Mexico: Calderon says US demand driving Mexican Drug Wars

In an interview on the BBC TV show HardTalk, President Calderon said that so long as the US is the world's number one consumer of illicit drugs, the Mexican Drug Wars will continue.

While the US demand does drive the trafficking of illicit drugs, it is only part of the motivation behind these drug wars.

Another variable in this mess is the inability of the Mexican State's institutions to effectively police its national territory, and the host of HardTalk brings this up. Clearly, the drug cartels at some point made the decision to begin these wars with the idea that they could win them and in the end enjoy the spoils of war. This decision presupposes that they will be able to act with a certain degree of impunity due to a weak Mexican state. Add on top of that the inexperience the Mexican military has in regular police operations, the difficulty in co-ordinating regular police activities caused by the federal structure of their state, and the relative ease with which the regular forces of each institution can be corrupted by drug money, and the domestic aspect becomes apparent.

It is always easy to blame the US for the problems of the Latin American countries. But there comes a point when their politicians have to take on responsibility for the persistent state of societal turmoil, rejecting the idea that their fortunes are simply tied up in the whims of the Colossus of the North.

2010 Corruption Perceptions Index Shows Entrenched Corruption Still Prevalent in Latin America

Transparency International released it's international ranking of the perceived level of corruption in the world. 

"Transparency International(TI) defines corruption as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. This definition encompasses corrupt practices in both the public and private sectors. The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranks countries according to the perception of corruption in the public sector. "

Latin America is generally in the 2.0-5.9 range. The USA received a 7.1, and Canada got 8.9. The highest ranking was shared by New Zealand, Denmark, and Singapore at 9.3

Latin America as a rule ranges from a high of 7.2 in Chile and 6.9 in Uruguay, and every other country falls below them. Not a single Latin American country is in the Top 25. 

The Report compiles 13 reports by 10 independent organization, including Freedom House, Africa Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and the World Economic Forum. These reports generally had two different kinds of surveys. One polled business people and the other polled specialists in country and regional profiling. 

The experts were asked the two following questions with the associated ranking scales attached. 

“To what extent are there legal or political penalties for officeholders who abuse their

positions?”

• [10-9] As a rule, corrupt officeholders are prosecuted rigorously under established

laws.

• [8-6] As a rule, corrupt officeholders are prosecuted under established laws but

also slip through political, legal or procedural loopholes.

• [5-3] Corrupt officeholders are not prosecuted adequately under the law but

occasionally attract adverse publicity.

• [2-1] Officeholders can exploit their offices for private gain as they see fit without

fear of legal consequences or adverse publicity.

“To what extent can the government successfully contain corruption?

• [10-9] All integrity mechanisms are reasonably effective. They are actively

supported by the government.

• [8-6] Most integrity mechanisms are functioning, albeit partly with limited

effectiveness. The government provides almost all integrity mechanisms.

• [5-3] Some integrity mechanisms are implemented. Often, they remain ineffective;

their operation is impeded by private interests. The government’s motivation and

capacity to implement reforms is mixed.

• [2-1] Portions of the state are controlled by private interest groups; reform is

impeded by private interests, rendering most integrity mechanisms nonexistent or

ineffective

Latin American countries generally border the bottom two categories and trend downwards. All of these countries are supposed to have undergone a wave of democratization beginning in 1974 and accelerated with the fall of the Berlin Wall. These progresses have done little to improve the perception that the experts and business elites have of this region, demonstrating the longevity of the entrenched mixes of patronage, clientelism, bribery and other corruption.  

Find Out Who Is Sponsoring American Legislators using Influence-Tracker Tool [Wired]

This neat little website allows you to select an American legislator and then shows you who is their biggest sponsors by branding them with the company's/foundation's logo. I did it for John McCain, and found out he's received over $18 million dollars, more than any other Senator.

I think that it will be interesting to use this tool whenever a news story about American politicians comes up. When I became aware of Senators or Congressmen issuing opinions on Latin America, I plan on checking who their sponsors are and what relation this appears to have on their policies.

Here is the link: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/influence-tracker/

"Return to El Salvador" Movie Screening, Nov 9th

Here is the Liu Institute's event description.

