International
Mexican cartels: the hidden hand behind Colombia’s drug trade
January 16 | By AFP | Diego Legrand and Hector Velasco |
A wide-brimmed hat, leather bandolier, rifle in hand: Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar used to dress up as a Mexican revolutionary hero for amusement.
But during his heyday as the world’s most wanted drug baron, he could not have imagined that Mexicans — then mainly smugglers for the Colombians — would end up running the empire he had constructed with so much bloodshed.
From being a mere stop on the smuggling route to the United States in the 1980s and 1990s, Mexican cartels have largely taken over the business, financing drug manufacturing in Colombia and controlling shipments to the United States via Central America.
“Power has shifted from the Colombians to the Mexicans, because those who control the most profitable parts of the business have changed,” Kyle Johnson, an expert at the Conflict Responses Foundation in Bogota, told AFP.
For more than a decade in the 1980s, Escobar and his feared Medellin cartel dominated global cocaine trafficking with his rivals of the Cali cartel, which in turn controlled the trade after the drug lord was shot dead by police in 1993.
Forty years of America’s “war on drugs” later, Colombia remains the world’s biggest cocaine producer, and the United States its biggest consumer.
A kilogram (2.2 pounds) of cocaine, which sells for just under $1,000 in Colombia, fetches as much as $28,000 in the United States and about $40,000 in Europe, according to the specialized site InSight Crime.
But the fall of the kingpins — first Escobar, then the Cali cartel’s Rodriguez Orejuela brothers — had an unintended consequence.
Colombian drug traffickers “atomized” into smaller groups that are more difficult to trace and eradicate.
‘The Invisibles’
It also left a void for Mexican cartels to fill.
In the 1990s, “there was a sort of division of labor: the Colombians produced and packed the coca, moved it to the Pacific or Caribbean coast or the ports (while) the transfer to Mexico… or the United States was done by Mexicans,” retired police general and former vice president Oscar Naranjo told AFP.
Today, the Mexicans control several aspects of the business, shipping cocaine directly from Colombia to the United States in speed boats or semi-submersibles.
With the US market largely in Mexican hands, Colombian groups have increasingly set their sights on Europe.
In the last three years, drugs from the South American country have been arriving by cargo ship “in very large quantities” in Spain, Belgium or the Netherlands, said Esteban Melo, coordinator of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Colombia.
The Mexican traffickers are known in Colombia as “The Invisibles,” said Melo.
For “financing… they do not need to be visible, they do not need a whole armed body behind them because they are not involved in the territorial disputes for the trafficking business,” he explained.
There are about 40 Mexicans in Colombian jails today, mainly on drug trafficking charges, according to Colombia’s human rights ombudsman.
Many are presumed emissaries of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels, most of them arrested in areas from where cocaine is shipped via the Pacific, the Caribbean and from the border with Venezuela.
‘More powerful’
“Mexican cartels today control everything from (cultivation of) the coca leaf to the sale of cocaine on a New York street corner,” then-senator, now-President Gustavo Petro said in August 2019.
These groups, he said, are “more powerful” than those led by Escobar or the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers.
Experts believe Mexican organizations may even be financing Colombian armed groups — at a deadly price — to capture drug routes formerly controlled by FARC guerrillas who disarmed under a peace deal in 2017.
The new government under Petro, Colombia’s first-ever leftist president, has an ambitious plan to extinguish the continent’s last internal armed conflict.
Petro is taking a carrot rather than stick approach, offering benefits to organizations that renounce violence and “peacefully” dismantle the drug business — including non-extradition to the United States.
Though weakened, Colombia’s drug groups still exact a heavy toll on a country that has seen six decades of internal conflict.
Last year, the Gulf Clan cartel — Colombia’s biggest — launched a violent retaliation for the extradition of its leader Dairo Antonio Usuga, known as “Otoniel,” to the United States on trafficking charges.
Three civilians, three soldiers and two police officers were killed.
If the Colombian drug networks accept the offer to lay down arms, “Mexican cartels… will face their biggest challenge to cocaine production and supply since the United States launched the global war on drugs in 1971,” the Colombian Association of Retired Armed Forces Officers has predicted.
International
Iranian leader warns foreign powers have “no place” in Strait of Hormuz
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said Thursday that the Persian Gulf is entering a new era marked by a “bright” future without the presence of the United States in the region.
His remarks came during the commemoration of Persian Gulf Day, amid ongoing regional tensions following recent military confrontations involving Iran, the United States, and Israel.
