Amnesty possible in Mexico’s war on drugs

CHIHUAHUA, Mexico — The man expected to be Mexico’s next president is considering a radical new approach in the country’s long-running war on the drug trade: amnesty.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has a wide lead ahead of Sunday’s presidential election, has said that if he wins he may push for a law allowing some nonviolent criminals to walk free.

“I will not rule out any option” to achieve peace, he said at a recent debate.

Forgiveness for even low-level workers in the country’s multibillion-dollar drug industry would mark a dramatic shift from the militaristic approach that Mexico has long employed in its attempt to curb trafficking. With U.S. encouragement, Mexico has gone to war against the cartels, imprisoning drug users and drug runners, incinerating opium and marijuana fields, and sending thousands of armed soldiers into the streets.

Lopez Obrador says that strategy has been a failure.

The drug trade has grown and violence has exploded. More than 250,000 people have been killed and more than 30,000 have gone missing since former President Felipe Calderon sent troops into the streets twelve years ago in an effort to neutralize drug cartels.

Last year, Mexico recorded more homicides than at any point in its modern history, and it is on track to break that record this year. Police and the military have been accused of grave human rights violations and of colluding with cartels.

Lopez Obrador has not proposed sending all troops back to their barracks. But at a recent campaign event in Chihuahua, he advocated a more holistic approach to confronting drug trafficking.

Lopez Obrador has said he would use economic development, job creation and educational opportunities to address the root causes of crime, giving federal Presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has advocated a more holistic approach to confronting drug trafficking. scholarships to students and creating employment programs to keep vulnerable young people off the streets.

Olga Sanchez Cordero, a retired Supreme Court judge who is expected to be named interior secretary if Lopez Obrador wins, recently told Reforma newspaper that the amnesty would be a “pacification strategy” that would shield some low-level criminals who grow, use and transport narcotics. The effort, she said, would help reintegrate into society some of the estimated 600,000 Mexicans employed by drug cartels.

Skeptics question whether amnesty would lead to even greater impunity in Mexico, where government statistics show only about 7 percent of all crimes are properly investigated and about 2 percent result in convictions.

The amnesty proposal has support of many human rights advocates, who have been critical of the drug war.