University researcher charges that neither Mexico nor the U.S. want to eradicate drug trafficking, "only to control it"

Argentine writer Pilar Calveiro says openly what many have quietly suggested for a long time



Guadalajara -
Neither Mexico nor the United States have any real interest in defeating the drug trafficking industry which plagues both nations. They only want to control it for their own purposes.

That's what a respected Argentine researcher and author told a Politics and Violence forum at a Puebla university.

Pilar Calveiro is an investigator for the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP). BUAP, the Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla, is the oldest and largest university in the city, one of the most important Spanish colonial settlements in Mexico. It was founded in 1587 as Colegio del Espíritu Santo by the Roman Catholic Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). It later became a secular college run by the state.

Speaking this week at an event sponsored by the Dept. of Latin American Social Sciences and the Institute of Critical Studies, Pilar said that both nations seek to exercise a "monopoly on drugs."

"In Mexico, as in the world, what is being sought today is not the elimination of narcotics trafficking, but control over it. The struggles between rival factions have long been part of the history of trafficking. But in the last decade it would appear that governmental efforts have been largely directed towards the unification of distinct criminal groups under a single leadership, with whom an "arrangement or an agreement" can be established," argued Calveiro. (Peña Nieto's Colombian drug war consultant is a U.S. informant, with clear marching orders from new prez: cut a deal with the cartel bosses).

Calveiro was born in Argentina in 1953, and holds a Ph.D. in political science. She wrote the critically acclaimed "Poder y Desaparición," a book about concentration camps in her country during the 1976-1983 Argentine military dictatorship.

Calveiro did not spare the United States in her comments to the BUAP forum, charging that Mexico's powerful neighbor to the north is interested in controlling drug trafficking "for its own economic and political benefit."

Pointing out that the United States is the biggest consumer of cocaine in the world, and that 90% of it passes through Mexico on the way north, Pilar claimed that 85% of the proceeds of street drug sales remains in the hands of U.S. distributors and their Mexican affiliates. "It's a huge business," she said, and the ultimate producer of the product "receives only a small percentage of the profit."

"The massive entrance into the United States of drugs, and the huge outflow of cash and firearms, is possible only with the complicity of authorities on both sides of the border. Everything indicates the U.S. is trying to control trafficking markets, not do away with then, and to monopolize the business while it awards participation in the huge structure to those whom it chooses - but always under its exclusive supervision and control."

Many in this country will find themselves in accord with Calveiro's blunt analysis, as Mexico's drug war enters its 75th month one week from today, with no end in sight.

Jan. 13 - Mexican drug cartels operate in 1,286 U.S. cities
Dec. 12, 2011 - Obama: U.S. drug demand responsible for damage done to Mexico and other nations

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