Obama’s Great Omission

While the headlines of the General Assembly of the United Nations focus on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, there is another conflict that is going largely unnoticed, despite the fact that it is causing more deaths: the drug war in Mexico, Central America and northern South America. To my surprise, in his opening speech to the General Assembly, President Barack Obama spoke at length about Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Côte d’Ivoire and several other world conflicts, but he omitted the one that is right on the U.S. border.

Obama’s speech on all these crises had several truths, including his reminder to the world that Israel has legitimate security concerns after having been invaded several times by its neighbors. But it was strange that Obama did not mention, even once, the words “drugs,” “cartels,” “organized crime” or “Mexico” in his speech. He ignored a war that has caused nearly 40,000 deaths over the past five years in Mexico alone, many more than have been caused during the recent uprisings in the Middle East, and that is becoming one of the greatest obstacles to economic growth in the region.

The most violent region

According to the UN Development Program (UNDP), Latin America is one of the most violent regions in the world, with an annual average of 25 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. Last year 18,000 people were killed in Central America, forcing governments to spend $4 billion in security, a 60 percent increase over the last four years, according to UNDP figures.

Predictably, one of the few presidents who did bring up the problem was Felipe Calderon of Mexico.

Minutes after Obama spoke about the tyrants who repress their people in Iran, Libya, Syria and other countries, Calderon said, “We must be aware, my friends, that organized crime is now killing more people than all dictatorial regimes together. Tens of thousands of people, especially between Mexico and the Andes, are dying.”

Calderon said drug cartels are becoming more powerful than many governments in the region thanks to the fabulous profits they receive from drug sales, and because they have easy access to high-powered weapons that come from the United States.

What is the solution? The United States and other countries producing high-powered weapons should establish tighter controls to prevent these weapons from ending up in the hands of drug cartels, Calderon said. Additionally, drug-consuming countries must do more to reduce demand, he added.

With proponents of drug legalization placing themselves closer than ever, Calderon said that if the U.S. and Europe fail to reduce drug use, they should explore “other options, including alternative means of preventing drug trafficking from being the origin of violence and death in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

Rafael Fernandez de Castro, a professor at ITAM University in Mexico, who, until recently, was an advisor to Calderon and is operating a UNDP study on violence in Latin America, said that despite Obama’s government’s public admission in 2009 that the U.S. has to take co-responsibility in drug violence in Mexico, not much has changed since then.

“The U.S. strategy has not changed much; it is still based on drug interdiction in Mexico and Central America. In other words, they continue to wage war on its southern border,” he said. “If we don’t do something quickly, this cancer will end up destroying our democracy.”

A big mistake

My opinion: There is no doubt that Obama has good reason to focus on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and on Iraq and Afghanistan, but he made a big mistake by not talking about the drug war in America’s neighboring countries.

It is a bloody conflict that has left a huge number of people dead, undermined institutions, and is becoming the greatest obstacle to economic growth in the region. It not only drains resources that should be allocated to education and health, but is driving investment and tourism down.

There are many things that Washington could do, including controlling the sale of semiautomatic weapons, starting a serious debate about whether the legalization of marijuana would allow more resources to more heavily combat drug use, and, as suggested in an article by Mark Kleiman in the magazine Foreign Affairs, focusing narcotic squads on fighting violent drug traffickers instead of indiscriminately pursuing all drug traffickers.

Rather than ignore the problem, Obama should put the drug war alongside the conflicts of the Middle East at the center of the global political agenda, and do more to resolve it in a more efficient manner.