and was translated as follows:

Principal Content

First of all, I want to make it clear that I did not agree to become a protected witness. Furthermore, I categorically deny the statements made by the arresting officers regarding the manner in which I was actually arrested. The truth regarding what really happened is as follows:

My arrest was the result of a political persecution carried out by Felipe Calderon Hinojosa. He began harassing me after I refused to participate in an arrangement he was making with multiple organized crime groups. He (President Calderon) conducted a series of meetings with organized crime group operators to discuss the agreement. After this, he (President Calderon) and Juan Camilo Mouriño ordered General Mario Arturo Acosta Chaparro to hold meetings with two La Familia Michoacana leaders, Heriberto Lazcano, Miguel Angel Treviño, aka El Z-40, Arturo Beltran Leyva, aka El Barbas, and El Chapo Guzman.

General Mario Arturo Acosta Chaparro,
bag man for Presidente Filipe Calderon Hinojosa

Calderon wanted to form a truce with Los Zetas, the Gulf Cartel, the Juarez Cartel, Vicente, Mayo, El Chapo, and myself. I refused to be part of the truce because I did not want to be connected to any other cartel. For this reason, he (Calderon) began pursuing me. He ordered police to raid several of my properties without a legal search warrant during which time they stole cash, jewelry, and vehicles from me.

Genero Garcia Luna

I attest that I paid bribes to the following individuals: 

- Genaro Garcia Luna, Head of the SSP (Secretary of Public Security) since 2002 

- Armando Espinosa de Benito, Regional Chief of Investigation for the Federal Police

- Luis Cardenas Palomino, Regional Chief of Investigation for the Federal Police 

- Edgar Eusebio Millan Gomez, Commissioner of the Federal Protective Police

- Fracisco Javier Garza Palacios, Secretary of Public Security for Colombia

- Igor Labastida Calderon, Commander, Agency for Federal Investigation (PGR)

- Facundo Rosas Rosas, Commissioner of the Federal Police

- Ramon Eduardo Pequeño Garcia, Chief of the Anti Drug Division of the Federal Police

- Gerardo Garay Cadena, Chief of the Federal Protective Police

I know that police were ordered to kill me, not arrest me. My arrest was carried out at the residence reported by media sources (an area known as La Cañada de Alferez in the Salazar village of Lerma, Mexico State). Police stated that no shots were fired during my arrest but that is a lie. The police officer that transported me that day encouraged me to run so that he could shoot me. In that manner, authorities could say that I attacked them and that they had to shoot in self-defense. This is how they killed Aron Arturo Gines Becerril; officers shot him in the back after he fled from them near the Perisu shopping center.

Genaro Garcia Luna still holds his position despite the fact that he has been accused of criminal activity before the American government, during discussions regarding the Merida Initiative, and through statements made by Mateo, a protected witness (Sergio Villarreal).

Federal police do not report seizures during arrests of items including drugs, vehicles, etc. On the contrary, SEDENA and SEMAR personnel are a bit more honest, they carry out arrests and report seizures.

I am guilty of my crimes, but they, the government officials that I mention here, are also part of the organized crime structure in this country. 

Signed, Edgar Valdez Villarreal

Commentary

It's really no secret that President Calderon shook down the cartels for money shortly after his election. The only people who seem to deny the fact is the leadership of the United States Government, who would rather look the other way where heads of state are involved.

It's also no secret that President elect (President as of 5 days ago) Enrique Pena Nieto had similar meetings between his election and his installation as President of Mexico. The United States Government is reluctant to accept even PHOTOS of these meetings because to do so would undermine their diplomatic efforts with the new Mexican President. It's traditional for Mexican Presidents to conduct these high level meetings to arrange for taxes to be paid by the cartels to the government for the personal enrichment of its leadership. Thus the commonly held statement - you enter the Mexican Presidency as a millionaire and leave a billionaire.

Greasing the Machine

While nobody talks about it, there is no doubt but what every Mexican Administration for the past fifty years has been complicit in the drug trade. Some are more engaged than others, but there doesn't seem to be much difference between Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) and Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI. Both sell plazas to favored drug kingpins and then work diligently to protect their financial interests by shielding those plazas and drug trafficking routes. There are always sacrificial goats who end up in prison (usually paroled on weekends to visit their families and attend family fiestas).

Partido de la Revolución Democrática, PRD, the Mexican version of a 'communist party' tries to hold themselves as somehow above the narco mix but in the last election they (key party members) accepted contributions from known narcos and from their attorneys. They were paid less than their PRI counterparts because nobody expected them to win, but they still were rewarded for dragging the sack from place to place in search of money.

It may be instructional for people now and in the future who read this blog to understand how the pay-offs happen and the mechanisms that make it work.

When some of this information that you're going to read was presented to Vice President Joe Biden, he wanted to know how it differed from the way things were handled in the United States. 

In Mexico, it's not all that tough to know who the narcos are. And if you're a politician taking a briefcase or a suitcase full of cash from a known narco attorney -- you know where the money is coming from. And you also know that if you win, you will owe favors, which will be called due and payable in time.

In the same way that I know that the Sinaloa Federation is using the Estancion Abuya Airfield near Culiacan as their principal airstrip and that they're no longer using the airport at Imala, politicians know what is going on around them. That's what they do. Politicians worldwide obtain contributions (clean and dirty) by knowing what their constituency wants and being able to deliver the goods.

In the same way as people know who the alcalde (mayor) is in a town, they know which thug runs the organized crime rackets. For example:  If you live in Coahuayana de Hidalgo, you know that the regional narco is El Del Los Cortes Finos and that he reports to Servando Gomez Martinez (La Tuta). 

Back to the issue of political bag men in Mexico. Sometimes the plazas are sold by the President's family. In the Fox Administration, it's rumored that his wife, Marta Shagun's sons sold the plazas directly. I don't know who President Pena Nieto will select as attorney general. There are rumors and it might be Ignacio Morales Lechuga, who served in that role under President Carlos Salinas de Gotiari (1991-93). Whether PGR will lead the effort at collection or not becomes a political decision that may not yet have been made.

One thing is certain, plazas will be sold, landing rights will be guaranteed at certain airstrips and some ports (Manzanillo is high on the list as is Puerto Lazlo Cardenas) will be guaranteed as ports of entry for narcotics precursors and cocaine coming north from South America. It's how business has always been done and there is no indication that it will change.