Return to El Salvador: Film Screening and Discussion
Nov 9 2010	November 09, 2010 12:30 PM The Liu Institute for Global Issues, International Development Research Network (IDRN), and Centre for Global Environmental and Natural Resource Law invite you to a Film Screening and Discussion.
	Return to El Salvador, narrated by Martin Sheen, is the latest documentary from director Jamie Moffett, who explores the reconstruction of El Salvador, post-civil war. Return to El Salvador brings the struggles of this beleaguered country back into view and examines what drives over 700 Salvadorans to flee their homeland each day, often risking their lives to illegally enter countries in search of a better life for their families. It also profiles local opposition to mining activities and an ongoing legal dispute between a Canadian mining company and the government of El Salvador under the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Following a screening of the film (68 min), the speakers will discuss this dispute in more detail as well as current legislative proposals in Canada aimed at ensuring corporate accountability for Canadian firms operating abroad. Speakers: Hon. Peter Julian, MP for Burnaby-New Westminster Dr. Kyla Tienhaara, Australian National University. Chair: Natasha Affolder, Director, Centre for Global Environmental and Natural Resource Law Download the poster here. Please register at: http://return2elsalvador.eventbrite.com/
	Location: Liu Institute for Global Issues, Multipurpose Room Address: 6476 NW Marine Drive, Vancouver

Colombia: President Santos Making Prudent Foreign Policy Moves

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has made two significant moves in his country's foreign policy in the past week.

Santos has made several prudent foreign policy drives this
week, including a plan to normalize relations with Chavez's Venezuela. 

First, Santos' government announced that they would reestablish diplomatic ties with Venezuela that were severed last year when former President Alvaro Uribe alleged that Chavez was providing the FARC with material assistance. The two neighbouring countries will reportedly meet to discuss trade and border security, two issues of great importance towards regional integration and security.

The Democratic Security Strategy has dealt the FARC several significant set backs, such as the killing of top commanders (Raul Reyes in Ecuador in 2008, and Mono Jojoy on Sept 22nd, 2010)  and the demobilization of thousands of guerrillas. Reconciling with Venezuela will increase cooperation between the two militaries in patrolling the border, thereby eliminating one of the last areas of refuge for the guerrillas.  Stabilizing relations will lower tensions in the region, which have become a polarized with Chavez's (and other leftist leader's) continued criticism of US foreign policy and Colombia's decision in 2009 to grant the US access to seven military bases throughout Colombia.

Santos has also said that he expects a Colombia-Venezuela free trade agreement to become manifest by April 2011. These are very ambitious goals, especially given the ideological tension between the two governments and the recent history of foreign policy antagonisms. The  president of Colombia's National Business Association, Luis Carlos Villegas, announced in Aug that Colombia has found new markets for over two billion dollars previously exported to Venezuela. Bilateral trade between the two antagonists fell by 73% over the first quarter compared to the year before due to an informal ban over bilateral trade initiated by Venezuela. This new trade relationship will again increase demand for Colombian non traditional-exports (since Venezuela has oil a-plenty), and hopefully stay the feared Dutch Disease.

This economic condition occurs when a rise in natural resource production brings in a large amount of foreign capital and foreign direct investment, causing the national currency to appreciate and make every other of the nation's exports relatively more expensive for importing market. This happened to Colombia during the 1970s coffee boom, and some experts fear that  their rising export in oil is making it happen again. The Economist, in a special report on Latin America, has also noted the potential for Dutch Disease.  While Colombian oil exports increased by 80%, textile exports decreased by 53% in 2009. Oil production in September 2010 is higher than at any other point in the last ten years. The Colombian Central Bank statistics show that in 2002 44% of FDI was invested in the oil sector, and this figure rose to 77% in 2009. While resuming trade with Venezuela is not expected to be a panacea solution for this economic condition, it can at least be expected to mitigate against some of its effects.

Second, Santos has sought to further strengthen ties with the US, but instead seeking to reestablish their relationship as one between partners and equals instead of one of dependency between aid donor and receiver.

US Ambassador to Colombia, Michael McKinley, has spoken to Santos about forming an "alliance". The US has been hesitant to offer strictly termed 'alliances' in the past, instead preferring lesser informal agreements like 'Strategic Partnership's', or "Mutual Cooperation Treaty's". Israel for the longest time could not get the US to offer them an explicit alliance, despite being the number one recipient of US military aid for several years. So this is big news for Colombia. It represents the US recognition of Colombia as being fundamentally integral to US security interests, especially as the number one producer of cocaine that is trafficked to the US. It has given Colombia more than 8 billion dollars to fight counterinsurgency campaigns and drug enforcement in the past 10 years.

