In latin america hundreds of thousands of people have died from the so-called war on drugs and tens of thousands still remain forcibly disappeared the power of cartels is not waning and many still feel the dire effects of failed counter drug policies it's now been more than half a century since u.s president nixon started the war on drugs and the u.s poured billions of dollars into combating the transnational drug trade the result ordinary people throughout latin america felt the brunt of the violence and in the u.s black and brown communities suffered the most from punitive counter drug policies,
So is this really a war on drugs or is it a war for control and profit joining us to discuss this are renowned mexican investigative journalist annabel hernandez and author of several books including narco land the mexican drug lords and their godfathers and maria mcfarland sanchez moreno senior legal advisor at human rights watch focusing on the americas u.s and canada she's also the author of there are no dead here a story of murder and denial in colombia thank you both for joining me on upfront annabelle i'm going to start with you back in 2006 mexico's former president felipe calderon launched a u.s backed war on drugs in the country dispatching the army,
Federal police to combat drug violence but it actually had the opposite effect of violence increased and since then more than 300 000 people have been killed and more than 90 000 people have been registered as forcibly disappeared despite state initiatives to supposedly stop the drug war and billions of dollars in u.s aid why does the violence continue well uh really it's a very complex explanation but for me there are four main um issues that caused that the the the tragedy in mexico is still being there one is that they measure the principal drug cartel sinaloa cartel is still very powerful not just in mexico also in all the american continent,
Other parts of the world and of course the cartel is still impugned second that unfortunately the cartels still have very having very many ties strong size tights with the with the parts of the mexican government i mean the military the the the poli the federal police many parts of the government in mexico still connected with the cartel the third issue is that you know in even even with a covet issue the demand of drugs in all the world is is more than ever and the fourth issue is of course that we are talking about a global pro problem is not a local issue in mexico in in mexico,
You can see the debts the tragedy but the responsibility is in all the world maria let me turn to you because in colombia we're seeing an interesting development as well the drug cartels don't have as much power as they did in the 1980s 1990s but colombia is still the world's biggest producer of cocaine drug trafficking has had just a devastating impact on the population for for decades and you have researched the connection between drug traffickers in colombia and very high levels of government how deep is state involvement in the drug trade in colombia so the pattern that you see in colombia is in many ways very similar to what you see in mexico in afghanistan,
And many other countries which is that prohibition right this war on drugs heavy-handed enforcement extra diet arrest kill drug traffickers approach all it does is make the value the price of drugs higher right and that fuels organized crime so you have the drug business actively engaged in violence and very involved in corrupting public officials to protect themselves to protect their drug corridors to allow them to do all their business with impunity and to allow them to keep their their wealth and no matter how hard you try with the heavy-handed law enforcement approach they're going to keep going annabelle you've documented similarly in many ways,
State involvement in the drug trade at the highest levels of the mexican government you exposed how former president calderon's head of public security was not only involved with the sinaloa cartel he was on the payroll of the sinaloa cartel so when the government says it's fighting the drug war is this just a cover is this complete dishonesty why would the state be protecting these cartels well uh as i has already explained we are talking about a global issue yes in mexico we know because this is a fact that the mexican government the mexican system is very corrupted we have a lot of examples of that but what about the rest of the world what about united states,
You know is the biggest consumer of drugs in in the world what about europe what about asia i mean because the drugs do not just stay in mexico or colombia and that's the end of the story for the drug cartels to be able to traffic these thons of drugs through the world they need corrupted connections not just in mexico not just in colombia also in germany in you know in amsterdam in paris in new york so we are talking about that in this war on drugs the corruption is everywhere because we are talking about the profits of this dirty business create millions of dollars that's a great point,
And maria what about saying is very important right so many people stand to benefit from uh the war on drugs or the enterprise that's connected to the war on drugs you have security contractors you have banks that launder money to corrupt politicians this can't be isolated to one entity to one state to one person uh in your view who stands to benefit the most from the war on drugs i mean i think that organized crime ultimately stands to benefit the most because it makes them so powerful and so wealthy um organized crime plus all of their cronies in the state,
As an aved pointed out it's not just in mexico or in colombia that you're that you're looking at issues um so yes it's those networks it's not the growers for example who often get targeted or the people who get prosecuted in the united states for low-level sales and certainly not the people who get prosecuted for using drugs um you know all of those groups of people stand to lose right people overwhelmingly low-income black and brown people in the united states and in mexico and in colombia end up prosecuted imprisoned for drug offenses in this war on drugs push and that achieves nothing except destroy their lives i'll take a step back,
And talk a little bit about sort of the united states getting involved in the war on drugs in latin american countries right there had to be a geopolitical logic a geopolitical reasoning for it uh why does the united states invest itself why does it make that decision to invest itself uh was it a new form of sort of control so to speak you know the us's interests in fighting drug trafficking though are very hard to pin down in the sense that planned colombia money that the u.s then invested in you know billions of dollars in colombia starting in in the late 90s early 2000s um this was bill clinton bill clinton's initiative that money was mainly used to go after the farc guerrillas,
They said it was to fight drug trafficking but very little of it was focused on going after the paramilitaries who were the biggest drug traffickers at the time and most of it was used to go after the farc so the motivations get very murky because what you end up with is a government that is you know very connected to the paramilitaries in the early 2000s going after the farc so the u.s seemed to be backing one group of drug traffickers against another uh annabelle governments if they're continuing business as usual in their approach to the drug war you know bolstering security forces with u.s funding deploying militaries fueling corruption criminalizing victims,
What can we do what would be a more effective and humanitarian approach to really ending a war on drugs if that's at all possible well it's a it's a complicated question you know because in in my point of view really had never existed one real war against drugs what uh you know i have been investigating the drug cartels in mexico also the connection with of these carters with other countries in a specific way with the united states you know i got information inside one sort inside one source that used to used to work with the sinaloa cartel and even this source told me reveal me how how the some parts of the u.s government start to have some relation,
If you want to see what call it like that with the senate members of the sinaloa cartels so what i had what i have understand is that doesn't exist aguar against drugs exists aguar to try to control to administer the business i think the united states government had have have been a very how can i said a double face about these issues because they call it agua against drugs but i think in the deep they don't want to destroy the business they want to administer the business and of course this uh this this purpose to manage,
And not destroy the business create a lot of victims the main of the victims are in in countries like like colombia like mexico like central america i mean we have to we have to start to talk about these issues with another language this is an international issue all the countries should do a big plan how to approach to this problem i mean we have to just try to to let left left away the the old speech about this issue i start to and start to talk about this in a new way maria annabelle thank you so much for joining me everybody that is our show up front we'll be back next week to you.
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