Romania president impeached amid EU, US concern

July 06, 2012

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romanian lawmakers impeached President Traian Basescu in an overwhelming vote Friday, paving the way for a national referendum that could see the divisive and increasingly unpopular leader ousted from the powerful position he's held for eight years.

The vote of 256-114 in parliament came as Basescu and Prime Minister Victor Ponta have engaged in a bitter power struggle in the eastern European country of 19 million, which emerged from communism in 1989. The machinations, especially attempts to sideline the judiciary, have led the United States and the European Union to issue statements of concern about Romania's democracy.

Basescu's opponents accused him of overstepping his authority by meddling with the prime minister's office and trying to influence judicial affairs. The 60-year-old former ship captain also was accused of making racist remarks about Gypsies and disabled people.

Senate Speaker Crin Antonescu, who will serve as interim president now that Basescu has been effectively suspended from the role, said a popular referendum on Basescu's fate will be held July 29. Basescu was impeached in 2007 but survived a referendum. Still, his popularity has declined steeply, and he faces tougher odds this time.

One major reason is that the Ponta-led government changed the law this week to make it easier to oust Basescu from office. Now, a simple majority of votes cast is needed to push him out. Before, a majority of all voters in Romania was required.

Upon hearing of the impeachment, hundreds of Romanians rallied in downtown Bucharest to cheer the news, while others gathered to express their disappointment. Basescu vowed late Friday to use "all constitutional resources" to stay in office for his full five-year term, which ends in 2014, and called his impeachment "an abuse."

He denied abusing his power, but defended his outspokenness and active participation in political life. He had earlier defended himself against the allegations of making racist and disparaging comments by saying he has the right to free speech.

"The elected president cannot be a mute," Basescu said in a speech at the presidential palace. "He has to assume responsibilities." Unlike presidencies in some European nations, Basescu's position is not merely ceremonial. He is elected in a popular vote and is in charge of foreign policy, the powerful intelligence services and the country's defense policies.

Basescu claims that he steered Romania through the financial crisis that engulfed it in 2008, has improved ties with Moldova, which was part of Romania until 1940, and has made Romania a reliable partner of NATO and of the United States.

Basescu is a center-right politician, though as president he is not allowed to be a member of any party. Ponta, 39, heads the left-leaning Social Democratic Party, and became prime minister on May 7. He is the third Romanian premier in four months, and, unlike those who have held the role over the past decade, Ponta has not been deferential to the president. Instead, he has move quickly to sideline Basescu allies.

Earlier this week, Romanian lawmakers ousted the speakers of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies — the two houses of parliament. Both were allies of the president, and they were replaced with supporters of the prime minister, including Antonescu.

Also this week, Ponta issued a decree reducing the powers of the Constitutional Court with regard to its ruling on parliamentary laws. Also in recent weeks, Ponta ignored the Constitutional Court's ruling that Basescu, not he, should represent Romania at a European Union summit.

Those actions and others have prompted statements of concern from world powers. The European Commission, the executive body of the EU, on Friday called on the Ponta's government to respect the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law, calling them "the cornerstones of European democracy" and essential for "mutual trust" within the EU.

U.S. Ambassador Mark H. Gitenstein, also has expressed concern about threats to the "independence of democratic institutions" in Romania. In apparent reference to these concerns, Ponta said authorities would ensure that the referendum on Basescu was organized in a legal manner.

Elite counterdrug units proposed for Mexico

July 07, 2012

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The top security adviser for Mexico's next president said Friday that he is recommending the creation of elite units of police and troops who will target not just major drug traffickers but also lower-level cartel hitmen as a way of swiftly reducing violence.

The proposal newly retired Colombian police director Gen. Oscar Naranjo explained in an interview with The Associated Press offers a glimpse of how President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto might fulfill his promise to slash the number of murders and kidnappings by 50 percent during his six years in office.

