Election Blog Series - Drug Policy Reform at Home and Abroad

WFP Colombia Team

With the end of the U.S. presidential election, political commentators have begun predicting what the differences and similarities will be between the next four years and the last four. A slew of articles were dedicated to U.S. policy toward Latin America. Latin Americans heavily favored President Obama in the elections. In Colombia, we watched as a small town held mock elections for the U.S. President, which Obama won handily for the second time. Mitt Romney didn’t even have a campaign manager. The feeling is similar across the region. According to a poll in Chile, Latin Americans in 18 countries selected President Obama as their favorite leader in the Americas. However, respect for President Obama does not mean people are content with his policies or with the relationship between the United States and their countries. U.S. drug policy in the region illustrates this divergence.

While overshadowed by pocketbook issues, drug policy reform is urgently needed. There is growing tension between the U.S. and Latin American governments over the current approach to tackling this joint problem, and its impacts have been felt throughout the Americas. Launched more than 40 years ago, the War on Drugs intended to curb drug use at home by stemming production abroad. Unfortunately, it failed to achieve either goal. At home, punitive policies have failed to address the problems directly related to drugs and drug use, such as abuse, addiction, and adolescent use. Instead, they have led to human rights abuses, racist enforcement patterns, and landed unprecedented levels of nonviolent drug offenders in prison. In Latin America, a militarized drug interdiction and source-eradication strategy has not curbed production or trafficking. It has instead lead to increased displacement, migration, mass human rights violations and the loss of tens of thousands of lives.

Today people from across the Americas, spanning from civil society actors to former and sitting presidents, including some of our closest allies in the drug war, are calling for a new approach to drug policy. Given Latin American leaders’ growing discontent with U.S. policies, shifts in the region’s political ideology, and the joint nature of many issues confronting the Americas, President Obama will need not be able to continue ignoring Latin America in his second term.


Drug Policy under President Obama

The Obama Administration has made positive steps toward investing in drug demand reduction programs in the United States. The Office on National Drug Control Policy’s statements have emphasized drug treatment and prevention programs rather than criminal justice solutions. Still, the Administration’s rhetoric has not been met with adequate substantive reforms. The Fair Sentencing Act reduced the criminal penalty disparity between crack and powder cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1. Though a step in the right direction, the law reduced rather than eliminated racist law enforcement policies.

The Obama Administration has also endorsed the current militarized strategy of the War on Drugs, continuing its failed and harmful policies abroad. It has not only continued providing hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to fight the drug war in Mexico and Colombia, but exported the same model to Central America, and especially Honduras. In order to skirt human rights restrictions on aid, the U.S.-backed Colombian security forces are now providing training to Honduran security forces, both of which have dismal human rights records. Mexico also tapped a retired Colombian police chief to be a security adviser in spite of his alleged ties to illegal paramilitary groups. Without a fundamental change in militarized drug policy in Latin America, innocent civilians will continue to be the ones who bear the brunt of the violence. This reality was underscored for the Obama Administration after a DEA-led operation killed four civilians.

Governor Mitt Romney didn’t offer any alternatives to the status quo either. He called for an end to medical marijuana use, characterizing it as a wrong step in the direction of drug regulation. He has also called for continued militarization of the War on Drugs abroad, and, had he been elected, would likely have ramped up military aid while decreasing social aid.

There is little difference between the presidential candidates on drug policy, though President Obama seems more willing to discuss alternatives. The real policy difference is between the United States and Latin American countries. Most Latin American heads of state expressed their discontent with the U.S. War on Drugs at the Summit of the Americas in May 2012. Even hard-line conservative governments, including Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina, a retired military general, recognize the status quo as ineffective and demand alternatives. At the very least, the United States government should recognize its declining ability to maintain the status quo and welcome a policy debate. Washington will not be able to dictate its policy to leaders in the region if they are no longer willing to listen.


First Test for Reform: Starting At Home

As Colorado and Washington voters went to the polls this past Tuesday and re-elected Obama, they also voted to legalize recreational use of marijuana, and lawmakers must draft laws guiding its regulation and sale. It is the first time any U.S. state has approved the legal regulation of marijuana, and many are hailing it as progress and comparing it to the beginning of the end of alcohol prohibition. It is unclear what will happen just yet, as both initiatives are in direct violation of federal law. Before the measures were passed, the Department of Justice remained silent when asked how it would respond if voters favored marijuana regulation. Afterward, a representative said federal drug law “remains unchanged” but declined to comment on the states’ initiatives until after further review.

