Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina has announced the Central American country will defy U.S. orders and decriminalize drugs to put an end to the U.S.-led drug war.
“We are not doing what the United States says, we are doing what we have to do,” said Perez, who received a nod from Washington after being elected as a former military man with an “iron-fist” approach to crime. But now he’s surprised many with promises to end the drug war.
Guatemala needs “to find alternate ways of fighting drug trafficking,” he said. “In the last 30 years with a traditional combat with arms and deaths, it can’t be done, and we have to be open to viable alternatives.” Perez plans to organize regional support for decriminalization throughout Latin America.
The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala issued a statement condemning the move and claiming decriminalization won’t fix the problem of drug trafficking and violent organized cartels. But Washington’s prohibitionist policies have caused drug profits to skyrocket and its support for undemocratic police states in Latin America has pushed cartels to build well-armed militias that give state armies a run for their money.
Drug war policies are even more blatantly counterproductive than that. Guatemala receives approximately $1oo million in aid annually from the U.S., despite a record of corruption and ties to the drug gangs. The former president, Alfonso Portillo, is in prison on charges of massive corruption. Scores of police chiefs, senior military commanders, and defense ministers have been in an attempt to crack down on security forces with drug-trafficking ties.
The Kaibiles, the ruthless U.S.-trained Guatemalan state militia infamous for their role in killing civilians during Guatemala’s civil war, are being recruited in large numbers to violent Mexican drug gangs. Mexico’s Zetas drug cartel is paying large sums to a multitude of Kaibiles forces to pass on the training they received from the United States military.
Such story lines are common in Latin America, and different for each country. The drug war has not only failed, but it has served as another imperial pretext for Washington to keep control of the region, as it has attempted to do for hundreds of years.
Perez has an actual chance of pushing decriminalization through, as other political leaders in Latin America have repeatedly expressed support for it. The question really is, will Washington allow it?
Why should Latin America suffer from the long lost War on Drugs anymore? Wake up America, the bad guys won and there is nothing you can do about it! Isn´t this obvious? Legalize the stuff in the north, earn huge revenues and save enormous enforcement costs, aside from putting the Drug Mafia out of business. This might be bad for the private prison industry, but everyone else in society wins.
This will be just another excuse to start a war in this hemisphere. Heaven forbid we give freedom a try for a change. Obviously with Ron Paul in the White House this leader would have solid support for his efforts. Hopefully the other leaders in the region can get behind him and stand united against US tyrrany.
Another smart leader of a foreign country. Too bad the US can't produce one, and it is too bad that the American people are now forced to look to foreign leaders to observe any semblence of decency and common sense.
The "war on drugs" is an act of madness and must end. Prohibitionist policies can never work. All they do is create a lucrative black market.
The Guatemalan proposal provides the first real opportunity for action by the new pan-american organization CELAC as many of its governments would like to end the Drug War along similar lines. And the same can be said for most of the non-Western world. And there is nothing the US Empire can do except foam at the mouth.