Uruguay President says "Legalize
Drugs"
What if an elected president of an Américan
nation called for the
legalization of drugs and nobody outside of his country
reported it?
That's what happened twice in the past month when Uruguay
President Jorge
Batlle called for other Latin American leaders to join him in
opposing
US-imposed drug policy.
"If this powder was worth only ten
cents, there would not be organizations
dedicated to make a billion dollars
to fund armies in Colombia," said
Batlle, speaking about cocaine policy on
November 20th at the 10th Latin
American Summit of Heads of State in Panama
City.
Batlle (pronounced baht-yuh) said other countries must confront
the
question of legalization. "How do you create the money that sustains all
of
this? Do you believe that while this substance has this fantastic
market
value that there is any mechanism that can impede its trafficking? How
do
you make this product lose value so that nobody is interested anymore
in
this business?"
The 72-year-old Uruguay leader, elected in November
of 1999 in his fifth
run for the presidency, said that the countries of
América "must stop
playing games and treat the theme of drugs seriously at
its root. And if I
am wrong, then why are we afraid to ask ourselves the
question?"
Source: Terra.com News, Montevideo Uruguay, November 20,
2000
http://www.terra.com.uy/canales/actualidad/5/5086.htmlIn
fact, the legalization proposal of Batlle has been percolating in
Uruguay
since June of this year.
According to the daily newspaper El Observador
in Montevideo, the capital
of Uruguay, the president's chief of staff,
Leonarda Costa, floated the
trial balloon on June 16th. He said, "a line of
discussion will be opened
among the Mercosur countries (Uruguay, Brazil,
Argentina, Chile and
Paraguay)" in relation to "the idea of legalizing the
consumption of drugs."
"Obviously, Uruguay cannot take unilateral
measures on this theme," said
the presidential secretary to Latitud magazine,
adding that "the
coordination between nations" is necessary.
President
Batlle told the weekly Brecha magazine that he is in favor of
legalizing drug
consumption. "When the president said what he said, he was
expressing his
personal philosophy," said Costa. "But it is viable to the
extent that other
countries also do it."
The chief of staff affirmed that there would have
to be a "generalized
agreement between nations," and that, "the countries
have to come to an
agreement about this problem.. The first thing to do is to
make an
educational effort."
Source: El Observador, Montevideo, June
16, 2000
http://www.observador.com.uy/elobservador/anteriores/2000/junio/1606/viernes/16ur04d.htm
At
the Brasilia Summit on August 31 and September 1 of South
American
Presidents, Batlle worked with other Mercosur heads of state -
Ricardo
Lagos of Chile, Fernando de la Rúa of Argentina and Fernando Cardoso
of
Brazil - to deliver the united opposition to the military aspects of
Plan
Colombia, just two days after US President Bill Clinton's Colombia
visit.
Then, on October 17th, in Santiago de Chile, at of the 56th annual
assembly
of the Inter-American Press Association, IAPA, Batlle raised
another
question that CNN broadcast without mentioning the context of
his
pro-legalization stance: "Let's look also at where money is
laundered,"
said President Jorge Batlle of Uruguay, in a clear reference to
the banking
system in the United States and developed countries.
His
November 20th statement at the Panama presidential summit went
unreported,
although many of the US correspondents for major media outlets
were
present.
Then, on December 1st, Batlle traveled to Mexico City to attend
the
inauguration of President Vicente Fox.
There, according to El
Observador in his home country, Batlle made his
strongest challenge to
US-imposed drug policy yet. "The day that it is
legalized in the United
States, it will lose value," said the president of
Uruguay. "And if it loses
value, there will be no profit. But as long as
the US citizenry doesn't rise
up to do something, they will pass this life
fighting and
fighting."
Batlle, in Mexico City early this month, compared the drug
problem to that
caused by alcohol prohibition in the United States
(1918-1933), saying that
the drug trafficking problem "will be resolved on
the day that the
consumers announce that this cannot be fixed by any other
manner than
changing this situation in the same way that was done with the
'Dry Laws'."
Of Plan Colombia, he said, "You have to think about the
origin of the
thing. Basically, where is this consumed? A minimum of 50
percent is
consumed in the United States. It seems fine with me that my
friend
Pastrana (the Colombian president) tries to improve education, health
and
roads. but this doesn't resolve the problem."
And Batlle added
that he has personally proposed the legalization solution
to US President
Bill Clinton.
Source: El Observador, Montevideo, December 1, 2000
http://www.observador.com.uy/elobservador/ed001201/uru/n00700.html