Incoming Mexican president to seek negotiated peace in drug war

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday will present a plan for a negotiated peace including reduced jail time as the country reels from a militarized drug war that has produced tens of thousands of deaths over the past 12 years.

The concept of “transitional justice” is part of the incoming government’s integral security strategy, Olga Sanchez, Lopez Obrador’s proposed interior minister, told Reuters in an interview.

Transitional justice typically involves leniency for those who admit guilt, truth commissions to investigate atrocities and the granting of reparations for some victims.

“Not only will it be amnesty, it will be a law to reduce jail time,” Sanchez said.

“We will propose decriminalization, create truth commissions, we will attack the causes of poverty, we will give scholarships to the youth and we will work in the field to get them out of the drug situation.”

Lopez Obrador, a leftist who handily won the presidency on Sunday, wants to rewrite the rules of the drug war, suggesting a negotiated peace and amnesty for some of the very people currently targeted by security forces.

Sanchez had said the new administration, which takes office on Dec. 1, would move fast to reconsider drug policies and use of the military that, despite toppling some high-profile kingpins, failed to prevent more than 200,000 murders since first adopted in 2006.

“It’s an integrated public policy,” Sanchez said, adding the aim was to “pacify” the nation.

According to private estimates, Mexico’s drug war shaved nearly one-fifth from the gross domestic product of Latin America’s second largest economy last year.

To consider the possibility of a negotiated peace, Sanchez’s team has studied Colombia’s peace process with its biggest guerrilla group, which allowed rebel leaders to avoid prison.

After the Mexican plan is reviewed by Lopez Obrador, Sanchez said it would be presented as a public referendum. If it receives public support, the administration would then put it before Congress, where Lopez Obrador’s National Regeneration Movement and allies gained seats on Sunday, she added.

The concept could mirror a similar strategy enacted in 1940 by Lazaro Cardenas, who was then president, Sanchez said.

Cardenas decriminalized drugs, authorized doctors to prescribe narcotics for addicts, opened up clinics for addicts and proposed treating them as patients instead of criminals.

The purchase of small quantities of marijuana, cocaine and heroin was made legal and the state controlled their sale. Lower-level criminals were freed from jails.

However, the radical changes only lasted six months as shortages of cocaine and morphine during World War Two prompted the law to be canceled.

The modern-day militarized drug fight, Lopez Obrador argues, has failed to stop narcotics smuggling and violence, and does not address the poverty that leads many to the drug trade.

His new plan is being developed in consultation with human rights groups, religious leaders and the United Nations.

“It’s a change in everything: in combat, in social policy, in drug policy, in politics against violence, a very important change in our country starting with Andres Manuel,” Sanchez said.

Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe

Source link