Update
President Barack Obama’s attendance at the Summit of the Americas in Colombia this weekend yielded little progress in Latin America’s efforts to sway the U.S. government toward the legalization of drugs.
Prior to the Summit, Latin leaders said the United States’ war on drugs isn’t working, blaming the U.S. for a narcotic black market that fuels violence and power of drug cartels in South America. As expected, Obama said the U.S. was not going to pursue a legalization approach to the battle.
While that issue was shot down, Obama did sign a trade agreement with Colombia that will reduce tariffs between the two countries, a move he and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said would boost jobs and economies within the U.S. and Colombia.
The agreement was applauded by the U.S. business community, but was not received as well by U.S. unions leaders, who claim Colombia has a horrific labor rights record.
Obama also said at the Summit that he would only attend future gatherings with Cuba if the nation made strides toward democracy. Leaders from Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua said they would not attend the next summit if Cuba was not involved.
A resolution regarding Cuba’s potential invite was not reached. Cuba was banned from the Summit following the country’s 1959 revolution, in which Fidel Castro rose to power.
(MintPress)—President Barack Obama’s visit to Columbia this past weekend for the Summit of the Americas was watched closely by Latin Americans eager to see how the president would continue to handle the war on drugs.
Leaders in South America recently spoke out against the United States’ and Canada’s narcotic policies, claiming South America has served as the battleground in North America’s anti-drug efforts.
Without the growing U.S. black market, critics say the illegal demand wouldn’t fuel drug cartels, considered responsible for tens of thousands drug-related deaths. In the last six years, it has been estimated that 50,000 people between Mexico and Honduras have died due to drug-related violence.
Leaders in South American countries have been vocal about their anger toward U.S. markets, pitching the decriminalization of drugs as part of the solution. The legalization of drugs cultivated in South America would eliminate the growing North American black market, they say, opening the doors for regulation and cutting back on the power of the drug cartels.
Since the war on drugs was launched by President Richard Nixon in 1971, the U.S. has taken a multifaceted approach to tackling the drug problem by funding programs that aim to stop the production and trade of drugs outside the U.S., while at the same time enacting stricter penalties for domestic drug-related crimes. Funding prevention and addiction programs have also been a part of the equation.
But forty years later, South American leaders say their countries are being overrun with powerful drug cartels, leading to widespread violence — and they say something needs to change.
Obama’s war on drugs
In Obama’s first presidential campaign, he referred to the war on drugs as a failure, advocating for the decriminalization of marijuana as a more sound solution. But since taking office, the president has not taken steps toward decriminalization, and has instead spoken against it.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Group (LEAP) officials from around the nation gathered in Washington D.C. in 2011 on the 40th anniversary of the war on drugs to send a message to Obama that it wasn’t working. Despite trillions of dollars spent on the initiative, leaders cited a rise in nationwide drug use.
“President Obama’s drug officials keep saying they’ve ended the drug war. But our report shows that’s just not true, and we’ll be hand-delivering a copy to the drug czar in hopes he’ll be convinced to actually end this war, or at least stop saying he already has,” LEAP stated.
One month later, Obama fired back at a town hall meeting, saying he was not going to look at a drug decriminalization policy and would instead focus on providing more resources for treatment and prevention of drug-related addictions.
Vice President Joe Biden said in a trip to Mexico and Honduras last month that, while he considers the debate among South American leaders on U.S. decriminalization legitimate, the Obama Administration will not change its policy against legalization.
George Bush’s policies
Critics of Obama claim he is continuing the same war on drugs message as his predecessor, George Bush.
Bush sought to fight the war on drugs through a domestic approach of curbing drug use and addiction, while also taking the war to South America through the use of chemical spraying of drug crops — a policy used by the Obama Administration, as well.
Bush was also accused of taking the war on drugs a step further with accusations that he was involved in a 2002 coup in Venezuela that temporarily removed president Hugo Chavez. Bush denied such claims.
CIA documents released to a Venezuelan-American attorney Eva Golinger indicate the agency was aware that a coup could be coming to Venezuela, although specifics dates and details were not mentioned. According to Democracy Now, the U.S. funded Chavez opposition groups in Venezuela to the tune of $1 million from 1998 to 2004 under the National Endowment for Democracy.
Bush was vocal in his opposition to Chavez, stating he disagreed with his socialist government and that Venezuela was a hot spot for drug smugglers.
Chavez has increasingly been vocal against U.S. policies in Latin America, specifically in regard to its war on drug practices that destroy drug crops. In 2006, Chavez accused the U.S. of using the war on drugs tactics to “gain a foothold” in South America. He’s also denounced claims that drug smuggling in Venezuela was rising, despite accounts by U.S. soldiers.
Reception of US presence in Latin America
When Bush attended the 2005 Summit of Americas in Argentina, he was met with record-breaking protests by those who were opposed to the Administration and its policies.
Protests in general were targeted as Bush for alleged human rights abuses, as the gathering came at a time of heightened concern worldwide over the war in Iraq and the use of torture.
Bush’s visit also came a few years after a case in which it was discovered that drug crop spraying in Colombia’s Amazon Basin was destroying ecosystems and causing health risks for indigenous populations. According to the Environment News Service, the U.S. was funding the fumigation program through its $1.3 billion aid package to the country, with the intent of destroying coca plants.
Around 7,000 Argentinian police were called in for security and a 100-mile no-fly zone was set up around the city for the 2005 protests. Latin Americans also took to the street in Brazil and Panama, among other South American cities.
While widespread protests weren’t expected to break out against Obama’s human rights abuses, he saw resistence to the U.S. war on drugs. When Obama visited Trinidad and Tobago in 2009, he was greeted with cheers by those who saw the new president as a sign of hope.
While he is still riding on that wave of hope to some extent, those in South America affected by the war on drugs hold more allegiance to their own country than the U.S. president.