However, while the US does require that the Colombian military respect international Human Rights obligations as a condition on receiving this aid, it is becoming increasingly apparent that neo-paramilitary forces are committing widespread abuses which according to eyewitness account are operation with tacit consent from the authorities. A Human Rights Watch publication from earlier this year titled "Paramilitaries Heirs" chronicles these abuses, often committed against trade unionists, human rights activists, and victims of past crimes seeking restitution. The report alleges that the government is dragging its feet over countering these forces, because it would mean that their demobilization program of the Autodefensas Unidos de Colombia has been a total failure. Forcing the military to take action against them is also problematic, because Colombia's military has a much higher degree of autonomy from the civilian administration than us in the West are used to. In fact, it was a big triumph for Colombian democracy to even be able to replace the Minister of Defense with a civilian, or to compel them to mind Human Rights obligations and training. One of the institutional prerogatives they have retained over the nation's history is the right to determine for themselves what issues they should be focusing on. And right now, they been almost singularly focused on fighting the FARC, and be hesitant to pursue the paramilitaries because of their perceived superior ability they have to root out guerrilla sympathizers in civil society.

In any case, the paramilitaries are becoming an increasingly large menace that adds yet another actor to terrorize Colombians.  The paras perhaps even rival the threat posed by the guerrillas to the rule of law in this society because they are more enmeshed in civil society whereas the guerrillas are forced outside the bounds of it.

While the US continues to provide the Santos administration with support to extend the rule of law across all its sovereign territory, hopefully the US government can use its influence to Santos administration to address this growing human rights concern.

Canadian Labour Congress Writes Letter on Behalf of Jose Figureroa, former FMLN member facing deportation

Today, the campaign to save Jose Figueroa from deportation has gained additional momentum through the support of the Canadian Labour Congress.

The CLC encompasses represents over 3 million members and " brings together Canada's national and international unions, the provincial and territorial federations of labour and 130 district labour councils". 

The letter is addressed to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, and Mr. Jason Kenny, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism.

Photo taken from Vancouver Sun, Les Bazso.

It urges to the two ministers to reconsider the decision to deport Jose by the Canada Border Security Agency on the grounds that the FMLN "... is or was engaged in terrorism and/or subversion". The CBSA's ruling was influenced by a poor understanding of El Salvadorian history, overlooking the fact that the FMLN has been actively involved in the electoral processes of this country ever since a peace agreement was signed between them and the ARENA government. In fact, the FMLN today holds the Presidential Office, and the inauguration ceremony was attended by Minister of State of Foreign Affairs Peter Kent.  It does not make sense then to continue to punish former FMLN members with no relationship to whatever atrocities were committed during the civil war when El Salvador itself has reconciled and the group in question has won significant representation through electoral politics widely recognized as both Free and Fair.

This is a very encouraging development in the campaign to save Jose and keep his  family together in Canada.

I encourage you to check out Jose's blog http://josefigueroaimmigrationordeal.blogspot.com/ for up to the date information about his deportation situation.

Colombia: Ombudsmen admits that at least 50,000 people have been "forcibly disappeared"

On Tuesday, the Colombian Congress ratified United Nations' 2006 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

"Forced Disappearance" implies the kidnapping, torture, murder, and cover up by a state or sub-state organization, like the army, paramilitaries, or guerrillas.

Colombia has the most cases of disappeared persons in the world, with over 27,000 official registered cases. Even at the epoch of the Pinochet regime's brutality in Chile, often offered as a paragon of authoritarian brutality in Latin American,only 1,987 people were 'disappeared' .

Scholar Willian Aviles argues that between the guerrillas and the paramilitaries, the latter are much more vicious perpetrators of human rights violations. They act with tacit state approval and are enabled to eliminate alleged subversives, usually left wing activists,trade unionists, and demobilized guerrillas, while the army turns a blind eye.

The Democratic Security Strategy of former president Alvaro Uribe has been extended by the Santos administration. This policies prioritizes the military defeat of the FARC over a negotiated peace deal. This militarized approach continues to justify the existence of the neo-paramilitaries, who reappeared after the demobilization process of 2003 and often had ties with the drug trade.

