Thread: Merchants of corruption

This story is right on!

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/edi ... 22586.html

Dec. 23, 2006, 8:46PM
Merchants of corruption
Drug cartels' increasing role in U.S. corruption requires a clearheaded U.S. response


Crime waves, like hurricanes, periodically slam American cities. Houston suffered a sharp rise in murders during the first half of this year; Washington, D.C., was assaulted by brazen influence-selling. Now Brownsville and other cities along the Mexican border are being pummeled by corruption. Border guards, city agencies, even judges have been caught taking bribes. The crime wave shows that American officials are no more immune from the cancer of corruption than any others.

Federal officials say border bribery cases began rising noticeably several years ago. In Brownsville alone, police snared a municipal court clerk fixing traffic tickets in the middle of a busy police station, a code inspector who allegedly let used car lots operate without building inspections and a county commissioner who accepted $10,000 in kickbacks in exchange for a jail-building contract. Texas isn't alone in seeing more corruption: two border guards were convicted in California for freeing thousands of illegal immigrants in exchange for cash.

Of all nonfatal crimes, corruption is particularly troubling. It can undermine whole societies, including our own, if those in power fail to recognize and then crush the real source. That's why it's crucial that law enforcement, government officials and the public grasp the role of regional and political events in its spread. In the border area, several experts say, much corruption is associated with Mexican drug cartels and the tightening of border security.

The framework for borderland corruption has existed for centuries. Distant from capital cities and serving as bridges between different cultures, borderlands everywhere often develop less lawful, more unregulated ways of doing business. And in Mexico, until recently led by autocratic governments, citizens historically had to "buy" access to public services by slipping cash to officials.

These traditions still linger in cities such as Brownsville, said border historian Anthony Knopp. Yet, Knopp said, ''That certainly doesn't account for the spike in corruption.''

How could it, after all: Though Brownsville's officials — and its citizens — might seem more corrupt, Mexico's proximity hasn't changed. What has changed measurably is the clout of Mexican drug cartels. ''I think a sheriff here on the border has two choices when he gets elected or tries to run for office,'' Knopp asserted. ''He either is likely to take some money, or get shot, or look the other way from the people who are connected with if not part of the major cartels.''

With enormous budgets and their own militias, the cartels have a stranglehold on Mexico. Their struggles for ascendancy and cash are terrorizing several Mexican cities, posing an almost insurmountable challenge for new President Felipe Calderon.

Ordinary Mexicans bear some responsibility. For too long, they saw drug trafficking as a U.S. problem, fed by American vices. They didn't see, until too late, how tolerating or accepting traffickers' bribes spawned the devastating violence now bleeding their cities.

Organized crime also has fed on recent immigration policies. In the past five years, a surge in border personnel has slowed illegal crossings. But it's also prodded human traffickers to pay higher bribes, said David Shirk of San Diego's Transborder Institute. The many new guards also may not be as well-trained or supervised as those before them, which can translate to ethical weakness.

The threat all these transborder criminals pose to American cities is frightening, indeed.

Aggressively strengthening public institutions by demanding transparency and accountability on both sides of the border is one weapon. So is the federal task force formed when Brownsville first started seeing corruption increase.

Maybe most powerful of all, though, is the understanding of how corruption travels. It piggybacks onto weak institutions and feeds on specific economic and political conditions. It spreads like a plague in communities where wrongdoing visibly goes unpunished. From Mexico to Houston to Washington, no culture is immune from its own weaknesses and temptations.

The longer the government does not act to end this criminals illegal invasion, the more corrupt America will become until it is just another carbon copy of the third world. A lot like many countries in South America and Mexico.