Halting drug war corruption: What Mexico can learn from Colombia

But Colombia is tackling this third stage in the wake of its “parapolitics” scandal, which found that many members of Congress were colluding with paramilitaries. The country’s 30-year battle against criminal drug lords is complicated by politically motivated guerrilla insurgencies. President Uribe cracked down on guerrillas and brought a sense of peace to the war-torn nation. But he also negotiated the demobilization of right-wing paramilitary groups from 2003 to 2005 that controlled a large part of the drug-trafficking business and had a corrupting influence on politics. Confessions of their leaders have revealed an alarming level of infiltration in the top levels of politics, security agencies, and the economy.

Today, 27 percent of the members of Congress elected in 2006 are under investigation or have been convicted of colluding with paramilitaries. In many cases they signed electoral pacts that assured the militias’ influence in drafting legislation.

Colombian anticorruption czar, Oscar Ortiz, says the historic tolerance for corruption is waning. “In many ways the politicians and government officials corrupted the ‘mafiosos’ because they showed them how to put the system at their service,” he says. “No one brags anymore about running contraband or smuggling drugs,” he says, though he admits that there is still broad admiration for those who can make a quick fortune.

Claudia Lopez, a researcher in Colombia whose work helped un-cover links between politicians and paramilitaries, says that after the parapolitics scandal, pacts with candidates in next year’s congressional elections are unlikely. “That route has been burned,” she says.

Long traditions of corruption

Colombia and Mexico have long traditions of corruption, creating a permissive atmosphere for trafficking and organized crime, says Francisco Thoumi, an economist in Colombia who studies drug trafficking’s economic and social impact.

Like Colombia’s Uribe, President Calderón has made security a cornerstone of his presidency, launching a military-led crackdown on drug traffickers upon taking office in December 2006. He has promised a two-pronged approach – to root out corruption as well – by retraining the police and revamping the justice system. But if the crackdown in Michoacán, Calderón’s home state, is the leading edge of his effort, it’s failing, say critics.

Reginaldo Sandoval, the president of the Labor Party in Michoacán and a critic of Calderón, says traffickers continue to corrupt politicians, especially in the form of campaign financing. “The power they have is incredible,” says Mr. Sandoval. “Politics here is completely contaminated.”

Traffickers also wield influence through intimidation, not just with their deep pockets.

Sandoval himself was briefly kidnapped in June 2008, when gunmen burst into party headquarters posing as federal police. “When I asked to see their badges, they pulled out their guns,” Sandoval says. He was blindfolded and held for 16 hours – until his family paid a ransom – and warned to keep a low profile.

It is still unclear if drug gangs will follow the same stages in Mexico as they have in Colombia. “The evolution of corruption is difficult to predict,” says Mr. Thoumi. And as someone once quipped, he adds, there’s a major difference between the two nations: “In Colombia, drug traffickers want to become politicians; in Mexico, politicians want to become drug traffickers.”

Many Mexicans suspect official corruption goes deeper than has been made public, and the sweep in Michoacán only hints at how many politicians moonlight for organized crime. Many suspect the government has not launched sweeps in other troubled states because the state wouldn’t be able to handle the aftermath. “[Michoacán] is just the tip of the iceberg,” says Pedro Isnardo de La Cruz, a security expert at National Autonomous University of Mexico.

According to a study by Buscaglia, organized crime – including drug smuggling, prostitution, and two dozen other areas – affects 63 percent of Mexico’s municipalities.

In Michoacán, for now, the traffickers seem to be co-opting local politicians. “Michoacán is not a failed state, but it’s a state where there is dual sovereignty,” says George Grayson, an author of the new book “Mexico: Narco-Violence and a Failed State? “You have the elected governments; parallel to that, you have the cartels.”

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