While the Colombian state has recently charged and convicted criminal army officers involved in a "False Positives" case, more needs to be done to effectively demobilize these new paramilitaries if the conflict in Colombia can ever be brought to an end. The Colombian state needs to withdraw its support for the paramilitaries, tacit or otherwise, if ever it is to monopolize the legitimate use of violence within its territory and bring and end to the guerrilla and drug conflicts.

The Colombia Reports article can be found here:

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/12486-colombia-has-50000-disappeared-official.html

Prof. Carlos Fazio on the cause of Mexican militarization, corruption, and human rights abuses: sounds nice in theory...

On 19 Oct in my Latin American Government class, journalist and professor Carlos Fazio spoke about the militarization, corruption, and human rights abuses of Mexican society. I thought it was very interesting to have a real life figure in Latin American politics come into speak to us. I admire his courage in putting forth views that put him at risk of violent reprisal by those elements of society he seeks to expose in Mexico.

Professor Fazio argument went as follows. The US government, acting under the economic imperatives of maintaining the military-industrial complex and the capitalist system more generally, is interested in perpetuating the conflict which sustains the War on Drugs so that it may provide a pretext for the US to extend aid, usually of the military sort, which will bring the recipient country into a dependent relationship with it. Through international security agreements like the Security and Prosperity Pact, the USA compels countries like Mexico to undertake anti-drug measures which have historically shown little efficacy towards reducing either production of consumption of narcotics. Large infrastructure projects are financed in order to extend state presence over lands not effectively under state sovereignty. The government then becomes better able to manage the natural resources of their country, which are then sold off to American business interests.

Contrary to its officially stated purpose, the War on Drugs instead creates a pretext for American control over the natural resources of a country and over it`s political institutions. It enables the American administration to develop direct contacts with the military of the recipient country, which are needed to threaten instransient civilian administration who would dare to oppose US designs on world domination. Anti-drug aid is the proverbial foot in the door that eventually leads to the establishment of US military bases in the recipient country. The seven bases given to the US military in Colombia in the past year comes within a decade of the beginning of Plan Colombia in 1999. Professor Fazio argues that the US government in fact has no incentive to faithfully seek an end to the turmoil of the drug wars in Latin American since around `80%`of the profits from the drug trade stay inside the country.

Professor Fazio also claims that Mexico is beginning to show the early symptoms of a social cleansing campaign of undesirable elements of society. In Latin America, paramilitaries are often supported and guided to achieve some desired aim by official state institutions that are otherwise bound by the legal system. Acting with impunity, paramilitaries are tacitly empowered to attack those suspected of belonging to any identified undesirable group, guerrillas in the case of Colombia, and drug traffickers in the case of Mexico. He cites the killings of drug addicted teens by masked men in the heavily militarized Ciudad Juarez as evidence for this claim. He wonders: How could such a bold act of murder occur without bringing those responsible to justice in a city that is occupied by more than 7,500 troops stationed there with the explicit aim of ending such violence? An opinion also shared by a recent article in Reuters, Professor Fazio further alleges that the bosses of some drug cartels are protected by the official state institutions and allowed to act with impunity while poor Mexicans are scapegoated in order to boost the statistics and show artificial success in the war on drugs.

I got the impression from Professor Fazio that he lays primary responsibility for the failure of democracy in Latin America at the feet of what he perceives are the inherently wicked designs of American foreign policy. That the evidence he provides supports his theory, there can be little doubt. But if one disagrees with his base assumptions about the intentions of US foreign policy upon which his theory is based, the rest of Prof. Fazio's hypothesis has little to offer.

Is it in fact the case that US administration officials across many administrations have embarked upon on a coherent policy plan of cold blooded rational analyses of their perceived self-interest to bring about the reality Prof. Fazio describes?

I find that this argument overstates the incidence of realpolitik calculations of interests and ignores the role that values and ideals play in American policy making. While surely any country can stray from the standards it claims to pursue , anyone knowledgeable in US history knows that the Americans perceive themselves to be the bearers of liberal democratic civilization. With the end of the Cold War, the preference for democracy and its active promotion in the world were again dominant. By supposing that successive US administrations, through their championing of the War on Drugs, have in fact been involved in a grand design to undermine the very ideals which underlie American society, I think is too much of a departure from reality.

Is it possible that President's Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and Obama have actively sought to enslave Latin American governments through military aid?

