Merida Initiative Will It Work?

The U.S. Government believes that a major step forward to fight narcotics and organized crime in the world is the Merida Initiative, a cooperative security partnership between the United States, Mexico, and Central America. The question is will it work in the war on drugs and terror? The more than four decades of the fight on the war on drugs has been a dismal and total failure. That fight has costs Americans at the federal level, approximately $4.5 billion every year (40 years X 4.5 Billion = $180 Billion plus) and significant sums are also spent at the city, county and state levels as well.
In spite of the Billions more spent on anti-terror since 9-11, the question still remains have the effectiveness of the war on terror been successful and to what degree? The complete answer is still out. It is true there have not been any major terrorist attacks on American soil since 9-11. But terrorist activity is still on the raise world wide and the threat may be even greater. The U.S. government reports that Al Qaeda the most feared of all terrorist treats to the U.S. are stronger now than any other time since 911.  
President Bush is offering the Merida Initiative as really a further enhancement of earlier treaties and international laws. The passage of the 1998 UN Convention against Illegal Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances was one of them. The purpose of that Convention required world governments to take legal measures to outlaw and punish all forms of illicit drug production, trafficking, and drug money laundering, to control chemicals that can be used to process illegal drugs, and to cooperate internationally with each other to achieve these goals.
The Convention marked the first time that an international treaty set down obligations to combat closely related crimes such as money laundering, precursor chemical trafficking, and drug-inspired corruption, and to promote law enforcement tools such as extradition, asset seizure, and mutual legal assistance. These principles have become the U.S. Government’s cornerstone for international cooperation in law enforcement over the past two decades. They have inspired and been expanded by subsequent instruments including the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the UN Convention against Corruption.
Billions have been spent on the so called “War on Drugs and Terror” with no improvement of the over all success by keeping drugs from entering the United States.
The Government estimates that over 530 metric tons of cocaine alone is smuggled from South America to the United States each year, with more than 90 percent passing through Mexico. Mexico's also a major supplier of heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana destined for U.S. markets, and Mexican drug trafficking organizations of the Mexican cartels now control many of the drug distribution networks even within the United States.
The U.S. claims other important international and regional counter-drug efforts which will work hand and hand with the Merida Initiative; include the creation of the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission in 1986, and the formation of the Group of 8’s Financial Action Task Force in 1989. The latter focuses on money laundering and more recently terrorist financing. These organizations claim to focus on concrete steps to implement UN and regional anti-drug and anti-crime conventions, they encourage buy-in by member states and others, and they improve transnational cooperation. But this has had no apparent effect on drug smuggling or disbanding or obliterating the all powerful Drug cartels or narcoterrorists of Latin America, Afghanistan, Africa, Iberia, Golden triangle of Burma, Laos and other growers and traffickers of the world wide milti-billion dollar drug trade.
David T. Johnson, Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs said, “President Calderon of Mexico has taken decisive action to fight drug trafficking and criminal organizations that affect both sides of our shared borders.” However news reports both here in the states and in Mexico report Calderon is pulling back in many important areas of the Mexican Government support. Juarez Mayor José Reyes Ferriz  told this reporter that he had been asking for help in the form of more troops and national police to help clean up and protect he’s citizens from the Mexican cartel gangs which have taken over the city.  The mayor said, “just recently some Mexican military has arrived to help combat the many drug and murder related crimes.”  The Presidents of Central America have also recognized the need to address common threats regionally. In response, the U.S. President has asked Congress to fund a new security cooperation initiative with Mexico and the countries of Central America to combat the threats of organized the threats of drug trafficking and transnational crime in Mexico and Central America.
The initiative would focus on drug interdiction, anti-corruption efforts, anti-gang programs, improved policing, and criminal justice reform according to Johnson.
While Colombia leads the world in coca cultivation and is the source of 90 percent of the cocaine entering the United States, Johnson in his remarks to Congress said, it's made notable progress in combating the drug traffickers and narcoterrorists that only recently posed serious threats to the stability of that country.
Johnson told Congress “We remain concerned about recently increased coca cultivation in Bolivia and Peru.” Coca grower associations seek to link coca cultivation to issues of cultural identity and national pride and sometimes oppose eradication efforts. Traffickers exploit these unions for their own benefit.
There is a new and burgeoning rapid growth of cocaine trafficking to Europe from Latin America through transit states in West Africa controlled by known terrorist organizations. The international community is seized with drug trafficking through Western Africa and is working with governments there in developing capacity to address this issue. It's an issue that deserves greater attention, especially from the European states that are the markets for these products.
U.S. Army Lt. General Michael Maples says “The opium trade in Afghanistan poses serious challenges. In 2007, Afghanistan grew 93 percent of the world’s opium poppy. Poppy production soared in the southern provinces where the insurgency is strong. There's incontrovertible evidence that the Taliban use drug trafficking proceeds to fund insurgent activities; the counter-narcotics/counter-insurgency nexus is both real and growing.”
 
