JOHN GIBLER, john.gibler at gmail.com
Author of the forthcoming book To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War as well as Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt, Gibler said today: “Immigration from Mexico to the U.S. is largely the result of failed policies by the U.S. and Mexican governments. These include trade policies that have resulted in a lack of economic opportunities in Mexico and drug policies that have led to a recent explosion of violence in Mexico. Rather than focusing exclusively on the symptoms with immigration reform, as Obama appears to be doing, he should start by dealing with drug policy reform, so that drug demand in the U.S. stops destabilizing Mexico.”

Gibler just wrote the piece “A War of Anonymous Death,” which states: “After four years of President Felipe Calderón’s so-called war on Mexico’s drug trafficking organizations, murder and impunity have become the order of the day. Since December 2006, more than 38,000 people have been killed, with no noticeable reduction in drug shipments across the border. Federal authorities have opened investigations into less than five percent of those homicides. Most of the people killed are assumed to be guilty of their own murders by the implied logic that surely they were up to no good if they ended up in a ditch, wrapped in a blanket, and shot through the head.”

Background: BBC reports: “More than 20,000 people have gathered in the centre of Mexico City to protest about the large number of deaths caused by drug-related violence and the government’s response to it.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167