Sure it is, especially considering one's partisan feelings towards any of these former executives. But is it probable that this is the case? Not likely. A fortune could be made by any disgruntled bureaucratic bold enough to blow the whistle on any of these policies, and the evidence of which would be clearly welcome in some segments of the international community.

Instead of blaming the foreign policy of the US, one can also look at domestic factors which have inhibited the formation and consolidation of effective, accountable, and transparent democracy regimes in Latin America.

One is the unique history of the region, which is punctuated with military institutions not subordinate to civilian rule. When the military feels that the civilians are threatening the constitution with radical policies, or when they try to take away military prerogatives, the military often sets in and assumes control while the government is reorganized. This was seen in Chile in 1973, and Brazil in 1963, and most recently in the coup attempt in Venezuela in 2002.

Another is the extreme social inequality that the democratic systems preside over. This gross dissimilarity in the distribution of wealth and other benefits from the system engenders little commitment to the democratic regime on the part of disaffected citizens. Also, clientelistic patronage relationships are more easily maintained when the population is so poor that they simply cannot resist the handouts offered by the party machines. This persistent economic disparity can also make the population prone to popular appeals seeking anti-democratic ends.

Blaming the US for the failures to consolidate Latin American democracies without including domestic variables as well is a misguided and selective overemphasis of certain facts over others.

Colombia: More Revelations of Institutional Corruption by Narcos

Further revelations have been made about the extent to which the narcotic trade has infiltrated and corrupted Colombia's institutions.

The first case involves former head of the Prosecutor General Office Valencia Cossio. He was arrested in 2008 for his alleged links to notorious Colombian drug trafficker Daniel Rendon, alias `Don Mario`. As Prosecutor General, he was responsible for the direction of investigative justice in Colombia, and also presides over Anti Money Laundering initiatives. Clearly, if it is proven that he had links with powerful narco-traffickers, this will have been a considerable corruption of the justice institution in Colombia.

On Tuesday, the US Treasury Department added the former official to their list of Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers. This list encompasses all those persons or businesses worldwide who are deemed to be threats to American national security for their involvement in the drug trade. Once on the list, the person or business cannot do business with any US citizen, and can have any American assets frozen. More than 750 businesses and people are now on this list, including some Soccer team franchises.

The second case involves the Colombian Military. A soldier stationed in eastern Colombian named John Quirama testified before the Prosecutor General`s Office that his army unit took money from paramilitary drug traffickers in exchange for protection and persecution of of their rivals. Quirama said that his army unit was receiving bribe money from Carlos Mario Jimenez, alias Macaco, even after he officially demobilized in 2005. But the army`s services were free to the highest bidder. In May 2007, Quirama said that another supposedly demobilized paramilitary Cuchillo outbid Macaco, and even offered rewards for soldiers who killed his rival`s men.

By constitutional design, the Colombian military has significant autonomy to set anti drug policy and strategy as they like. In their examination of the history of the violence in Colombia, scholars Aleida Ferreyra and Renate Segura note that in Colombia the military has often been simply another violent actor in the state`s political conflict, and has not lived up to the modern expectation that it behave as an impartial institution. It is feared by some that exposure to the drug trade will corrupt this institution and ultimately undermine it`s ability to provide for the law and order protect the sovereignty of the state it is tasked with upholding. Others, like Professor Barracca at the University of Texas, argue that the corruption of the army is limited to the few rogue officers which break with official institutional directives, and does not threaten the supremacy of the democratic system itself. But without civilian oversight, the army is more or less free to address this issue internally.

While these two cases of significant corruption of the states`institutions are shocking, it can be hoped that they remain isolated instances limited to the particular people involved. There are not as of yet indications of systematic corrupt similar to what occurred during the days of Pablo Escobar. In the meantime, let`s hope that the Colombian government is able to continue to punish corrupt officials and extend accountability and transparency over it`s institutions, as was done in a recent case involving `the False Positives`scandal.

Can Mexican Democracy Survive Drug Violence?

On Oct 16^th, at a meeting with a delegation of European Union officials, Mexican President Felipe Calderon denied allegations that the recent wave of violence in Mexico was analogous to what Colombia experienced in the 1980s. Only hours later, former Presidential Candidate Diego Fernandez de Cevallo went missing, suspected to have been kidnapped.

