How powerful had the Mexican drug cartels become by the start of Felipe Calderón’s presidency in 2006?

Mexico’s cartels became especially powerful during the 1980s and 90s. The old cocaine route through the Caribbean had been effectively shut down by Reagan’s Florida Task Force, making the overland route through Mexico more important. At the same time, Colombian capos began paying their Mexican couriers in product, rather than cash. This fattened the Mexicans’ profits, which enabled them to influence more senior public officials, through the traditional means of “plata o plomo”, or “silver or lead”—that is, bribes or bullets.

How effective has Calderón’s five year war on drugs been in reducing drug-related violence and dismantling the cartels?

 It has succeeded in dismantling some cartels. The Beltrán Leyva organisation crumbled after its eponymous leader, Arturo, was killed in 2009. A year later, La Familia Michoacana fell apart when its leader was killed by the police. But each dead kingpin has been replaced by a new one—and the succession-battles have made violence worse, not better. During Calderón’s five years the murder rate has more than doubled. Kidnapping, extortion and robbery have increased steeply too, as the police’s incapacity to deal with their higher workload has allowed cartels to branch out into new lines of business.

What has been the US’s contribution to tackling drug trafficking?

The United States is the main market for Mexican drugs, the main source of Mexican weapons, and the main proponent of the failing ‘war on drugs’. Over 100 years ago Porfirio Díaz, a Mexican President, said, “Poor Mexico: so far from God, and so close to the United States.” The relationship is not all bad—legal trade across the border is worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year to both countries. But on security, Mexico gets a bad deal. The Mérida Initiative, America’s contribution to Mexico’s fight against the cartels, is worth less than $500m a year, equivalent to about 3% of Mexico’s federal security budget.

What reforms are necessary to start to reduce the corruption endemic in the Mexican police forces and government?

Mexico has plenty of police, but they are badly organised. Whereas Colombia has a single national force, Mexico’s officers are split into more than 2,000 municipal forces, plus 31 state forces and a separate federal police. They do not trust each other. Mr Calderón has enlarged the federal force, which is reckoned to be the least corrupt. But his attempt to bring all police under a single national command has been blocked in Congress. Officers might be harder to corrupt if they were better paid, but no government can match the wages offered by the narcos. Better prosecution of corrupt officers would be a more effective deterrent.

How do the presidential candidates propose to tackle organised crime if elected in July?

Presidents serve only one term, so Calderón is out. His centre-right National Action Party has put forward Josefina Vázquez Mota, who says she would enlarge the federal police from 40,000 to 150,000 officers. Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution says he would create a single national policeforce and withdraw the army from the streets as soon as possible. One last thing. Cocaine is expensive because the price covers the cost of murder. Until it is legal, you cannot buy it in Oxford without contributing to someone’s slow death in a Tijuana cellar.

Tom Wainwright is the Mexico City bureau chief of The Economist

Last term we flew the Rainbow Flag; this term we limited representation of the college LGBTQ community solely to those who identify as LGBTQ. This cuts to the core of a recurrent and long-standing problem between the straight and LGBTQ communities – that of marginalisation. By restricting the terms on which a representative can put themselves forward, New College JCR has made a significant step backwards in the progression of the integration and amalgamation of the LGBTQ community into the wider college society and beyond. Forgive me for sounding facetious, but it seems to me a game of if-you’re-wearing-sweatpants-you-can’t-sit-with-us.

Not identifying as LGBTQ should not exclude anyone from the membership or representation of the community. I am in no way denying that someone who identifies as LGBTQ is not a fantastic candidate for the job, nor am I suggesting that someone straight would do it any better. What I intend to stress is that by restricting the representation of the community on a college, university or national level we are suggesting that five labels can be placed on an indefinable spectrum of sexuality, that anyone who identifies outside of those five letters cannot stand for that community, and that identifying as straight automatically prevents you from feeling any close affiliation.

Sexuality is fluid and the membership and representation of the worldwide LGBTQ community should reflect that. Ultimately, allowing straight people to run for LGBTQ rep raises awareness and understanding. Surely the LGBTQ community would want to involve straight people in the social and political aspects of the community – why alienate passionate supporters on the basis of sexuality? The JCR should be allowed to select a representative based on merit and suitability; this should not be thwarted, on the basis of identifying as straight, in the constitution.

