Tag Archives: war on drugs

The FARC’s announcement to halt kidnapping: why?

By Sebastian Chaskel | Published: February 27, 2012
The FARC’s announcement last Sunday that the organization will no longer kidnap civilians was a surprise to most observes and experts of the region. The mainstream media has reported on the event, but has been unsuccessful at explaining why the FARC would do this. In the past 48 hours, online media and blogs have [...]
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In Ciudad Mier, deploying troops is not enough

By Eliot Brockner | Published: September 5, 2011
Back in November 2010, a small town on the US-Mexico border, Ciudad Mier, made headlines when most of the town’s residents left because of intense fighting between the Zetas and Gulf cartels. Both groups wanted the plaza, which is a strategic smuggling corridor for weapons, cash, and money between the United States and Mexico, and [...]
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Business as Ideology

By Eliot Brockner | Published: May 20, 2010
Boz has a very good post about the apparent “lack of ideology” when analysts describe drug trafficking organizations. Occasionally some analyst will say that the drug cartels have no political ideology. However, maybe a better way to look at it is that their ideology is their business…Just because they’re not Marxists or anarchists or [...]
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Merida 2.0: A New Phase in U.S.-Mexico Security Cooperation

By Dora Beszterczey | Published: March 26, 2010
Responding to a growing sense that an exclusive focus on a military-led fight against drug trafficking organizations is failing to curb violence on the other side of our southern border, the United States and Mexico formally announced a shift in their counternarcotics strategy that had been in the works since the fall of 2009. The “new stage” in bilateral cooperation will aim to strengthen civilian law enforcement institutions and rebuild communities crippled by poverty and crime.
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Latin America as a Role Model for Drug Policy

By Sebastian Chaskel | Published: February 11, 2009
“Cardoso, Gaviria, Zedillo Urge Obama to Decriminalize Marijuana”  read the Bloomberg News headline today on a new report released by The Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, a group led by former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria, former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, and former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, on the future of counternarcotics strategies. [...]
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The Growing Presence of Mexican Cartels in Latin America

By Eliot Brockner | Published: October 28, 2008
On the night of 18 October, Mexican Police raided a party in the outskirts of Mexico City. Like a scene from a Hollywood blockbuster, the party featured exotic pets (two African lions, two white tigers, two black panthers) and $200,000 dollars in cash lying around. The international guest list included people from Colombia, Uruguay, Mexico, [...]
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