Daily Archives: February 9, 2017

BANGKOK A United Nations human rights investigator says there are signs of mounting opposition within the Philippines to President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs, with police operations on hold and the Church getting critical of the campaign.

Agnes Callamard, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, however said the thousands of killings in the campaign had given rise to a sense of impunity, which could lead to increased lawlessness and violence.

More than 7,600 people, mostly drug users and small-time dealers, have been killed since Duterte took office on June 30, about a third of them in police operations. Callamard said she knew of only four court cases seeking justice for the victims.

"The difference between the number of reported killings and the number of court cases is unbelievable," she told Reuters in Bangkok. "It's very unusual for that degree of impunity to remain restricted to one kind of crime or one type of community."

Spokesmen for Duterte could not immediately be reached for comment.

The war on drugs has been a signature policy of Duterte, who remains popular in opinion polls.

But Callamard, a human rights expert from France who took up the U.N. post in August, said opposition to the drug war was increasing and had reached a "tipping point."

"There is an increasing awareness on the part of the Filipino people that the war on drugs could hurt them," she said. "The surveys that are being done indicate support for the president...but critique the war on drugs."

One of the Philippines' top polling agencies, Social Weather Stations, said after a survey of 1,500 people in early December that most were satisfied with Duterte's rule. But 78 percent said they were worried that they or someone they knew would be a victim of an extra-judicial killing.

In a series of reports last year, Reuters showed that the police had a 97-percent kill rate in their drug operations, the strongest proof yet that police were summarily shooting drug suspects.

Both the government and police have strenuously denied that extra-judicial killings have taken place.

The Church in the Philippines, Asia's largest Catholic nation, had been a muted critic of the campaign but slammed it earlier this month for creating a "reign of terror" among the poor.

The bloodshed had also generated growing unease and criticism from Philippine civil society groups and media, Callamard said.

Her remarks come as Duterte and his police chief Ronald Dela Rosa face intense criticism for the October kidnap and killing of a South Korean businessmen by anti-narcotics officers inside national police headquarters.

He was arrested for drug offences that his wife said was an official cover for kidnap for ransom.

The case, which came to light in January, prompted dela Rosa to announce the suspension of anti-drug operations to purge the police force of what he termed "rogue cops." Duterte has however vowed to maintain his anti-drugs campaign until his term ends in 2022.

Callamard said real opposition to the drugs war would come from within the Philippines rather than international bodies such as the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In October, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda warned the Hague-based tribunal could prosecute if the killings were "committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population."

Duterte has threatened to withdraw from the ICC, calling it "useless," and said in a November speech: "You scare me that you will jail me? International Criminal Court? Bullshit."

(Reporting by Andrew R.C. Marshall, Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

TOKYO Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will propose new cabinet level U.S.-Japan talks on trade, security and macroeconomic issues, including currencies, when he meets U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday, a Japanese government official involved in planning the summit said.

SEOUL Lawyers for South Korean President Park Geun-hye have rejected a plan by a special prosecutor investigating a graft scandal to question her, citing a media leak, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office said on Thursday.

STOCKHOLM Eight countries have joined an initiative to raise millions of dollars to replace shortfalls caused by President Donald Trump's ban on U.S.-funded groups around the world providing information on abortion, Sweden's deputy prime minister said.

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Increasing opposition in Philippines to war on drugs: UN official - Reuters

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Trump Watch: Emboldened cops and border patrol agents, a more 'ruthless' war on drugs, and threats against the ... - Washington Post

The war on drugs has been going on for decades now and it costs the average person a fortune. While you may not be directly contributing to this crusade, your taxes and other bills do. Just how much is this costing you?

In total, our drugs control programme costs $100 billion per year to upkeep and enforce. Thats a massive chunk of the overall federal budget on something that experts say may not even be effective. The sheer size of the budget being spent on this programme is shocking and some believe it could be better spent elsewhere.

