[Pena Nieto plans to fight his drug war just the way that Colombia did (and still does), following the American lead. To carry-out these plans, he has brought to his team the former head of Colombia's National Police Force, General Oscar Naranjo. Naranjo rode to his fifteen minutes of fame because he was the man in charge of the National Police capture/execution of Pablo Escobar. Naranjo can be judged by the behavior of those beneath him, as to whether he supported bad behavior, or attempted to rout it out. He admits that he is responsible for the rise of General Santos Santoyo, who is currently giving testimony to a Virginia court about Colombian drug running into the United States.
All of that aside, when Mexico begins to duplicate Colombia's efforts, they will start to focus on manhunts for drug kingpins like Escobar. As America usually does, it will bring in the drones and begin Hellfire missile executions of high and mid-level dealers, along with the occasional "signature strike" on no one in particular. In the end, there will be a continuing processions of replacement druglords, who will fill-in the holes in the syndicate hierarchy which we create (exactly the same as our drone war in Pakistan). Disrupted turf wars between drug syndicates filters down, to create new drug markets that are driven by fierce competition between even more violent drug gangs.
In other words, look for an escalation in the bloody horrors in Mexico, where drug gangs already dump their headless cargoes on deserted highways in the middle of the night. Look for a symphony of horror to sweep over all of Central and South America, as the "Hellhouse War Gringo" is brought into harmony with the older and even bloodier southern production of the "Nightmare on Merida Initiative."]
Pena Nieto Bets on Pablo Escobar Nemesis to Win Drug War
Bloomberg News
Incoming Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, who pledged during the campaign to scale back the military’s role in fighting organized crime in favor of the police, said yesterday that there would be no truce with the cartels. Photographer: Susana Gonzalez/Bloomberg
Incoming Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto will inherit a drug war that has cost more than 47,000 lives since 2006. He’s betting that the Colombian general who helped take down kingpin Pablo Escobar will help him win.
Pena Nieto, after winning election July 1, said Mexicans want immediate results after frustration over the six-year death toll undermined support for President Felipe Calderon. He tapped General Oscar Naranjo, the former head of Colombia’s national police, as his security adviser last month and aides say the new president will seek greater intelligence sharing with the U.S. to help break the cartels.
The 45-year-old Pena Nieto must balance public demands for a less-bloody conflict with suspicions that his Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, was more tolerant of drug cartels during a 71-year reign that ended in 2000. Pena Nieto, who pledged during the campaign to scale back the military’s role in fighting organized crime in favor of the police, said yesterday that there would be no truce with the cartels.
“Already the government is taking flak for letting less violent and ostentatious criminal groups off the hook,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, who studies drug war conflicts for the Brookings Institution in Washington. “It will be an even more sensitive issue for Pena Nieto because he has all the PRI baggage of negotiated deals.”
Drug-related violence shaves almost 1.2 percentage points annually off Mexico’s gross domestic product and the country could double its foreign investment, which reached $19.4 billion in 2011, if the cartels were brought under control, said Manuel Suarez-Mier, an economist at American University who helped Mexico negotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Drug War ‘Disaster’
“It’s a disaster,” said Suarez-Mier, who represented Mexico’s attorney general when the Merida Initiative, a three- year, $1.6 billion anti-narcotics program funded by the U.S., was signed in 2008. “When you decapitate a cartel, they tend to fracture and now we have more cartels that are more violent.”
A week rarely goes by without reports of dismembered corpses appearing in public as Mexico’s drug gangs battle for territory and routes into the U.S., their biggest market. Three police officers died in a firefight at Mexico City’s international airport on June 25 after they tried to detain suspected traffickers. The mutilated bodies of 14 people were found in bags in an abandoned truck in northern Veracruz state last month, newspaper Milenio reported.
Lack of Security
Pena Nieto has vowed to double the number of police to fight the drug war and is counting on Naranjo’s experience to improve security.
“General Naranjo will give a seal of approval, in Mexico and abroad, to our security policies,” Pena Nieto’s campaign said in a statement accompanying his appointment last month.
