【译】Drugs and security in North America

Drugs and security in North America

北美的毒品和安全

 

Mexican waves, Californian cool

墨西哥，飘摇，加州，酷！

 

Three things to stop the gangs: better police in Mexico, stricter gun laws in

America and legal pot in California

遏制贩毒集团三大法宝：墨西哥加强警察力量，美国制定更严格的枪支管制法律，加利福尼亚的示范性法律议案的通过

 

Oct 14th 2010

《经济学人》2010-10-14

 

THERE have been gunfights outside the American school and a big private university. The mayors of two suburbs have been murdered. And a grenade has been thrown at Saturday evening strollers in a square, injuring 12. All this has happened since August not in Kabul or Baghdad but in Monterrey in northern Mexico (see article). The latest battleground in a multilateral war between drug-trafficking gangs and the authorities, Monterrey is not a dusty outpost. It is one of the biggest industrial cities of North America, a couple of hours’ drive from Texas and home to some of Mexico’s leading companies.

最近美国的高中和一所私立大学外都发生了激烈的枪战。两个郊区的地方官也被谋杀了。上周六傍晚时分在一个广场上，有人朝散步的人群扔了一颗手榴弹，造成12人受伤。从9月份以来所发生的这些事情并不是发生在喀布尔或巴格达，而是在墨西哥北部的蒙特雷。蒙特雷并不是一个宁静的落满灰尘的前沿哨所，而是贩毒集团和政府当局之间多方参与的战斗的最新战场。它是北美地区最大的工业城市之一，距离田纳西州仅有几小时车程，并且是墨西哥一些重要企业的所在地。

The maelstrom of drug-related violence that is engulfing Mexico has produced exaggerated, sometimes xenophobic, alarm in parts of the United States. The response in Mexico City has, until recently, been defensive denial.

      毒品有关的暴力犯罪所导致的混乱正在吞噬着墨西哥，并且形势在美国人心里被进一步夸大，使得美国人对墨西哥产生了恐惧和害怕心理。直到现在，墨西哥城对此的回应态度依然是防御性的拒绝承认。

Both reactions are wrong. The violence, in which at least 28,000 people have been killed since 2006, reflects a double failure of public policy: decades of neglect of the basic institutions of the rule of law in Mexico, and a failed approach to drug consumption (plus lax gun laws) in the United States. These mistakes have helped to create the world’s most powerful organised-crime syndicates. Reforms in both countries could help tame them.

      墨美双方的反应都是错误的。自从2006年以来28000人在暴力中丧生，这反映了公共政策的双向失败：墨西哥几十年以来忽视法律法规的基础建设，美国在药品消费控制方法上的失败，再加上其松散的枪支管理法规。这些错误一起造就了世界上最大的有组织毒品犯罪团伙。两个国家都对其缺陷加以改进则可以对遏制这些犯罪团伙起作用。

Take Mexico first. For much of the long rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party until 2000, the goal of policing was political control rather than crime prevention or detection, and the judiciary acted as a rubber stamp. In these conditions the drug gangs thrived. With increasing

urgency the past three Mexican presidents have tried to tackle the mobsters, but have found they lacked the tools for the job. Thus, on taking over as president in 2006, Felipe Calderón turned to the army as a stopgap, sending thousands of troops onto the streets of northern cities. Only now,

and with painful slowness, are the elements of a broader strategy falling into place. The new federal police force is growing, but it remains too small. Belatedly, the government has realised that it needs to pursue more active social policies to ensure that young men do not see the drug business as their only career option.

      先拿墨西哥来说说。自从2000年革命制度党长期执政以来，治安的目标是政党控制而非犯罪预防或犯罪侦查，司法机构也只是作为一个象征性机构存在。在这种情况下，贩毒集团茁壮成长。随着日益增多的贩毒暴力事件发生，过去的三任墨西哥总统都想尝试将这些暴徒们绳之以法，但却发现他们缺乏必要的完成这一任务的手段。因此，当2006年接任总统以后，Calderon就转向借助军队以为权宜之计。他派遣了数以千计的军队奔赴北部城市的街头进行巡逻。直到现在，在经过了痛苦而漫长的过程后，更广泛的打击犯罪策略才开始落实。新组建的联邦警察部队在逐步壮大，但还是不够强大。政府也意识到它需要制定更多有效的社会政策来确保年轻人不会把毒品生意当做他们唯一的职业选择。

Perhaps the best news is that the mayhem in Monterrey has at last forced Mexico’s politicians and business leaders to face up to the gravity of the threat. Mr Calderón sent a constitutional amendment to Congress this month that would consolidate more than 1,600 local police bodies into 32 reformed and strengthened state forces. It now stands a decent chance of being swiftly approved. Even then, Mexico’s long to-do list includes regaining control of local prisons and local courts.