The result of the war on drugs isnt a higher price for drugs or scarcer supply, its legacy is the mass incarceration of a number of offenders. While what these offenders have done is illegal, we simply dont have the right amount of leniency and rehabilitation in place. Weve all heard of the straight A students in crime summaries, arrested and charged for a relatively small amount of a lower class drug, which can ruin their lives. Should these people be placed in a prison?

The costs dont stop with the incarceration either, the loss of productivity and workers also affects our national earnings. If someone is imprisoned for a period of a few years then they simply cost the country money, instead of generating it.

Thats why alternate solutions are cropping up for those that dont want to fund this war on drugs. Addiction rehab centers such as http://www.luxurybeachrehab.com, are opening their doors to those that suffer with drug problems. They want to rehabilitate instead of just imprisoning, which has been shown to be much more effective.

The high rate of drugs within our prison system is also alarming, as prisoners may not be protected from these influences while incarcerated. Instead, they may be used as leverage between prisoners and could lead to higher mortality, as they are being taken in an unsupervised environment. Experts that help with the detoxification process have spoken against just how dangerous this can be.

Our drug users are being forced underground by that $100 billion budget but theyre not actually being deterred from taking drugs. Their health is put at risk because of the staunch zero tolerance policies. In other developed nations, health providers give out fresh needles and a place to dispose of used ones, which dramatically reduces the transmission of HIV.

We should be working with these experts to pioneer our own campaign in the war on drugs that is actually effective. There are more than enough examples all over the world of the way that healthcare providers can better work with those in the throes of addiction. They mustnt be punished and incarcerated unless they are actively supplying other users or posing a risk to the public.

These latest figures show a really damming picture of the war on drugs, as they make it clear it is a cash eating machine without a lot of results. Simply throwing money at the problem doesnt seem to be enough and law makers need to start thinking outside the box, only then will they be able to mount a decent attack on illegal drugs. With other nations leading the way in this regard this outdated system is sadly falling behind at a huge cost to our taxpayers and vulnerable people.

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How Much is the War on Drugs Costing Us? - Los Cerritos News

Exclusive: The argument for President Trumps Great Wall across the U.S. southern border would be severely undercut if America expanded legalization of personal drug use, reports Jonathan Marshall.

By Jonathan Marshall

Attention deficit disorder isnt usually a welcome presidential attribute, but Mexicans can be thankful that Donald Trump has temporarily shifted his focus away from their country to start fights instead with Iran, the European Union, China, California and the U.S. news media.

The last time Trump addressed Mexico, right after the election, the peso fell 17 percent. Within days of his inauguration, Trump demanded that Mexico pay for a border wall, prompting cancellation of his planned summit meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.

As former Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan lamented, it took only one week of bilateral engagement between the new U.S. administration and Mexico to throw the relationship into a tailspin. That relationship would be better if Trump had stuck to the view he expressed in November 2015: I dont care about Mexico, honestly. I really dont care about Mexico.

Someday soon, however, Trump will rediscover his interest in Mexico, and relations will likely suffer again. But Mexico need not take his abuse lying down. As the buyer of more than a quarter trillion dollars in U.S. exports the second-largest market in the world for U.S. goods Mexico has some leverage if Trump tries to play rough with tariffs and trade.

And if Trump persists in sending a bill to Mexico City for his wall, Pena should seriously consider sending a bill in return to Washington to pay for the U.S. drug war.

High Cost to Mexico

For years now, Mexico has paid an extraordinarily high price in lives and social disruption for Washingtons insistence that North Americas drug problem be tackled south of the border, where the drugs are grown and transported, rather than primarily in clinics and halfway houses at home to treat the medical and psychological issues of users.

Successive administrations, starting with President Nixon, have demanded ever-tougher border controls, aerial-spraying programs, and DEA-backed anti-cartel operations in Mexico. All those efforts and sacrifices have been for naught. U.S. residents currently export up to $29 billion in cash to Mexican traffickers each year to buy marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamines and heroin.

Forcing that trade underground has taken a terrible toll on Mexico in terms of violence, corruption and social upheaval. Since 2006, when President Felipe Caldern ordered his military to join the war on drug traffickers, Mexico has lost about 200,000 lives and 30,000 more have disappeared, dwarfing the civilian death toll in Afghanistan and Iraq over that period.