Naranjo, 55, helped engineer the U.S.-backed crackdown that led to the demise of the Medellin cocaine cartel and its billionaire leader Escobar in 1993, and Pena Nieto credited him for reducing the homicide rate in Colombia.
The Colombian city of Medellin, which was for years the murder capital of Latin America, has seen homicide rates drop to 1,649 in 2011 from 6,349 in 1991, according to government data. The South American country has received more than $7 billion in U.S. anti-narcotics and counter-insurgency aid since 2000, much of it administered by Naranjo when he was national police chief from 2007 to 2012.
Jorge Montano, the PRI’s senior foreign policy coordinator, said in April that the new administration wants to “reset the relationship with the U.S. on the war on drugs,” adding that he would like to see closer cooperation and more information- sharing.
‘Blind Eye’
The revival of Pena Nieto’s PRI party has left some in Washington on guard. Representative James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, said last month at a hearing that he’s concerned Pena Nieto may bring a return to the days when the PRI “minimized violence by turning a blind eye” to drug traffickers.
U.S. federal prosecutors in May filed civil charges against Tomas Yarrington, a former PRI governor in the border state of Tamaulipas who allegedly used millions of dollars in bribes from cartels to invest in Texas real estate. The PRI suspended him and Pena Nieto has said justice must take its course in the case.
“The stakes are high for Mexico,” Victoria Nuland, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman, told reporters in Washington yesterday. “The stakes are high for us. And we think we will be able to have good cooperation.”
‘No Truce’
Fresh off his election win, Pena Neito rejected concerns the PRI will loosen the reins on the nation’s drug war.
“The Mexican people have given our party a second opportunity. We will honor it with results,” Pena Nieto said after claiming victory. “In facing organized crime, there will be no pact or truce.”
While Pena Nieto has vowed to eventually return troops to their barracks, Mexico may still need them to battle criminals such as Los Zetas, a group of former military officers who have expanded into kidnapping and other illicit businesses, said David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego.
“The initial approach will be a kind of detente with organized crime groups,” Shirk said in a phone interview. “But you can’t get rid of guys like Los Zetas without some serious commitment of force.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Eric Sabo in Washington at esabo1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Joshua Goodman at jgoodman19@bloomberg.net
I am responsible for the rise of Santoyo: Gen. Oscar Naranjo
General Oscar Naranjo, former director of the National Police.
Photo: File / TIME
He said he ran for office of Brigadier General in general meeting in 2007.
In an interview with La W Radio ‘, the former director of the National Police, Oscar Naranjo, claimed responsibility for the final stage in the Senate and the Government of the selection of General (r) Mauricio Santoyo as the new general. By his count, within the general meeting held to appoint, there was a “legal debate” around its name because the investigation was ongoing disciplinary against him for nearly 2,000 “tapping” when he serves as director of Gaul in Antioquia ( read also: General Santos Santoyo asked to appear before U.S. authorities. States.).
Naranjo said that “if at the time of the Directorate, had had information would not have allowed the rise of General Santoyo,” meaning that once never received information from the DEA on drug trafficking charges of ties to the senior officer, who was also the former security chief Alvaro Uribe during the years 2002 and 2006.
However, the former director of the Police said it received confidential excabecillas Speaking about the AUC on General Santoyo, who once were analyzed.
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| General (r) Mauricio Santoyo became the highest-ranking official to be required by a court of Justice of the United States. |
Two months ago, General (r) Mauricio Santoyo knew that a Virginia court in the United States, I was looking for and what he was seeking his extradition to respond by none other than taking bribes worth 5 million dollars and an alliance between 2000 and 2008 with the dreaded Envigado Office to send tons of cocaine into the United States.