If those who identify as straight are refused the right to run for a position they strongly champion, it may put them off getting involved in other ways. Identifying as one letter from the spectrum LGBTQ does not automatically qualify you to understand the issues of someone who identifies as another. To exclude straight people on the basis that they ‘could not understand’ is preposterous. The support network of LGBTQ soc at the university level exists to further support both representatives and individuals.

You need not identify as LGBTQ to support and speak out for that community, as patron of LGBTQ History Month Professor Martin Hall and the existence of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network prove. It is time that New College followed the precedent set by many other Oxford colleges – Balliol, Magdalen, LMH, Christ Church, Exeter, Merton and Lincoln to name a few – and of the worldwide LGBTQ community, in widening the college LGBTQ representation.

Facts of the matter

So it’s that time of year again when Busy Lizzie wanders into Parliament to inform us of her Government’s plans for the next year. This being Britain, there’s an appropriate amount of pomp and ceremony for the sake of tradition and tourism – think of it like Matriculation, but sunnier.

There’s crowns being carried round on cushions, a man called Black Rod (which is hilarious) having the doors to the Commons shut in his face, and Nick Clegg looking mournful at the destruction of his political credibility. All this is, of course, normal in Parliament.

The headline act was the economy: banking reform, a green investment bank, and cutting of regulations to aid competition. David Cameron called it “a speech to rebuild Britain”, Ed Milliband called it a “no hope” speech, and Nick Clegg didn’t say much that anyone noticed. Clegg’s last big policy – reform of the House of Lords – made it in as the 13th bill to be announced. Also sneaking in near the end were reforms of defamation law, pensions and the water industry, and a bill allowing the limited use of closed courts for trials with national security implications. Not included were discussions about gay marriage, private funding for universities, or regulation of lobbyists. Stirring stuff.

Laugh-a-minute

A fantastic week for columnists, with correspondingly numerous points of view presented. Upsettingly for those of us hunting the ridiculous, many were startlingly sensible. The ever-glorious Daily Mail, however, duly provided in an hour of need with Quentin Letts’ frankly bizarre piece. Headlined “Queen’s Speech: Philip maintained a terrific, garden tortoise grimace as he listened”, he starts by questioning who was more tired out of the Queen and her Consort (they are both well over 80, poor dears), and wanders rapidly off into incoherence from there. It reads much like the drunken essay you thought was daring and witty until, reading it the next morning, you realise is barely comprehensible.

Voice(s) of reason

With Lords’ reform, a listless Coalition and the non-appearance of gay marriage dominating the media – especially given the incumbents’ hammering in the polls last week – the BBC’s James Landale provides a neat bit of perspective. “Queen’s Speeches take time. They are the product of a lot of negotiation within Whitehall. And they get signed off many days in advance.” In no way is this speech a reaction to the recent election results. Similarly, this week is just the start. “The Queen’s Speech is a mere skirmish compared to the combat to come’.

Which is a prim BBC way of saying that this long, bizarre ceremony has next to no influence on whatever last-minute reforms the government will actually throw into Parliament. I’d always assumed the monarchy wanted to remain in government, but seeing the Queen get drawn into the drudgery of parliamentary politics, I wonder whether they even care.

Defending the interests and reputation of Sudan is no easy task. In fact, one is hard pressed to think of a country with a worse reputation. For much of my lifetime, the evening news has been peppered with reports of atrocities in Darfur, where at least 200,000 people have died since 2003. Further south, a civil war raged for more than twenty years, from 1983 until 2005, claiming the lives of over two million people. In front of this backdrop, the Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir, struggles to maintain diplomatic integrity as he globe trots carefully around the world. He treads carefully for fear of arrest by the International Criminal Court, who issued a historic arrest warrant for him in 2008 for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

And yet His Excellency Abdullahi Al Azreg was pulling off a remarkable feat. I had come to the embassy armed with tough questions for a government the Bush administration had accused of genocide in Darfur, but within minutes of arriving in his palatial office, we were laughing over Sudanese coffee. He had charmed me with embarrassing ease. In fact, I even found myself partially buying into the idea that the Sudanese government is an easy villain in a region filled with victims. Placing blame on the Sudanese government is not only easy, but soothing too, and goes some way towards helping people make sense of the horror which has swept the country in recent decades. The very premise on which this interview was granted was the idea that Sudan had been victimised by the western press. I promised the ambassador an open mind.

