News Coverage of Mexican Drug War

If you are interested in following US news coverage of the Mexican drug war, the LA Times has an interesting section on their webpage that groups together all of their stories relating to drug trafficking and drug related violence in (or connected to) Mexico. It is all collated by date, but you can also get the stories listed by dateline, byline, or type of article (video, story, etc.). It would make a great resource for looking at US media coverage of the issue.

 One of the articles in the special section address the problem of drugs coming in through Central America. It looks at the case of El Salvador in particular, a country that, in the past, hasn't really seen the same type of drug trafficking as Guatemala has. The story also reports that the police have found a cocaine lab in Honduras, evidence that the Mexican cartels are making their own cocaine (an enterprise that has long been a Colombian monopoly), and even Costa Rica is complaining about an influx of Mexican drug traffickers. According to the article, more than 60 percent of the cocaine that reaches the US arrives via Central America, a number attributed to US State Department sources. El Salvador has become a more popular route for trafficking because of a new highway that bisects the northern region built in part with US funding and because the official currency is the US dollar, which makes it easier to launder money.

Two things in particular struck me about this article. First, the report describes a town in Chalatenango, where drugs coming in from Honduras are repackaged and shipped on to Guatemala. We just finished reading a book about guerrilla warfare in the political science class I am a TA for that describes the FMLN presence in a small town in Chalatenango, and it brings home some of the connections between the violence of the civil war and the violence that the drug trade brings with it. Second, the ads included at the side of the page when you read the article online are all for Mexican and Central American vacations, a somewhat ironic twist given the content of the article. I have seen some coverage of how/if the drug violence has been affecting tourism in Mexico, but not much coverage as to how it might be affecting Central America. Granted, El Salvador isn't exactly a tourist magnet like Costa Rica. But Guatemala, for example, earns about 2.2 percent of its GDP from tourism (in 2009, according to Prensa Libre). I have no idea if that is a big percentage or not, but I do know that Guatemala has made a huge effort in recent years to boost tourism.

Finally, to round out this post, I want to point you all to a photo gallery at boston.com that includes some striking images of the drug war in Mexico. The images are certainly arresting, but what stuck out the most for me about this photo gallery is that some of the more grisly images were censored. Ok, not censored in that they were altered, but some of the photos are left black with a warning notice that says:

Warning: This image contains graphic or objectionable content. Click here to view it.

The captions of the pictures are not blacked out, however, so you can get an idea of what the image is before you decide if you want to see it. Such a disclaimer/warning is an interesting way to get around the issue of being too sensational, too voyeuristic, too graphic when covering violence. It also reminds me of the news that came out a week or so ago about Mexican news agencies agreeing on guidelines on how to cover drug violence without glorifying drug bosses and putting their journalists at risk.

Nepotism Laws and Presidential Divorce

Just in case you haven't been following this story (see here, here and here, too), Guatemalan politics have once again taken a strange turn. As with all good political intrigues, this tale includes a woman some have called the power behind the throne, a high-powered divorce,  allegations of corruption, an opposition candidate with a shady military past, and lots of money.

The Guatemalan Constitution forbids the close relatives of the incumbent president and vice-president to run for president, a nepotism law put in place as a impediment to the establishment of presidential dynasties. Why is it important to know this small piece of Guatemalan law, you ask? Because the wife of the incumbent president, Sandra Torres de Colom,* has announced her intention to run for the highest office in the elections this September. Initially, Torres argued that her candidacy was legal because she is not a blood relative of President Colom, but rather a relative by marriage. After the courts ruled that her definition of "close relative" did not hold up, the couple announced that they would be filing for divorce. That's right, divorce. If she is no longer married to the president, then she can be a legitimate presidential candidate. At least that is, unless the current legal challenges to this political maneuvering hold up in court.