Calderon denied that organized crime was taking hold in Mexico as it did in Colombia during the reign of terror caused by Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel. During this time, Pablo Escobar himself was elected into Colombia’s congress while earning a fortune as the leader of the world’s biggest cocaine trafficking network. Bribery and corruption were commonplace in the government, and the murder rate was through the roof. In particular, policemen and politicians who threatened Escobar’s interests were targeted and killed by his hit men.

In Mexico these days, these stories are frighteningly commonplace. On 15 March, three people connected to the US Consulate were gunned down in a drive by shooting. On 4 Oct, an armed gang abducted 20 men, and have yet to be found. Suspected drug hitmen ambushed a police convoy, killed 8 officers on 12 Oct. On 13 Oct, a Mexican police chief who was investigating the disappearance of a US man killed by pirates while we was jet skiing. The Police chief had received death threats to stay out of the gang’s territory. On Wednesday his decapitated head was found in a suitcase near a Mexican army base. In all, it is reported by BBC that 28,000 people have been killed in drug related violence since the beginning of Calderon's term in 2006. Every day there are more and more stories like these, and it doesn’t seem that there are any signs that it is going to end soon.

Mexico seems to be in the early stages of what Colombia went through in the 1980s. So far there have not been many cases of political corruption in the higher levels of government tied to the drug trade, but it may be the case that higher level links just have not been revealed yet. There have been several indications of lower level corruption in the political system. 3,200 police officers were fired at the end of August for links with criminals. Drug gangs have intimidated populations through the killing of congressional candidates and mayors, including the torture and murder of Nicholas Leon, two time mayor of port city Lazaro Cardenas. Further indicative of a potential development down the path to 1980s Colombia, some cartels like La Familia Michoacana have sought political and social standing in society as well and use evangelical-type recruitment methods to garner support.

That extreme levels of violence must influence the electoral choices of Mexicans cannot be denied. It provides the context that Mexicans are living in right now. Despite Calderon's claims, it seems that America's southern neighbour is indeed travelling the same path as Colombia.

Mexicans can take some consolation in the fact that their democratic institutions are likely to outlive this wave of violence. Professor Steven Barracca at the University of Texas argues that while drug related corruption hinders anti-drug efforts by the police and military, it does not undermine the principle of civilian supremacy in Mexican democracy. Even though the times ahead will be bloody, frustrating, and at times hopeless, Mexican democracy will survive this violent interlude and strengthen their institutions much the same as Colombia.

Colombia Strengthens Military Accountability

Beginning in 2004, former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe began a controversial security policy aimed at reasserting Colombian sovereignty over vast swathes of the countryside. This land had fallen under the defacto rule of the Fuerzas Armadas Revoluionarios de Colombia (FARC),a long lived left-wing guerrilla movement. The FARC had become an increasingly effective fighting force over the 1990s and early 2000s as the group began to receive a massive boost in resources through their increased involvement in the drug trade. They had become able to maintain a sophisticated structure of roaming military divisions capable of a engaging in sustained combat operations with the police and military. There were even instances of the FARC capturing and destroying whole police stations. Uribe's "Democratic Secutiry Strategy" prioritized military defeat of the FARC over a negotiated political settlement, mainly in response to the perceived failure of the political option during the Pastrana Administration. While the policy has been very successful in weakening FARC's command and control structure, it has regrettably led to several political scandals for the Uribe's administration that underscore the difficulties the Colombian state is still having in consolidating it's democracy.

The "Parapoliticas" scandal broke out in 2006 when evidence arose of the ties between Colombian politicians and the right wing paramilitaries that showed how criminal groups tied to drug trafficking and violence were allowed to intimidate leftist groups. Also, it became increasingly apparent that the Army itself was perpetrating extra-judicial killings in order to inflate their numbers to give the appearanc ethat more guerrillas were being killed than actually were. These scandals expose the difficulty the Colombian state continues to have in maintaining transparent and accountable institutions acting within the rule of law.

However, recently there has been an encouraging development in making the Army accountable to the Colombian judicial system. Eight elite Colombian soldiers were found guilty of the extra-judicial killing of a civilian who they claimed was a left-wing guerrilla. Hopefully, this ruling will show the Colombian army that they cannot act with impunity and must act within the bounds of law set by the civilian administration.