The majority of those killed and disappeared were victims of criminal organizations, but human rights organizations also report soaring rates of human rights violations, including torture and killing, committed by security forces.

The 2016 Global Peace Index, prepared by the Institute for Economics and Peace, estimates the total cost of violence in Mexico at $273 billion, or 14 percent of GDP, with no end in sight. Direct fiscal costs of fighting the war on crime were about $32 billion in 2015 alone. Yet the United States has contributed only about $2.5 billion since fiscal 2008 to Mexicos drug war, under the so-called Merida Initiative.

Mexicos pain shows no signs of easing. The New York Times reported in December that Mexico suffered more than 17,000 homicides in the first 10 months of last year, the highest total since 2012.

The relapse in security has unnerved Mexico and led many to wonder whether the country is on the brink of a bloody, all-out war between criminal groups, it said.

Time for an Alternative

In his last phone call with Mexican President Pena, Trump reportedly complained, You have some pretty tough hombres in Mexico that you may need help with. We are willing to help with that big-league, but they have to be knocked out and you have not done a good job knocking them out.

According to one disputed account, Trump threatened to send U.S. troops south of the border if Mexico doesnt do more to stop the drug problem.

Pena can continue to do Washingtons bidding, ensuring his political demise, or he can challenge Trump by asking why Mexico should fight North Americas drug war on its own soil and at its own expense. If he goes the latter route, hell have plenty of good company.

Former heads of state from Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, along with other distinguished members of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, have called for normalization of drugs eliminating black markets and incentives for violence by legalizing individual possession and cultivation of drugs while instituting public health regulations. They note that such programs have succeeded admirably in Portugal and the Netherlands at reducing both the criminal and public health costs of drug abuse.

The harms created through implementing punitive drug laws cannot be overstated when it comes to both their severity and scope, the former heads of state assert in their 2016 report, Advancing Drug Policy Reform.

Thus, we need new approaches that uphold the principles of human dignity, the right to privacy and the rule of law, and recognize that people will always use drugs. In order to uphold these principles all penalties both criminal and civil must be abolished for the possession of drugs for personal use.

Change in Attitudes

Support for decriminalization is growing in Mexico, where the Supreme Court in 2015 approved growing and smoking marijuana for personal use. Former Mexican President Vicente Fox now advocates legalizing all drugs over a transition period of up to a decade.

Jorge Castaneda, a former Mexican foreign minister, recently opined,Mexico should take advantage of Californias decision to legalize recreational marijuana. Regardless of Mr. Trumps victory, the approval of the proposition in the United States most populous state makes Mexicos war on drugs ridiculous. What is the purpose of sending Mexican soldiers to burn fields, search trucks and look for narco-tunnels if, once our marijuana makes it into California, it can be sold at the local 7-Eleven?

Critics rightly point out that what works in the Netherlands wont necessarily solve Mexicos problems. Its powerful drug gangs have diversified into a host of other violent criminal enterprises. They control territory, intimidate or corrupt law enforcement, and kill with impunity.

Legalizing drug sales wont end their criminal ways, but it could erode their profits and let police focus on universally despised crimes with direct victims murder, kidnapping, extortion and the like.

As Mexican journalist Jos Luis Pardo Veiras remarked last year, Decriminalizing drug use will not fix a deeply rooted problem in this country, but it will allow Mexicans to differentiate between drugs and the war on drugs, between drug users and drug traffickers. This is the first step in acknowledging that a different approach is possible.

As for Trump, let him build his wall and see if that keeps out all the drugs. If not, maybe by then Mexico will be able to offer some useful advice on how to fight the drug problem not with guns, but with more enlightened policies.

Jonathan Marshall is author of many recent articles on arms issues, including How World War III Could Start,NATOs ProvocativeAnti-Russian Moves,Escalations in a New Cold War,Ticking Closer to Midnight, andTurkeys Nukes: A Sum of All Fears.

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Trump's 'Great Wall' and the 'Drug War' - Consortium News