There is a new and growing concern that Venezuela is now trafficking in the drug trade and acting as a safe haven and port for the distribution of drugs into the states and into Europe. The General expressed the U.S. concern and the concern expressed by Venezuela's neighbors about Venezuela’s President desiring to buy submarines, transport aircraft and an air defense system in addition to the advanced fighters, attack helicopters and assault rifles he has already purchased.
 
When we observe the trafficking from Venezuela, both north into North America and the United States and Canada as well as to Europe, we don’t see significant measures or any – even any real measures taken to counter that. And that’s of obvious great concern to us. It’s of great concern to the countries in the Caribbean, which are the intermediate stops for significant parts of this transit, and we’re troubled by that.
92 percent of the world's opium and heroin trade and over half of the Afghan drug traffic go through its neighbors to the north, in poverty-stricken Central Asia, according to the United Nations Drug Control Program.
 
As the U.S. military build-up continues in Central Asia, one frequently overlooked factor in the region's stability demands attention. It is the link between Afghan opiates and terrorism.

After September 11, Western government officials and media reports put the onus for this link on al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

According to Interpol one connection between narcotics and terror is spearheaded by a terrorist group little known to most Westerners, but one, which, with an estimated 70 percent of Central Asia's drug trade under its control, and is the true wildcard for stability in the region. Its name is the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).
 
Like it or not, the growing of opium poppies (the source of heroin) is a huge part of Afghanistan’s economy—roughly half of the country’s annual gross domestic product. As long as the United States and other drug consuming countries continue to use drugs, a massive black market premium exists that will make the cultivation of drug crops far more lucrative than competing crops in Afghanistan or any other drug source country. For many Afghan farmers, growing opium poppies is the difference between prosperity and destitution. There is evidence that there is a serious risk that they will turn against the United States and the U.S.-supported government of President Hamid Karzai if Washington and Kabul pursue vigorous anti-drug programs such as eradication. In addition, regional warlords who are helping the United States combat Al Qaeda and Taliban forces derive substantial profits from the drug trade. They use those revenues to pay the militias that keep them in power. Many believe the drug eradication campaign could easily drive important warlords into alliance with America’s terrorist adversaries in Afghanistan and just across the border in terrorist rich Pakistan.
The U.S. and the world’s success on winning the war on drugs and terror is not just dependent upon the cooperation and commitment of our partners in our worldwide treaties, international laws and the proposed Merida Initiative all of which are purported  to be designed to control drug cultivation and distribution. What is needed most is to somehow eradicate the huge appetite for these drugs by Americans and Europeans, closing our borders to illegal entries and all of the country supplying drugs develop their own economy. Just hoping for creating political will though the Merida Initiative is naive at best in achieving success.  It’s more than developing the necessary political will to defend their national interests from drug corruption by reforming and strengthening their political, legislative, judicial, law enforcement and financial institutions. They must take the often difficult step of standing up to politically influential lobbies that view illegal drug crops as cultural patrimony, and they sometimes must arrest highly influential corrupt officials that threaten the integrity of their governing institutions.
On the question of what we do here at home the U.S. government claims they have a substantial program, both in terms of law enforcement and in demand reduction. Where is the demand reduction evidence? No there is none, even though we do spend more than 4.5 billion U.S. Dollars here at home on enforcement of the war on drugs and terror.
It is true that the U.S. government along with other governments interdicts tons of illicit drugs and confiscates millions in cash. We ask what happens to that money sure some is used to fight drug and terror crime here in the U.S. But what happens to the other millions that our government and other governments come across around the world?  As you may be aware the largest bulk cash seizure in history took place recently in Mexico, more than $200 million cash in USD was obtained though just one joint case developed by both the U.S. and Mexico.

So the question remains will the $1.4 billion Merida Initiative Work? Not a chance!