Although Santoyo was aware that the matter was serious did not care. Finally, after all, since the mid-nineties had dealt with complex legal problems of those who always went ahead surprisingly. When he learned that the American court was looking, contacted the DEA in the U.S. and through its attorneys signed an agreement that promised to be submitted and appearing before the U.S. Justice to clarify the situation. That was two months ago. But Santoyo simply never showed up and lost the ability to face the charges against him in a discreet manner. The application of the Virginia court was leaked and caused the scandal that rocked the country last week, seeing the first general in its history, honored as a champion in the fight against kidnapping, request for extradition fans in May 2008, 13 paramilitary leaders were extradited and from prisons in the U.S., some began to speak. One of the first to mention with Santoyo own name was Juan Carlos Sierra, alias Tuso. He told U.S. authorities that one of the officers who most helped the paramilitaries, drug traffickers and especially the Office of Envigado was Santoyo. Then, Salvatore Mancuso and Carlos Mario Jimenez, alias Macaco, told how Santoyo and several officials close to him had been key pieces in the ‘succession’ in command in the Office of Envigado in which Carlos Mario Aguilar (Roger) finished replacing another extradited, Don Berna. The Roger was another decisive testimony. In the mid nineties Roger, who was an agent of the ITC and already working for the Office of Envigado, Santoyo and have met several of his men in Medellin and Gaul would have associated. Many years later, in June 2008, the vendettas and police pressure against the Office Rogelio forced to surrender to the DEA in Argentina and was sent to New York. They turned on the fan. He said that the links with Santoyo and his men were made through a number of lieutenants who after delivery had been at the forefront of the illegal business of the Office. He mentioned several names: Mauricio Cardona, alias Yiyo, Leonardo Muñoz, alias Douglas, Nito, and Dagoberto Garcia, alias Percheron. The first was delivered to the DEA, the second was captured by police in Colombia and extradited to the United States. Nito was killed and Percheron was arrested trying to enter the United States by Washington.Although the beginning of 2009 the paramilitary chiefs had mentioned Santoyo, the case against him did not seem very solid. However, in the first months of that year, Roger, Yiyo, Douglas and Percheron, each for their part, agreed to mention the name of an officer at the end would be the key to putting together the case that today has ordered the extradition of Santoyo. All mentioned the most (r) Roque Garcia Santoyo tab key in its links to the Office of Envigado. This man would be the ‘ultimate proof’ against the general. The key Roque Garcia came to work in Medellin in the mid-nineties as part of a panel of Dijin. ”That’s when she met Roger and Santoyo. He became a close friend of the two, is when goes awry and starts working with them and with the Office. Part of what I did was try to bend others to work for the Office “WEEK told one of the officers who worked with him in Medellin. In 2005, shortly after ascending to the rank of major, Roque called for his removal from the police and went to live in Medellin. ”He ordered the withdrawal because it was very hot and many people knew what he was. Santoyo that time and Presidency was as head of security but left his people in Medellin, which were essentially Roque and two other officers of his confidence, the highest (r) Bayron Ordonez, who was a exGaula who worked with Santoyo and was known by the aliases of the Green Caraguayo or the Fat, and retired Captain Edward Garcia, known by the alias Orion. They three were in charge of contacts with the Office of Envigado, “said another exoficial Semana In early May 2009 Roque Garcia was approached by DEA agents at the airport in Medellin. They told him it was required by a court in New York following the statements against him had given the others extradited. Roque agreed to voluntarily board a DEA plane. In court, he realized that his former partners had betrayed and had even told of murders in which it participated, including any drug agency informants. That would mean a sentence that could easily be around 30 years. ”Faced with this picture Roque had no other different scenario to work with U.S. justice. Although at first resisted and denied everything, softens jail there either. After a year he began to speak. At first they began to water and Garcia Ordonez was, it was very important at that time for the DEA, “said a person who advised Roque Garcia. Thanks to the information submitted, the authorities had the necessary elements to build a legal case against Major Ordonez and Captain Garcia. By mid 2010, following the departure of Roque, these two former took the catch, vendettas and rearrangement within the office and became a kind of ‘patterns’ of the criminal enterprise, together with Felix Isaza, aka Beto . The whereabouts of both is unknown until today. The next step in the collaboration of Roque was talking about who was his boss, General (r) Santoyo. ”Roque refused them to send tons of cocaine along with the Office of Envigado, but did accept that worked for years with them. He said that what they did and for which they received money was simpler. was basically pass information about transactions that were to develop against the Office, warning