Guatemalan president urges new drug war strategy

Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina said  the US-led regional war against drug trafficking is being lost and requires a change in strategy, including decriminalizing drug consumption. "The war we have waged over the past 40 years has not yielded results. It's a war which, to speak frankly, we are losing," he said in an interview with AFP on the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia. He recalled that when he took office in January, many thought that a retired, right-wing general like himself was going to lead the country into "a frontal war against narcotrafficking, that there would be a bloodbath." Given his experience in combating drugs as Guatemala's intelligence chief 18 years ago, Perez took everybody by surprise, including the United States, when he stated that the war on drugs was lost and there was a need to seek alternatives. "Meanwhile, the black market continues to exist and dollars and weapons continued to flow in from the United States. The way we are fight this war, we cannot win," he added. The 61-year-old general is bringing to this hemispheric summit a proposal to open a high-level dialogue both at the continental and global levels to seek new strategies to combat drug trafficking, including decriminalization of consumption and regulation of the drug market. The man who took part in the battle against leftist guerrillas in the 1980s and in the negotiations which in 1996 put an end to 36 years of civil war said he is not discouraged by US President Barack Obama's rejection of his proposal. In an interview with the Grupo de Diarios America, an association of leading Latin American newspapers, Obama said Washington would not "legalize or decriminalize drugs because doing so would have serious negative consequences in all our countries in terms of public health and safety." The US leader added that legalizing or decriminalizing drugs "would not eliminate the danger posed by transnational organized crime." But Perez played down Obama's remarks, noting that the US leader "will not innovate" when he is seeking re-election in the November elections. He said there was a "growing awareness among (US) officials, which they have not expressed but that we know they have discussed in think tanks, non-governmental organizations, academic circles, that it is necessary to seek other alternatives" to the war on drugs. He conceded that this was a long-term effort, although there was already some progress. "We are beginning to see that (Washington) is ready to begin a dialogue, although not on decriminalization (of drugs)," Perez said. He succeeded in arranging a meeting with his central American counterparts Saturday on the sidelines of the summit. In March, at the instigation of Washington according to some reports, the presidents of three of these countries -- El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras -- boycotted a summit called by Perez in the Guatemalan city of Antigua to discuss his proposal. "In Central America, the situation is very delicate, especially in the Northern triangle (Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador), the homicide rate in Honduras is one of the highest in the world," he noted. Perez noted due to the war launched by Mexican President Felipe Calderon on narcotrafficking in his country and which left more than 50,000 people dead in five years, Mexican drug cartels have moved into the Northern Triangle, unleashing a wave of fierce violence that also involves local gangs. US aid for Central America's drug fight is being cut from the current $100 million to $86 million in fiscal 2013. At the March 24 meeting in Antigua, Perez said that any new strategy to combat rampant crime from drug trafficking must end the "taboo" against decriminalization. "We must end the myths, the taboos, and tell people you have to discuss it, discuss it, debate it," Perez said as he hosted Presidents Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica and Ricardo Martinelli of Panama, and delegates from El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. Although some experts have said decriminalization would end the financial incentives for criminals and drug trafficking, the idea has been firmly rejected by political leaders in the United States, Britain and elsewhere.