The recent
news that Colombia’s most wanted man was captured made
headlines around the world. But so what?
The
entities benefiting from this capture are the US establishment and
the Colombian government. This capture would give credit to the lost “war on drugs” that was bound to fail since Nixon’s
moralistic policy overlooked the lessons from the prohibition era.
This capture also revitalizes Uribe’s “Democratic
Security,” which is demonstrating its shortcomings with a surge
in violence in Medellin, without mentioning the attacks that
have been perpetrated by Uribe’s lifeline: the FARC. It would
not be surprising to hear Uribe praising the “Plan Colombia”
during the Summit of the Americans where the theme is completely
unrelated.
The people
in the streets where the power of Don Mario’s business
enterprise was concentrated will not be entirely joyful. These people
know what will happen, as has happened many times before when drug
lords are deposed. Don Mario’s men will not be shouting “the
King is dead, long live the King” as was the custom with the
accession of a new monarch in Europe. Instead this power struggle will be
reminiscent of the bloodbath that characterized the captured or death
of many other drug entrepreneurs. This bloodbath occurred after
Pablo Escobar, the Cali cartel, the North Valle cartel and it is
currently happening in Medellin after Diego Murillo.
This
capture will not remove cocaine from US and European table tops and
toilet tanks. Even with the “Plan Colombia” and the US
anti-narcotics measures coca production has remained virtually unchanged while coca cultivation increased 27 per cent in 2007. The backers of these failed policies argue that the statistics would be worse without such measures,
thus evading the debate of the only sustainable solution:
legalization.
However,
the US is content with keeping the violence limited to an obscure
country such as Colombia and most recently Mexico. Even the violence
Mexico has exported to Arizona has not stirred up more debate on
legalization. Instead, Obama’s administration would try “to reduce it [flow of drugs and guns from the US] so significantly, so
drastically, that it becomes once again a localized criminal problem. ..”
Colombia’s
bloody experience should be reason enough to boldly lead the world
towards implementing this sustainable solution. Unfortunately, Colombia
neither desires taking the lead nor has the influence in the
international stage. Colombia would have to limit herself to receiving
money from the US and continue sacrificing her peoples until the US
eventually regulates this business in the very
long distant future. However, even then the situation may not improve
since the US is not the best business regulator as the world is
painfully starting to understand.
“Top
drug lord ‘Don Mario’ captured”, but so what? This
will not change anything in the dynamics of Colombian reality. The
problems are the same and the solution is evident, but Colombia is
obediently following US counterproducent policies that call for
cosmetically removing the symptoms, while the disease slowly rots the
country from the inside out.
Author Sebastian Castaneda is Colombian studies psychology and political economy at the University of Hong Kong