Bribes

Mexicans are spending more on bribes than they were a couple of years ago.

Mexicans paid the equivalent of about $2.6 billion in bribes last year, according to the nonprofit group Transparency Mexico. That’s 42% higher than two years earlier and an average of more than $24 for each of Mexico’s 105 million people.

Much of the money went to fix parking tickets, get garbage collected or secure parking spots from the legions of informal attendants who block off spaces and charge for them.

Corruption in Mexico is rife and the informal economy huge. If you’re stopped for a traffic infraction, it’s often cheaper and easier to pull out your wallet than to go to the station to face all the paperwork.

Bribes are paid for a wide range of activities, Transparency Mexico found. People pay them to get telephone service installed, loans approved, to prevent illegally parked cars from getting clamped or to sell things on the street without authorization.

The survey showed that 197 million bribes were paid nationwide last year, a big jump from the 115 million in 2005. But while people here are paying more bribes than they did two years ago, they are spending less on each. The average bribe was about $13, compared with $17 in 2005.
The poll was based on interviews with 16,000 people around the country in December. It has a margin of error of less than 1 percentage point.

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Importance: So the price of bribes are dropping, obviously as there has been an increase in participation nationwide. This should help to demonstrate just how common corruption is considered in Mexico.

Mexican Human Rights

MEXICO CITY — A leading international organization charged Wednesday that the Mexican government's human rights commission has proved largely impotent in preventing abuses of its citizens.

Human Rights Watch, the New York-based organization, said in a report that Mexico's National Human Rights Commission, a semi-autonomous body, has proved adept at criticizing violations of citizens' rights but has failed to halt or prevent the practices.

"The commission could have a much greater impact on human rights in Mexico, but it doesn't," Jose Miguel Vivanco, the group's director for the Americas, said. "While it does a decent job documenting abuses and identifying problems, it doesn't take crucial steps needed to bring about change."

"The (commission) should be a catalyst for human rights progress, not merely a chronicler of the status quo," Vivanco said.

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Importance: Once again corruption in the Mexican government is detracting from the country's over all level of democracy and freedom. Currently, Calderon is touring the U.S. to promote better treatment of Mexican immigrants to the U.S., but apparently his efforts are needed just as much in Mexico itself.

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Judicial Reform and more Drug Violence

OVER the past few weeks, gunfights between police and drug gangs along Mexico's border with the United States have left dozens dead. At the same time, two assassination attempts against a senior official in the public prosecutor's office have been foiled—the latest on January 17th when three men with grenade launchers and assault rifles were arrested.

On taking over as Mexico's president a year ago, Felipe Calderón decided to deploy the army to combat Mexico's escalating drug violence. Originally sent in as a temporary measure, the troops are still there. Faced with a relentless drugs war, Mr Calderón is now seeking to overhaul the justice system, too. The measures are ambitious; whether they will actually work is a different matter.

The very size of recent drug seizures might be seen as a sign of failure, underlining the magnitude of the trafficking. In October officials seized 23.5 tonnes of cocaine, the largest seizure ever reported in Mexico, though only a tiny fraction of the estimated 530-710 tonnes that cross into the United States every year, according to a recent report commissioned by an American senator, Richard Lugar. Mexican gangs already control America's lucrative methamphetamine trade. They have also been expanding their custom in heroin. In 2006 Mexican heroin production leapt by 58%.

Sometimes an apparent victory can actually make matters worse—at least in the short term. Last month Mexican troops arrested Alfredo Beltrán, a big shot in the Sinaloa cartel, one of Mexico's biggest drug gangs. But this may create a power vacuum leading to even more violence. Osiel Cardenas, head of the Gulf cartel, another powerful gang, has been in jail in Houston, Texas, for a year, with little discernible effect on the flow of drugs.

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Importance: Drug problems continue to escalate in Mexico. President Calderon has delineated judicial reforms that will change the current Napoleanic system to an Anglo-American system, but many are skeptical whether this change will help correct the problem of corruption and drug violence. The recession pending in America is not going to help matters, giving the drug trade more impetus as the Mexican economy declines.

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