      或许最好的消息是蒙特雷的暴力活动至少让墨西哥的政客们和商业领袖们认识到了国家所面临的危险的程度。本月Calderon总统已经向议会提交了一项宪法修正案，提案中提议将全国超过1600个本地警察团体组建为32个更为强大的国家警察部队。这项法案有望顺利获得通过。即使这样，墨西哥长期需要做的事情还包括重新获得当地监狱和法庭的控制权。

In all this Mexico is not getting the right kind of help from the United States. Weak law enforcement in Mexico has helped the drug gangs to grow, but their power owes everything to proximity to the world’s largest retail market for illegal drugs. Recent American administrations have at least moved on from the finger-pointing of the past to an acceptance of shared responsibility. But the results are patchy. The Mérida Initiative, a $1.4 billion anti-drug programme for Mexico, is lazily modelled on Plan Colombia. It includes a lot of helicopters and hardware of the kind Colombia needed to fight FARC narcoguerrillas, when what Mexico really needs is far more support with police training and intelligence-gathering.

在这些方面墨西哥并没有得到来自美国的适当的帮助。墨西哥国内弱势的法律执行力使得贩毒集团不断壮大，但它们的发展壮大也得益于靠近世界上最大的非法药品零售市场。最近美国管理当局至少从以往的互相指责的态度开始转变为接受双方共同责任的态度。但目前收获的结果还很少。美里达倡议，一项以“哥伦比亚计划”为模型构建的，，针对墨西哥的价值14亿美元的打击毒品计划，却进展缓慢。它包括购买大量直升飞机和武器装备以便装备给FARC缉毒警察，但比起这些装备，墨西哥实际上更为需要的是警察训练的支持以及贩毒情报的收集。

Mexico would be even better served if the United States renewed a ban on the sale of assault weapons that lapsed in 2004. Sadly, this looks unlikely to happen. Yet since 2006 alone, Mexican authorities have seized 55,000 of these weapons of war. That is enough to equip many NATO armies—and most were bought legally in American gunshops.

如果美国能重新对杀伤性武器的售卖签发禁令（这一禁令2004年就失效了），那么墨西哥的毒品打击将会取得更大成效。但让人失望的是，这不大可能发生。然而从2006年以来，墨西哥当局在行动总共缴获了55000件武器。这些武器足以用来装备给许多NATO部队，而这些都是在美国的枪支商店里合法购买的。

 

The potential of pot

一击的可能性

So permissive when it comes to lethal weapons, the United States remains steadfast in its commitment to the prohibition of drugs, in the face of all the evidence that this policy fails to curb their consumption while creating vast profits for organised crime. It is welcome that California is

now debating before a referendum on November 2nd, whether to legalise marijuana (see article). This newspaper would vote for the proposition, because we believe that drug addiction, like alcoholism and tobacco consumption, is properly a matter of public health rather than the criminal law.

      尽管在致命武器上管制比较宽松，但美国依然坚定地维护禁止毒品的承诺。但是大量证据表明这一政策并没有能遏制毒品的消费，反而为有组织犯罪创造了巨大利益。在12月2号的全民投票到来之前，加利福尼亚目前正在就是否将大麻合法化这一议题展开讨论。本刊支持这一提议，因为我们认为像酗酒和酗烟一样，药物成瘾更应当视为一个公共健康问题，而非一个犯罪问题。

If California votes in favour of legalisation, Mexico would be wise to follow suit (the bottom would anyway fall out of its marijuana business). The drug gangs would still be left with more lucrative cocaine and methamphetamines. But it would become easier to defeat them. And Mexicans should make no mistake: they must be defeated. The idea of going back to a tacit bargain that tolerates organised crime, favoured by some in Mexico, is inimical to the rule of law, and thus to democracy and a free society. The sooner Mexico turns its new-found sense of urgency into a

more effective national policing and law-enforcement strategy the better.

      如果加州民众投票支持大麻合法化，那么墨西哥的明智之选就是跟随这一趋势。贩毒集团还可以去卖更有利可图的咖啡因和***等毒品。但我们可以很轻易就击垮他们。墨西哥人在这一问题上一定不要犯错:贩毒集团必须被击垮。墨西哥人以往那种容忍有组织犯罪的态度对法律的威慑力来说是一种伤害，进而会损害到民主和社会的自由。如果墨西哥能将面临暴力犯罪时迫切的惩治意愿尽快转化为更为行之有效的国家政策及法律措施，那么则国家幸甚。

 

后记

今天刚好看到这则新闻《墨西哥20岁女生任警察局长 挑起反毒大旗》，翻译此文也是能体会到墨西哥禁毒所面临的困难之大。