Here is the BBC story:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11520225

A Whole Lotta Law, Not A Lotta Justice

Today I attended a Teach In with my Poli 332 Latin American Governments class at the Liu Institute for Human Rights at UBC about the case of Jose Figueroa, an El Salvadorian man facing deportation from Canada for his involvement with the "Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional" (FMLN) organization. After being upfront about his involvement with this group when he came to Canada in 1997, the Canadian Boarder Services Agency (CBSA) served Mr. Figueroa with a notice for an ‘inadmissibility hearing’ in December 2009 that alleged his affiliation with the FMLN during the El Salvadorian civil war made him a threat to Canadian society. That the FMLN is not on Canada’s official list of Terrorist Groups is apparently irrelevant to being assessed a national security threat in this case, although I do not see how. While the old adage says that one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist, this saying hardly applies to Mr. Figueroa’s case.

Mr. Peter Engelmann, Mr. Figueroa’s laywer, described the Canadian security legislation as being aimed broadly at terrorist groups generally and defines 'membership' in a terrorist group loosely, rather than based upon a well-defined account of what constitutes a terrorist organization and membership in it. Canada’s security legislation adopted post-9/11 defined membership in such a way as to include anyone who is a part of an affiliated organization. Whether or not that group actually participated in any terrorist attacks or not is irrelevant to the Canadian legislation. While it was expected that government officials would be able to use their discretion in the judicial use of these broadly defined security powers, this has clearly not been the case for Mr. Figueroa.

Mr. Figueroa was indeed a member of the FMLN, but he was only a recruiter at the University of El Salvador working through the Student Union. His job was not to knowingly recruit students for clandestine operations bombing government forces as one might have reasonably guessed for someone facing deportation for terrorism allegations. Beginning in 1985 he simply raised awareness of the worsening abuses that the Arena government was perpetrating on the Salvadorian people, and tried to get students to join up. He bears no special responsibility for what these members did or did not do after joining.

Canadian law describes a terrorist act as one that knowingly and willingly targets civilian non-combatants to achieve the groups desired end state. During the civil war, atrocities were being committed on both sides. A faction of the FMLN certainly undertook a systematic and organized campaign to intimidate and kill elected civilian mayors in parts of El Salvador. The perpetrators of these murders, and all others, need to be brought for justice so that El Salvador can recover from its past and move on towards a better future. But to arrive at a proper understanding of the complex phenomenon that was the El Salvadorian civil war, one must also take into account the context within which the FMLN was active. The UN Truth Commission found that 85% of the violence was undertaken by agents of the states, often paramilitary death squads who persecuted suspected subversive elements of society.

Today, FMLN enjoy widespread support in El Salvador. This is a picture of the party's national convention in 2009.

Sadly, Mr. Figueroa has been determined by the CBSA to be inadmissible to Canada despite the fact that the FMLN is not on any state’s list of terrorist groups, and is in fact at the head of the legitimately elected government of El Salvador. As has been mentioned, he was a student recruiter and the case against him does not involve any allegation that he was a combatant. Mr. Figueroa never harmed anybody directly, and has been upfront with the Canadian government the entire time he has been here.

 But Mr. Figueroa bears no responsibility for the actions of these persons. The decisions for this assassination campaign were made by higher-ups, so it does not make sense to find Mr. Figueroa inadmissible to Canada on that basis.

The UN Truth Commission report, in a section called "Phenomenology of Violence", argued that every member of an organization cannot be held responsible for the actions of other members, unless it was evident that the entire organization was engaged in said activities in a systemic matter. The FMLN was founded upon a desire to end the intense repression perpetrated by the state government through peaceful protest, not through illegal killings. Therefore it makes no sense to lump together those members engaged in honest awareness raising of an objective reality with those few who committed atrocities.

Perhaps even more unjust than the deportation itself will be the effect it has on his family. He has an autistic son who will be faced with two possible realities: a future without a father but with proper education for someone with his condition in Canada, or a future with a father but with inadequate education facilities in El Salvador. Either way, his son will be missing something very important in his life.

The final decision on Mr. Figueroa’s case now rests with the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Immigration, who could both individually give him special exemption from the finding of his inadmissibility hearing. That his future hangs in the balance waiting for a politician in Ottawa to wake up one morning with the answer to this complex issue is perhaps the topic for another blog post, but here I will say it reflects poorly on the democratic accountability and transparency of our government’s security policies.

If you are interested in learning more about Mr. Figueroa’s case, please check out his own blog at http://josefigueroaimmigrationordeal.blogspot.com/ .