Similar to the approach that Naranjo employed against Colombian traffickers, the proposal raises the question of whether the widely respected general can reproduce his success in a very different country.

More than 47,500 people have been killed in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon launched a military-led offensive against Mexico's cartels nearly six years ago. Pena Nieto has pledged to reduce violence by refocusing law-enforcement efforts away from the current administration's heavy reliance on the military to capture drug-cartel leaders and seize their product. He says he wants to better protect ordinary citizens from criminals.

He provided few specifics during his three-month campaign, leading to speculation he would ease pressure on traffickers as long as they throttled down violence. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, who has held a series of meetings with the president-elect and his advisers, told the AP this week that Pena Nieto has discussed a new offensive against the smaller, local gangs that have cropped up in many Mexican states and earn money through kidnapping and extortion in addition to drug dealing.

Naranjo's proposal of small, elite units dovetails with that idea. Such units have specific goals and typically work in isolation. The better a unit performs, the more resources it gets. Information is compartmentalized to prevent leaks. The model worked in Colombia and Naranjo said it could also be effective in Mexico.

Such units, which Naranjo said could be comprised in Mexico of the Army, Navy and police, should pursue not just of "high-value targets" such as Sinaloa and Zeta cartel bosses, said Naranjo, who retired June 12 after five years atop his country's 170,000-member police.

"It's good to go after drug dealers in order to capture them. But it's not good not to have elite groups going after killers in order to impose the law, those squads of hitmen," he said. "You also have to put a lot of importance on these groups of hitmen to control the violence."

The idea has been discussed by Mexico's security experts, and makes sense as a component of a broader strategy to reduce violence, said Eric Olson, associate director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

"If you want to really stop the violence, don't focus on the kingpins, focus on the killers, it kind of eliminates this middle range of actors," he said. Naranjo also proposed setting violence-reduction targets for Mexico.

"In the first 100 days (of Pena Nieto's government) the goal should be set for reducing violence. It could go badly. It could go well. But it should be put in play," he said. "I think it's possible to tell the Mexicans, 'Look, in 100 days we want to cut the violence we have in half.'"

It's feasible, he said, because Mexico's violence "is really concentrated. If you look at the map of violence there it's in six places. It's impossible that in six cities you can't have some control."

The 55-year-old Colombian said he does not believe it wise to use Mexico's military against drug traffickers, criticizing Calderon's sending of 10,000 troops into Ciudad Juarez at the end of last year.

It neither reduced deaths nor intimidated criminals, he said. Naranjo, aided by his U.S. allies, had been advising Calderon's government since 2007. Colombian police have in the interim trained more than 7,000 Mexicans in investigative techniques.

A top foreign policy adviser to Pena Nieto said the president-elect is focused on fighting crime by swiftly spurring economic growth and job-creation with reforms that include bringing private investment into Mexico's state-owned Pemex oil company, developing massive shale gas deposits on the Texas border and building alternative supplies including wind energy projects in southern states like Oaxaca and Baja California.

Emilio Lozoya said Pena Nieto's transition team wants to forge consensus among the lawmakers when Mexico's next congress convenes in September, three months before Pena Nieto takes office. "Our aim is to have an energy bill that is clear and gives absolute clarity to local and foreign capital to co-invest along the state in developing these energy sources," Lozoya said. The importance of economic growth to security, he said, is that "you won't get one without focusing on the other."

"The best weapons against organized crime and insecurity is jobs," he said. He said a focus on developing infrastructure projects and agriculture would also be important for the new administration. Lozoya also said Pena Nieto's administration would want more intelligence-sharing from the U.S., particularly to combat money-laundering, and that Mexico would seek a bigger role in building stability in Central America, which he called a major source of the problems afflicting Mexico, drug-trafficking among them.

Despite major security gains under Naranjo, rural Colombia remains turbulent. Thousands of hired guns in the service of rival drug gangs continue to plague it as well as leftist rebels who are deeply engaged in cocaine trafficking.