Drug policy reform advocates remain hopeful but uneasy, unsure how the Obama Administration will respond to the measures. It could invoke federal law, but doing so would indicate a complete disregard to the will of voters. "In fact, more people voted in favor of marijuana regulation in the ‘swing state’ of Colorado than for Barack Obama," commented the Drug Policy Alliance’s Daniel Brito. "Advocates of the status quo will have to concede that this is now absolutely a mainstream issue fit for rational discussion, unless they think Barack Obama is somehow a fringe candidate, with his mere 51% support, compared to 54.8% support for allowing adults to choose marijuana over alcohol."

This instance provides a first test for President Obama on drug policy reform. How the government responds to the measures at home could be a signal for how it will react to dissent abroad. The domestic response itself could have a significant impact abroad. For example, regulation in the United States could decrease marijuana exports from Mexico, thereby reducing the power of violent Mexican cartels. These measures are therefore positive from an international perspective as well.

"The bullets fell from above like rain:" accounts from the Ahuas tragedy

“The bullets fell from above like rain.”


Recently, Witness for Peace partnered with PROAH, which provides International Human Rights Accompaniment in Honduras, to accompany a group of Honduran human rights defenders from COFADEH (Committee of Families of the Detained and Disappeared of Honduras), on an investigative mission to La Moskitia. One of the nights that I spent in there, I dreamt that I was being shot at by machine guns. It was dark and all I could see were bright lights showering down like fireworks. For a passenger boat in the Patuca River a few weeks ago this nightmare was their reality. Early in the morning on May 11th helicopters from a DEA supported drug raid opened fire onto the canoe. Among the victims who lost their lives were two pregnant women and a 14 year old boy.

Hilda, a survivor who I met in the local hospital earlier that day, said that she had fallen asleep on the boat and woke to bullets falling like rain. One of those bullets left her with a grave wound in both of her legs.  She recounted from her hospital bed that she went into the water to try to escape the overheard attack, but her injury and the continued gunfire prevented her from getting out of the river for almost two hours. Hilda’s family had gone out to search for her as soon as they heard the news of the attack, but they too were stalled for hours by the violent raid. Hilda’s wounds became seriously infected, likely due to the amount of time she was stuck in the water before being rescued. As she lay bandaged in the hospital she recalled no warning from the DEA helicopter; no lights shone down from above. She lamented that if they had, they would have seen that the small boat was filled with innocent women, children and men. Rather all she remembers was waking up to a barrage of bullets.

The next day I shared my dream with one of the members of the group of human rights defenders and journalists that I was accompanying on their mission to investigate the deadly attack. He responded that he’d had a similar nightmare. I wondered if we were so affected by these events, how the victims and survivors manage to cope with this trauma.

After that conversation I met a two year old girl who had been another passenger on that boat while she was sitting on the wooden steps of her home with her 11 year old sister who also survived the botched raid. The toddler watched us curiously as her sister shyly described how they managed to reach land that morning. The youngest sister rode on her mother’s back to shore; the oldest fended for herself even though she doesn’t know how to swim. They appeared physically unscathed but looking into the young girls’ eyes I asked myself what kind of dreams they have at night and what kind of memories they will carry with them throughout the rest of their lives.

Other nights since Ahuas when I close my eyes I see the face of the 14 year old boy who was killed. Sadly I don’t see a smiling young teenager. I see the image of his recovered body that his older sister showed me when we visited their home. His body was missing for almost two days before it was found.

For me the pain of the survivors and families of the victims is tangible and visceral, because I saw the tears, the wounds, the canoe with 20 bullet holes, the grief and indignation. But it should not just be the international accompaniers, the Honduran human rights defenders, and journalists who see this first hand in order to piece together who was responsible for that fatal morning. Where is the official investigation?

The official U.S. government line is that the Honduran authorities are investigating the events. Due to the level of U.S. involvement in this incident and the State Department’s own human rights reports documenting the rampant impunity in Honduras, why is the U.S. not conducting its own investigation or at the very least providing more direct support to the Honduran investigation?  It would only be fitting since the U.S. DEA was “supporting” the operation.

Over a week after the attack the investigation that the U.S. government is putting all its faith into was sitting in Puerto Lempira with the Direccion Nacional de Investigacion Criminal (DNIC). COFADEH found that no official autopsies had been done and important pieces of evidence had not been collected. While some witnesses and families of the victims that COFADEH and the journalists spoke with had been interviewed by the DNIC commission, others had not.