Sandra Torres is a controversial figure in Guatemala. She is the face of Colom's social programs, and has a strong following in rural areas, where the Mi Familia Progresa (My Progressive Family), a conditional cash transfer program, has raised living conditions for many indigenous women. The Mi Familia Progresa program, however, has been pinned with numerous allegations of corruption and embezzlement, and Torres herself has been accused of corruption, fraud, and misuse of public funds. She was also implicated in the murder of a lawyer in 2009, a bizarre case that I wrote about in previous posts (here and here). Both Torres and her husband were cleared by the CICIG of being involved in the Rosenberg murder, but accusations of corruption still hover around the presidential couple.

The presidential election in Guatemala this fall will be quite an interesting spectacle. The last presidential election in 2007 was one of the bloodiest on record, with over 50 politicians killed in the six months leading up to election day. Many of the deaths were attributed to "common crime," but it is most likely the case that most of these murders were politically motivated. Hiring assassins is apparently a relatively cheap and easy way to defeat your political rivals. This election season may or may not be as bloody as 2007, but it has certainly be fraught with controversy so far. The Economist article that I link to above puts the situation in easy to understand terms, so I'll quote it here:

Ms Torres is not the only candidate running on dubious constitutional grounds. Álvaro Arzú, a former president, is campaigning despite a ban on re-election. Zury Ríos, a congresswoman, may be blocked by a prohibition on the relatives of the organisers of coups, since her father, Efraín Ríos Montt, toppled a government in 1982 and installed himself as dictator. Eduardo Suger, another possible candidate, was born in Switzerland and may not meet the requirement to be “Guatemalan in origin”. “Ministers of religion” are forbidden from running too, which might spell problems for Harold Caballeros, the founder of a large evangelical church.

One of the few candidates free of constitutional entanglements is Otto Pérez Molina, a former general who narrowly lost a run-off vote to Mr Colom in 2007. Mr Pérez Molina is the strong favourite: a recent poll put his support at 43%, with Ms Torres next on only 11%. In 2007 he promised an “iron fist” against crime. Since then Guatemala has become far more dangerous, as Mexican cocaine smugglers have put down roots in the wild jungle areas near the northern border. After four years of the soft-spoken Mr Colom, some Guatemalans might fancy an ex-army man to drive the gunmen back across the frontier (The Economist March 24, 2011).

 When I was in Guatemala last summer, may people told me they thought that Otto Pérez would be the next president. Not because of his policies, or because of his popularity, but because he came in second in the 2007 elections. I heard from a number of sources that that is how politics work in Guatemala. The runner up of the previous election will win the current one. Berger can in second to Portillo in 1999 and won in 2003. Colom came in second to Berger in 2003 and won in 2007. The logic goes that people want to vote for whoever they think will win. So they say, anyway. I guess we'll find out in September. Or December, if it comes to a run-off. If no one gets 50 percent of the vote in the first round of elections (which is tough to do, especially if there are 14 presidential candidates like there were in 2007), then there will be a run-off election a few months later between the top two candidates.

* a note on Guatemala surnames: Most Guatemalans use two last names, one being their mother's name and the other being their father's name. The first last name is the father's family name, and the second last name is the mother's family name. When addressing someone, you would use the father's family name (the first last name). So, for example, Otto Pérez Molina is often called Otto Pérez, and if you were speaking to him in person you would call him Sr. Pérez (or perhaps General Pérez?). This is why President Colom, whose full name is Alvaro Colom Caballeros, is called Colom and not Caballeros. For married women, the name changes a bit. When a woman gets married, she drops her mother's family name and places her husband's first last name after her father's family name, with a "de" (of) in between. Hence, Sandra Torres de Colom. Make sense?

***Update: As pointed out to me by a friend currently living in Guatemala, Arzú's candidacy has been ruled unconstitutional and images of his wife have begun to appear on posters around the city. I seem to remember seeing something about this in the news recently. Since Arzú is not currently president, his wife is free to run. (Thanks, Sophie, for the heads up on this!)

Article on Rosenberg in the New Yorker

If any of you out there are interested in reading a New Yorker article about the Rosenberg murder I wrote about in this blog post, follow this link. I really recommend taking the time to read it. It says a lot about politics in Guatemala. Stranger than fiction...