“Today, two months after the largest military buildup and aggression by the bullies of the world in the region and the humiliating defeat of the United States, a new chapter is being written for the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz,” Khamenei stated.
The Iranian leader insisted that the future of the region would be free from American influence and focused instead on the internal development and prosperity of Gulf nations.
“By the power and strength of God, the bright future of the Persian Gulf region will be a future without the United States and dedicated to the progress, welfare, and prosperity of its nations,” he said.
Khamenei also questioned the effectiveness of U.S. military bases in the region, arguing that they do not provide security even for Washington’s allies.
“Foreigners who come from thousands of miles away and commit evil and malicious acts have no place there except at the bottom of its waters,” he declared.
In addition, the Iranian leader defended new measures being prepared by Tehran to regulate maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, including fees for vessels passing through the strategic waterway. According to Khamenei, the policies would generate economic benefits and greater stability for the region.
Regional tensions remain high following the conflict that erupted on February 28 between the United States and Israel against Iran, leading to strategic blockades in the Strait of Hormuz, a route through which nearly 20% of the world’s oil supply previously passed. The situation has disrupted maritime trade and contributed to rising global oil prices.
Central America
U.S. and Regional Allies Back Panama Amid Dispute With China
The United States, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guyana, Paraguay and Trinidad and Tobago issued a joint statement in support of Panama’s sovereignty, arguing that China’s recent actions represent an attempt to politicize maritime trade and undermine the sovereignty of nations in the hemisphere.
“We are closely monitoring China’s selective economic pressure and recent actions affecting vessels flying the Panamanian flag,” the statement released Tuesday said. “Panama is a pillar of our maritime trading system and, as such, must remain free from undue external pressure.”
The statement comes amid growing tensions surrounding the Panama Canal and the operation of key ports linked to global trade.
At the end of January, Panama’s Supreme Court invalidated the legal framework supporting the 1997 concession that granted Panama Ports Company, a subsidiary of CK Hutchison, the right to operate the Balboa and Cristóbal terminals located on the Pacific and Atlantic entrances of the Panama Canal.
The ruling followed mounting pressure from the United States to curb Chinese influence around the strategic waterway, through which roughly 5% of global maritime trade passes.
CK Hutchison, which managed the ports for nearly three decades, rejected the court’s decision and accused Panamanian authorities of illegally confiscating its assets. The company has launched international arbitration proceedings against Panama, seeking more than $2 billion in damages.
Following the court ruling, reports emerged of increased detentions and inspections of Panamanian-flagged vessels in China, actions widely viewed as retaliatory measures.
On Wednesday, China’s Foreign Ministry dismissed the joint statement as “completely unfounded and misleading,” accusing the United States of politicizing port operations and warning that Beijing would take steps to protect its interests in Panama.
International
King Charles III Says U.S.-UK Alliance Is “Irreplaceable and Unbreakable”
King Charles III of the United Kingdom reaffirmed the strength of the British-American relationship on Tuesday during a speech before the United States Congress, describing the alliance between the two nations as “irreplaceable and unbreakable.”
The address, delivered at the Capitol, marked the first speech by a British monarch before Congress since Queen Elizabeth II in 1991 and comes at a time of political tensions between Donald Trump’s administration and the Labour government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“As President Trump himself observed during his state visit to Britain last autumn, the bond of kinship and identity between the United States and the United Kingdom is invaluable and eternal. It is irreplaceable and unbreakable,” the king said.
While reflecting on the upcoming 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, which will be commemorated this year, Charles III stated that the partnership between the two countries “was born out of disagreement, but is no less strong because of it.”
The monarch emphasized the democratic values shared by both nations and noted that major global changes have occurred whenever the two allies found common ground.
“When we have found that way to agree, great changes have taken place not only for the benefit of our peoples, but for all peoples,” he said.
King Charles also quoted British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who recently described the relationship as “an indispensable alliance.”
Concluding his speech, the monarch described the shared history of the United States and the United Kingdom as “a story of reconciliation, renewal, and an extraordinary partnership.”
He added that Washington and London have forged “one of the most consequential alliances in human history.”
“I pray with all my heart that our alliance continues to defend our shared values, together with our partners in Europe, the Commonwealth, and around the world, and that we ignore calls urging us to become increasingly isolationist,” Charles III stated.
The king ended by urging both nations to “recommit to one another in selfless service to our peoples and to all peoples of the world.”
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