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.

U.S. Threatens to Cut All Aid to Nicaragua

By: Christine Goffredo
     WFP Nicaragua Team Member

Small chile farmers like Don Orlando (left), Don Roger (center) and Don Roger's son (right) are those that have benefited from USAID funded programs in Nicaragua like Chiles de Nicaragua, S.A.

Many people in the U.S. know about Nicaragua from the Sandinista revolution in the 1980’s, or they may have heard about the Iran-Contra affair.  But there is a 150 year history of tension between the United States and Nicaragua, and this history has continued to the present day.


Currently at issue in U.S.-Nicaraguan relations is the renewal of two separate “waivers”, without which Nicaragua would not receive any foreign aid from the United States in the upcoming fiscal year.  Last week Washington announced that Nicaragua would not receive one of the waivers, and the prospects of receiving the second so-called “property waiver” are not looking positive either. The new U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua Phyllis Powers’ comments at a May 11 American Chamber of Commerce luncheon signaled as much:


 “I must be honest with you, the persistent failure in fiscal transparency, the incapacity of the government of Nicaragua to make concrete decisions in resolving the property invasions of U.S. citizens, and especially the grave irregularities in the electoral process of last year; and the absence of means that indicate that the conditions are improving for this year, make the decision for the disbursement of funds very difficult.” 


The first waiver deals with transparency in budgeting, and its denial will cost the Nicaraguan people $3 million in aid for the next fiscal year.  The approval of the property waiver still remains uncertain and could mean a cut of over $13 million in education, health, and small business development funding.  


The property waiver comes from Section 527 of a U.S. law called the Foreign Relations Authorization Act that gives the Executive Branch authority to cancel all aid to a country if cases concerning land confiscated or appropriated from U.S. citizens by that country’s government are not resolved in a satisfactory manner.   In addition, the U.S. government would have to veto any decisions by international financial institution, such as the IMF where the U.S. holds veto power, to disburse funds.  


While such a law may seem logical on its face—a way to protect U.S. citizens’ property—such laws have almost exclusively been used to punish government’s that disagree with U.S. policymakers.  


And this legislation is particularly problematic for Nicaragua. In the first place, due to the Hickenlooper Amendment that dates back to 1962 but was resurrected by Senator Jesse Helms and Representative Henry Gonzalez when they authored Section 527, the definition of U.S. citizen can be applied retroactively.  This means that Nicaraguans whose land was confiscated before they became U.S. citizens are applicable under this law.  One of the main motivations for this amendment is the Nicaraguan Agrarian Land Reform, passed after the Revolution in1979 that put an end to a 40-year long dictatorship by the U.S.-supported Somoza family.  The Reform confiscated land primarily from  Somoza family members,  soldiers in Somoza’s army that had committed war crimes, and those that had taken out hefty mortgages for their properties and then left the country for the United States, taking all of their wealth with them, and leaving the burden of the unpaid-for properties with the Nicaraguan government.   Following the U.S.-funded Contra War in Nicaragua, the democratically elected president of 1990, Violeta Chamorro, formalized the land turnovers, an act lauded by many as a great aid in the war reconstruction effort of the country.  The Agrarian Reform benefited over 60% of Nicaragua’s rural population by providing them with land after over a decade of war and destruction.  


In 1994, however, the U.S. passed Section 527 and even advertised it in stateside newspapers, urging new U.S. citizens from Nicaragua to file claims.  According to César Zamora, the vice president of the American Association of the Chambers of Commerce of Latin American and the Caribbean (Aaccla), these property claims have cost Nicaragua over $1.4 billion in 15 years, and that the resources that the country has utilized to return and compensate these confiscated properties makes up around 45% of the internal debt of the country.  This is on top of a $4.12 billion external debt that represents 52.6% of the country’s GDP, thanks to U.S. supported neoliberal policies that pushed borrowing from the IMF and World Bank.  


Today the Attorney General of Nicaragua, Hernán Estrada, has reported that in this year alone, 50 cases have been resolved, leaving 193 claims, representing 366 properties, still unresolved.  This shows a real effort to escalate the pace of case resolution, as there were 48 in 2009, 61 in 2010, and 62 in 2011.  Of the 193 claimants still remaining, only 6 are U.S.-born citizens, the rest are Nicaraguan who became citizens during the 80’s and 90’s, according to the Attorney General’s Office.  Estrada has also noted that some of the difficulty in resolving the remaining cases has to do with poorly filed claims, or lack of documentation for claims.  


Nevertheless, the decision that the Executive Branch will make is still uncertain.  In the case of the negation of the first waiver, the major reason cited was lack of transparency in the Nicaraguan budget. The other issue mentioned was inconsistencies in the 2011 Nicaraguan Presidential election.  This, despite that fact that the first waiver is based on the Department of State’s Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act, which evaluates only fiscal spending (specifically, making the national budget public).  In regards to the elections, there have been several documented instances of issues with that election, while the Nicaraguan government and its supporters maintain that the election was free and fair.  


Clearly these waivers are powerful diplomatic tools that raise very serious questions not only about national sovereignty, in terms of producing a national budget or electing a leader, but also about what the goal of foreign aid really is. Should U.S. assistance be used to ensure that a country obeys the will of the United States? Or to aid the millions of Nicaraguans that could benefit from financial assistance in health, education, and environmental programs?  


Sociologist Cirilo Otero told Witness for Peace in a recent interview, “I think that the two waivers are necessary for Nicaragua, in relation to the country’s interests with multilateral institutions and the commitments of the country to multilateral lending institutions.”  But he left an important reminder concerning these international lending institutions, their programs, and the majority of Nicaraguans:


“With or without the waiver, poverty will continue to be a difficult and denigrating situation for a large percentage of Nicaraguans, for many Nicaraguan families - I am speaking about roughly 3.5 million people, principally young people.  Up until now, the projects that have been executed with these loans have not succeeded in benefiting the poor of Nicaragua.”


Nevertheless, loss of United States development aid would seriously damage and possibly eliminate programs currently operating in Nicaragua that assist Nicaraguans around the country.


The decision will be made by July 30, so there is still time to act. Call John Ballard at the State Department’s Nicaragua Desk (202-647-1510) and tell him that you support extending both of these waivers to Nicaragua this year.