Amnesty for drug dealers? This Mexico presidential candidate is pushing for forgiveness

David Agren | Special to USA TODAY

MEXICO CITY — The front-runner in Mexico's upcoming presidential election wants to give amnesty to anyone involved with illegal drugs — from the dealers to the peasant farmers growing opium poppies.

Leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who leads in recent polls by double digits ahead of the July 1 vote, offered the controversial proposal as a way to combat the drug cartels as they fight over territory and the production of heroin and methamphetamine.

The idea of forgiving those involved in the illegal drug business has stoked strong emotions in Mexico, where a decade-long drug war has claimed more than 200,000 lives and violence has increasingly crept into corners of the country once considered placid.

Mexico experienced its most murderous year on record in 2017, with 29,158 homicides recorded. The monthly homicide rate has raced even higher in 2018.

Amnesty proponents call for a change in security strategy, arguing that sending soldiers into the streets to confront the drug cartels isn’t working — especially against claims of human rights abuses by the army and corruption among police.

“You can’t put out fire with fire,” López Obrador said at the first candidates’ debate on April 22.

His proposed amnesty is still ill-defined, allowing opponents to denounce it as dangerous and akin to a deal with the devil.

“What Mexico needs is more of a state presence to defend Mexicans against insecurity," tweeted former first lady Margarita Zavala, who is running as an independent in the field of five candidates. "An amnesty or ignoring the problem are not the solution to the country’s violence.”

The other presidential hopefuls support long-proposed plans like improving intelligence, properly training police and going after the cartels’ cash.

Jaime Rodríguez, the cowboy-governor candidate known as “El Bronco,” has a low standing in the polls but has campaigned in favor of chopping off the hands of thieves, bringing back the death penalty and opening “militarized” high schools.

A poll published Wednesday by the Reforma newspaper showed López Obrador of the Morena party with 48% support, while Ricardo Anaya of a left-right coalition was second at 30%. José Antonio Meade of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was third at 17%, amid PRI’s corruption scandals and public discontent with rising crime.

López Obrador's opponents have attacked him as a dangerous populist and denounced the idea of amnesty, seemingly more than they campaign on their own promises to combat crime and corruption.

“There’s not much strategy (with López Obrador) and there’s also not much of a plan. It’s just that he has a wider gamut of options than the others are willing to entertain,” said Federico Estévez, a political science professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. “They attack him on it because it’s easy."

López Obrador claimed he can calm Mexico in three years and would convene forums with experts and spiritual leaders — including Pope Francis — to solve Mexico’s security crisis. He also talked about tackling the root causes of violence, such as poverty.

Support for amnesty appears weak, with 73% of Mexicans opposed to it, according to a poll in El Financiero newspaper.

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Still, some security analysts support giving an an exit to low-level workers in the drug cartels, such as the army of spies on street corners known as halcones and the campesinos who grow opium poppies and marijuana to make ends meet.

“Thousands of people pass through our penal system whose only main fault is being young and poor, having tattoos and having dark skin,” tweeted Catalina Pérez Correa, a professor at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics in Mexico City. “Amnesty is a good start in repairing the social damage, but the underlying problems must be resolved, too.”

Edgardo Buscaglia, senior scholar in Law and Economics at Columbia University, said other countries have successfully offered similar amnesties. But he said Mexico would need to make major changes for that to work: “clean out” the political class accused of corruption, overhaul the justice system and establish truth commissions.

“The logistical structure of the cartels doesn’t allow them to be given amnesty without a social process to legitimize it,” Buscaglia said. “If you start a process of amnesties with mobsters … the amnesty process will be tainted. People will see it as a Mafia pact, and it will collapse.”

President Enrique Peña Nieto, who is ineligible to run for a second term under Mexico's constitution, was elected in 2012 by promising to combat crimes affecting ordinary Mexicans, such as kidnapping and extortion. Instead, he focused on economic changes, such as opening the state-controlled oil industry and improving Mexico’s image with investors by tamping down talk of violence.

“He thought problems would be able to fix themselves if they weren’t spoken about,” said Lilian Chapa Koloffon, editor of the security blog at Nexos, a Mexican magazine.

Some victims criticize the notion of amnesty, saying it would only promote more drug violence.

“There can’t be forgiveness,” said José Díaz Navarro, president of a collective of 100 families who have lost loved ones to drug violence in the city of Chilapa, a hub for transporting heroin. “Impunity is generating more violence. It’s generating more crime. It’s generating conditions that we can’t live with anymore.”