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 News from Around the Americas | January 2007 
Mexican Cartels Seen in Peru's Drug Trade
 Alfredo Corchado - Dallas Morning News
| | "There's absolutely no way a prohibition policy will ever work, here in the United States, in Latin America or anywhere else because all prohibition does is perpetuate the drug trade, rising crime and violence." |
Lima, Peru - Mexican drug cartels, once regarded mainly as couriers for South American cocaine producers, have spread their powerful tentacles deep into this Andean nation, sowing violence and nourishing the re-emergence of Shining Path guerrillas, authorities say.
Peruvian authorities suspect a Mexican cartel in the killing of a federal judge in July. The allegations underscore the presence of Mexican cartels in the multibillion-dollar shadow economy in Peru, the world's second-largest producer of cocaine, after neighboring Colombia.
"Just like in Mexico, Peruvian institutions are being put to the test," said Gen. Juan Zarate Gambini, Peru's anti-narcotics czar and head of the National Police. "We're very concerned about the consequences, and we're committed to doing everything to meet the challenge and defeat the enemy."
Mexican cartels have become the most dominant drug-trafficking organizations in the hemisphere, authorities say. In his first weeks in office, Mexican President Felipe Calderon sent thousands of troops and federal police to Michoacan state and Tijuana to confront entrenched cartels.
In South America, the Mexican groups are bypassing the Colombians and cutting their own deals with coca farmers in Peru and Bolivia, setting up dozens of small state-of-the-art cocaine-processing labs inside Peruvian territory, say Western diplomats and Peruvian authorities. The groups are opening new consumer markets throughout Latin America and elsewhere.
The Mexicans ship cocaine by boat to the Mexican coast, then up to the border with California or Texas, Peruvian officials said. South Texas remains the leading entry area for cocaine smuggled into the United States, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
U.S. aid to Peru for drug eradication was an estimated $300 million over the past five years, and the U.S. government has designated $60 million over the next three years for helicopters for counternarcotics work. Virginia-based DynCorp International, which has a major operational hub in Irving, Texas, will provide maintenance and logistical support.
Coca production in Peru has increased almost 40 percent in recent years, partly as a result of eradication efforts in neighboring Colombia, experts say.
Similarly, the Mexican cartel presence continues to grow. Between 2005 and 2006, about 35 Mexican cartel members were arrested in Peru. Twenty-five remain in jail, said Peruvian authorities.
Others say U.S. drug policy is part of the problem. Kenneth Sharpe, a Latin American political and drug policy analyst at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, said the U.S. "prohibition policy" has actually fed the rise of powerful criminal organizations.
"U.S. drug policy based on prohibition has nourished the drug wars in Latin America. ... ," Sharpe said. "There's absolutely no way a prohibition policy will ever work, here in the United States, in Latin America or anywhere else because all prohibition does is perpetuate the drug trade, rising crime and violence."
In Peru, the presence of the Mexican cartels was illustrated in July, when alleged Tijuana cartel hit men assassinated Federal Judge Hernan Saturno Vergara as he ate with a nephew at a restaurant near his judicial office, said Peruvian authorities. Saturno was a member of a three-judge panel overseeing a major case against suspected members of the Tijuana cartel.
The attack on the judge stunned Peruvians, authorities say.
Zarate, the Peruvian general, said the authorities' conclusion that Mexican cartels ordered the killing is based on interviews with jailed cartel members.
Peruvian and Mexican authorities had talks in Lima and pledged greater cooperation in fighting drug traffickers.
The implications for this Andean nation of 28 million people are enormous, drug experts say. They cite the violence that has engulfed parts of Mexico and the drug money that has corrupted security forces, judges, journalists and businessmen and reportedly is supporting guerrilla groups.
"We must not allow the violence of Mexico to penetrate Peru," said Gustavo Gorriti Ellenbogen, a Peruvian journalist and president of the Press and Society Institute, which promotes media independence.
Meanwhile, the once violent and powerful Maoist guerrilla movement known as Shining Path is regaining strength, thanks largely to drug traffickers, said Peruvian experts, including Gorriti. Nearly defunct after the arrest of its leader, Abimael Guzman, in 1992, the movement is now offering protection to drug traffickers and protecting coca farms from U.S.-backed eradication efforts.
In December, eight suspected Shining Path members were arrested after an attack on a police convoy in a coca-growing region killed five officers and three civilians, including a boy. More than 20 police officers have been killed in ambushes in the past year.
Unlike the guerrillas inside Colombia, the Shining Path movement is now based more on profit than ideology, Gorriti said. "They protect routes and tax drug shipments. That, along with the money they charge ... has provided a source of income which has aided their re-emergence." |
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