If the media coverage was indeed distorting the truth, I asked the ambassador to justify the on-going rule of President al-Bashir, whose alleged involvement in war crimes in Darfur continues to keep Sudan at the forefront of the Western news media. Just last week, the President of Malawi has said the Sudanese President will not be welcome to attend the upcoming African Union summit in July. ‘His indictment is politically motivated, biased and totally wrong.’ Politically motivated, I assumed, by the US, who are seemingly the source of all of Sudan’s troubles. ‘In the West, when the US kills civilians intentionally it is collateral damage. When the Sudan does this accidentally, it is a war crime. Where is the fairness?’ The Sudanese people, he claims, are tired of the inconsistencies in America’s foreign policy and are firmly backing their leader. ‘The population of Sudan is about 32m people, of whom 33m are politicians. They are highly enlightened, highly politicised they know what is going on. I do not think that many people would vote for the President if they were not satisfied.’

But not all Sudanese are convinced by their President, and just last week opposition journalist Faisal Mohamed Saleh was arrested in his home. When I bring it up with the Ambassador, it seems to touch a nerve: ‘What you are saying is implying we have no respect for human rights, it is not true. In every country if a journalist is violating the law, then you must arrest him.’ He goes on to make a comparison with Britain’s own media woes. ‘Here, these days, you have Murdoch and News International who are suffering by being grilled by an inquiry. Mohamed Saleh has been asked to report before an inquiry, that doesn’t mean prosecution.’ But just because the arrest is lawful does not make it right and a democracy relies on open dissent. ‘Democracy does not mean that you allow me to say anything I like. Democracy does not allow for libel and slander. Slanderers will be punished. It is quite normal.’

The press may not be free in Sudan, but the US seems to think that terrorists certainly are. It holds the dubious honour of being one of only four countries to feature in the US State Department’s ‘State Sponsors of Terrorism’ list and even hosted Osama Bin Laden from 1992-96. But it is undermined by the presence of Cuba, which makes it read more like a list of countries who fail to submit to US hegemony than anything else. But the perception of Sudan as the home of all evil is kept alive in the US at least in part by George Clooney, who in recent years has taken on the role of chief activist for the various conflicts in the country. ‘He is not defending the Sudanese, he would just like to put a human face to his fame.’ I am not sure I quite buy the idea that Clooney needs more fame, though the participation of celebrities is often said to have extended the conflict in Darfur, by giving false hope to rebel groups that American and international military support was on its way. By holding out, the rebels only extended the war and caused greater suffering. But I am pretty sure Clooney is not a Zionist, whereas the Ambassador claimed, ‘He is working under the Zionist organisations that have their own agenda which is not at all in line with western values. Have you ever heard George Clooney talking about the killing going on in Gaza?’ Israel remains a perfect bogeyman for the Khartoum regime, who use the common enemy to bring them closer with their Arab allies and deflect criticism of their own domestic policies.

Needless to say, relations with the West are strained, but Sudan has simply looked the other way. China has welcomed the Sudan with open arms and now represents Sudan’s biggest trading partner, holding a 40% stake in Sudanese oil projects. The relationship is seen as a model for Chinese relations with the developing world, one based on trade and the extracting of natural resources with a very limited political agenda. I ask the ambassador about how dealing with China is different from dealing with the West. ‘China has no strings attached to their trades. They don’t intimidate. They don’t tell you do this or we’ll do this and this.’ By pursuing this ‘no strings attached’ strategy, China has been able to rapidly expand its investments in Africa and develop infrastructure across the continent. But what Sudan really enjoys about its relationship with China is that ‘they show a lot of respect for Sudan and deal with us as equals’. But the obvious question here is equality for whom, exactly? While they may treat the government officials with whom they meet in much the same manner as one from back home, by turning a blind eye to poor governance, they are failing to show equal consideration for Sudanese citizens at large.

What makes Sudan so fascinating is that it is a microcosm of geopolitics today. It is the venue for a power struggle between China and the West, and two different foreign policy doctrines. While Sudan has at times brought out the best of western liberalism, where it stands up for universal rights and ideals through peaceful institutions such as the UN and the ICC, it has also shown us the backlash that can arise from getting too carried away with moral superiority. With another round of Sudanese coffee, the ambassador imparts a final gem of wisdom. ‘There are civilisations which are older than the western civilisation. And they have legacies that they are proud of.’ If the West wants Sudan to toe the line, it has its work cut out.