The truth is that it is much more convenient for the U.S. to allow the memories to fade, the evidence to disappear, and the investigation to drag out indefinitely like thousands of others. That way they can more easily evade answers to questions about what type of support and advice the DEA gave, what role they actually played in the operation, and why the U.S. are supporting Honduran security forces that have been implicated in human rights abuses.

It is time for the U.S. government to look into the eyes of the survivors and families of victims themselves.

*WFP partnered with PROAH which provides International Human Rights Accompaniment in Honduras

The DEA killed the Hopes of Hasked Brooks Wood

Ahúas, Gracias a Dios

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

By: defensoresenlinea.com

Translation by the Witness for Peace Nicaragua Team

For the original version in Spanish please visit Defensores en Linea

A team of human rights defenders of the Committee of Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared (COFADEH) reports the deep pain of family members of the 14 year old boy, Hasked Brooks Wood, victim killed in the reckless attack lead by forces of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in which two pregnant women and the best friend of Hasked, Wilmer Walter (14) and Emerson Martiínez also died.

Defensoresenliena.com interviewed Hasked Antonie Brooks Symore, Hasked’s father who, upon learning of the fateful news traveled from the island of Roatán to find that he had been missing for 48 hours. 
Brooks Symore expressed himself with distress and anguish, “I feel terrible because I didn’t know that something like this would happen in this life, but we’re always here hoping that human rights organizations will come and help us (referring to COFADEH).”

“Upon seeing you all I feel a little better because I know that you will help us to pressure the government.  I feel accompanied by COFADEH,” explained the father of the adolescent who lost his life in the brutal attack.

Brooks Symore commented that his pain was even stronger because he knew the other people who had died and because various members of their families live in his home community and because of his wife, Clara Wood Rivas, who survived by throwing herself from the pipante (boat) into to the great waters of the Patuca River.

Choking on her words, Clara Wood Rivas said that upon hearing the bursts of gunfire she jumped into the river to get to the coast.  She heard the buzzing of the projectiles that passed closely by her body.

Swimming as rapidly as she could, when she got to the coast she screamed as loud as she could, “Hasked!…Hasked!...” but her son did not respond.  She woke up on Saturday and had no news of her son until many hours later.  The young boy had disappeared.

Upon hearing the news that Hasked was dead, the only thing she cried out was, “They have killed my baby…they have killed my baby!”

It is known that  when the attack began, a helicopter was seen  descending rapidly in the dark early morning in the community of Paptalaya and that it pointed itself directly at the pipante in which at least 15 people were being transported.  Hasked heard the detonations and one of those shots penetrated his mouth, another his head and a third projectile hit his abdomen and a fourth struck one of his legs.

That day the young Hasked was very happy because he was coming back to live in the community El Naranjal in Ahúas, where he was born.  This place is inhabited by a few wood houses built on stilts; Families plant basic grains, vegetables, raise cows and each family has one horse.

Hasked brought with him his fifth grade report card, a ball, a pair of cleats and his pet named Dragon (his little dog).  Dragon has not wanted to eat anything while staying Brooks Wood’s house, his family commented.

His happiness was greater because during the trip from the Barra Patuca to Paptalaya where the small boat was headed, he was seated next to his best friend Wilmer Walter, 14 years old who  received a grave injury to one of his hands.  The human rights defenders at COFADEH visited him in the Regional Hospital in Atlántida and confirmed that the condition of his hand has a reserved prognosis and that it needs the attention of specialists.
Accompanying Hasked, Clara and Wilmer was Vera Gonzáles, a relative of Brooks Wood and her daughters Chantel who recently turned two and 11 year old Alana; all three  survived the attack unharmed.

Brooks Symore has made his life in shrimp boats that fish the Roatán and also as a cook.  Part of the year he works in Islas de la Bahía and the rest he spends with his family which is composed of nine members.

He commented that the events of Friday the 11^th of May of 2012 in Ahúas leave an impression that “one doesn’t know what will happen in life and without expecting it, one is attacked like that.  I didn’t think that that would happen because things like that never happen in these parts.”

Brooks Symore appreciated the visit and company of COFADEH whose human rights defenders came to visit this far-off community that has been forgotten and that currently faces serious threats from narco-trafficking.