of arrest warrants and make trades in other cases ‘legal’ crack consisting of rivals, “said to Semana a person who had access to what was Roque. ”He admitted that on several occasions he received money from the men in the office for him and for him to take the general Santoyo,” he said. Thanks to his testimony and cooperation he gave, Roque Garcia ended up serving just over three years imprisonment in the United States. Last week I was in jail awaiting transit out in the coming days towards a third country. That statement was the final blow which determined that the Virginia court asked to Santoyo. ‘A esculquen me that’ This order has broken out, with good reason, like a bomb in Colombia. Santoyo was a decorated officer for his performance against kidnapping and for leading more than 140 rescue operations, between 1995 and 1998, which he also won medals, recognition of Alvaro Uribe, governor of that time. However, not only are the rumors about him some time ago but has faced investigations for serious human rights violations, since he was involved in massive illegal interceptions between 1997 and 2001, which earned him his dismissal by the Ombudsman. Therefore, the most surprising in this story is that all those responsible for the long and successful career of General wash your hands today. The number and level of those in one way or another gave their backing to Santoyo in the past has few precedents: the Presidency, Congress, the State Council, the Ministry of Defense, the Department of Police, the Prosecution. Beyond of the charges he now does in the U.S., which first have to prove the prosecutors in that country, there were reasons to question their suitability. But none of those who promoted it seemed to worry about them. Alvaro Uribe, who as governor of Antioquia Santoyo coincided with the front of Gaul, it was then as head of security in the presidency between 2002 and 2006. In 2003, Santoyo was dismissed by the Attorney as a result of those ‘wiretapping’, but the presidency kept him in office. Now the president said on Twitter: “I hope that General Santoyo and the police explain the case.” Another investigation against the officer, in prosecution, was the subject of a writ of prohibition. The prosecutor of the time, Luis Camilo Osorio, told Caracol Radio these days: “That was a prosecutor himself who took a decision in due course on the case.” In 2004, responding to a resource officer, the Attorney confirmed the dismissal, but continued as head of presidential security. In 2006, a room of the Council of State suspended the measure. One of the three judges who made the decision today was the prosecutor, Alejandro Ordóñez. Today he said that what was done was to suspend temporarily the sanction of dismissal against Santoyo, but the process was not closed. In November 2007, Colonel weighed on which this process was promoted to general in the Second Committee of the Senate, request the Party of the U and despite warnings against several senators. Marta Lucia Ramirez, who was among those who supported him, told semana.com: “The lack of diligence was in the Police and the Ministry (of Defense), where there were no controls to prevent this promotion.” He recalled in passing that among those who recommended it was the moment Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos. Even when he became the police chief was General Jorge Daniel Castro, his successor, Oscar Naranjo, has claimed responsibility and said that “if he had information would not have allowed the rise of General Santoyo.” The president, meanwhile, said: “It is highly important that the general Santoyo out and respond to the U.S. justice for their actions.”Finally, after being sent to the Colombian Embassy in Italy as police attache to return to the country General Santoyo was decorated by President Uribe and, in 2009, retired from the police. Unusual parable. A man accused of serious human rights violations, dismissed by the Attorney General, with his dismissal confirmed by this and only temporarily suspended by the State Council as part of a process that was underway, and it follows, then, according to the Attorney, “is alive and kicking” – makes it to the top of the generals, with obvious protection from high up, and remain untouched until now, when it bursts through the work of the Justice gringa, the charge pump that, during all those years, would have been in the service of drug traffickers and paramilitaries. The worst may be yet to come. If extradition, given the conditions of the plea bargain in the U.S. (the negotiations and reach agreements that the defendants in exchange for information), the only recourse of General Velasquez Mauricio Santoyo would face a drastic condemnation or ‘splash’ to up-if you have evidence that protected those who were aware of his alleged complicity with those who had to fight. In that case, the potential involved would be worth them little colombianísimo ‘to me I esculquen’ which have displayed these days who promoted it, blaming others or saying that is the general who must defend themselves. not However, it remains to be seen if extradited, by the profound implications that can be sent to a foreign justice to a general of the republic. In Colombia, the process of his dismissal by the “tapping” of the nineties continues, but there is, so far, no investigation for complicity with drug trafficking or paramilitarism against him. That would protect him from the accusations that led to the extradition request. And it would have saved again