Severe Injuries Suffered By Victims On Boat Attacked By DEA Agents

La Ceiba, Atlantida

By: defensoresenlinea.com

Translation by the Witness for Peace Nicaragua Team

For the original version in Spanish please visit Defensores En Linea

A team of human rights defenders from the Committee of Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH) with international accompaniment confirms the grave physical and emotional consequences suffered by two of the victims who were injured as a result of an attack carried out from a helicopter by United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) troops on the 11^th of May near Ahúas, in the Honduran Mosquitia.

It has become known that DEA forces used automatic weapons to attack a “cayuco” (a small motor boat) that was transporting 15 people along the waters of the Patuca river.  Of the 15 people, 2 fisherman and 2 pregnant women were killed when hit with rapid gunfire from a helicopter that attacked the boat presuming that it was involved in drug-trafficking.

The tragic incident occurred on the 11^th of May around 3:00 in the morning.  The passengers were riding from Roatán (Islas de la Bahía) in the boat named “DAGO” that took them to the Barra of the Patuca River, where in the early morning hours they boarded the cayuco motorboat that had arrived at the Barra del Patuca to drop off some divers.

Passengers on this boat were  people from various communities in the municipality of Ahúas and Brus Laguna in the department of Gracias a Dios in the Honduran Mosquitia.

The COFADEH team visited 22 year old Lucio Adán Nelson Queen in his hospital bed at the Atlántida Regional Hospital.  He had received 3 bullet-wounds in different parts of his body.

Lucio Adán has a serious wound in his left arm with the projectile still in his arm; the other injuries are localized in his back,  side, and  gluteus.

While the young man found it difficult to talk due to his critical condition,he told us that he had been sleeping in the small boat when he saw intermittent lights coming from the helicopter.  The small lights were nothing more than the bursts of gunfire that hit  his body.

In spite of being injured, and using only one arm he swam to the edge of the river and ran through bushes until arriving at a small house close to the community of Ahúas where a woman helped to take him to the clinic of the Moravian Church where he received his first round of medical attention.

Dannjy Nelson Escoto, Lucio Adán’s uncle, who has stayed in the medical center every day accompanying his family member, demanded an exhaustive investigation to clarify the unjustifiable attack perpetrated by DEA agents against defenseless people.

Lucio Adán has been hospitalized for 9 days and still hasn’t been scheduled for surgery.  Furthermore, his financial limitations prevent him from buying the pins needed to fix his injured arm.

Another survivor is the 14 year old boy, Wilmer Lucas Walter, a resident of Roatán, Islas de la Bahía, who, on the day of the attack, was on his way  to visit his grandmother in the community of Barra Patuca.

On the 11^th of May, Wilmer was traveling to Ahúas to visit his grandmother Aura Estela Cooper, taking advantage of the fact that his mother’s friend was already making the trip with her youngest 14 year old child, a classmate of Wilmer’s, who died in the shower of bullets directed by foreign military personnel against the small boat.

Wilmer was asleep in the small boat, just like the other passengers, when he was suddenly thrown into the water when the boat was hit by bursts of machine gunfire from the helicopter that shot without warning.

The young child swam with difficulty until he came to the edge of the river where he quickly ran through the dense vegetation when he felt that his left arm weighed tons.  It was only then that he realized that the shots had seriously damaged one of his wrists.  He then went further into the jungle, listening to the blasts of projectile bullets fired by military personnel from the helicopter.

According to the specialists the condition of his hands has a guarded prognosis.  Wilmer’s mother, Sabina Romero expressed to defensoresenlinea.com that she is very worried for her son, seeing that they don’t have sufficient economic resources to take her son to a private clinic.

Both Wilmer and young Lucio are hospitalized in the Regional Hospital in Atlántida in the city of La Ceiba.  After the fatal attack first-aid was administered by medical personnel at the clinic of the Moravian Church in Agúas and then the injured were  transferred by plane to the city of La Ceiba.

It is worth pointing out that no government authorities have visited the medical center in person to inquire about the condition of the injured victims of this grave error committed by agents of the DEA that operate in the zone and whose presence was rejected by the Miskito communities following the incident.

Also, it was verified that Hilda Lezama Kenneth, whose legs were  injured  during the attack, was admitted into the Vicente D’Antoni Hospital on the 12^th of May and released on the 17^th since  her family could’t  pay  for her stay in the private hospital.

The COFADEH team along with various people who are part of the international accompaniment will head to Brus Laguna and Ahúas on Monday to document the testimony of the other victims of the attack suffered by various people at the hands of DEA agents from the United States.  It is now known that this team will also meet with journalists from the Associated Press (AP).