Corruption Victimizes the Poor in the Americas

[longknife]

by Sergio Daga @ The Foundry

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What is really significant is how the level of corruption differs by country. The most corrupt country in the hemisphere is Haiti, where 2 out of 3 people (67 percent) surveyed reported they had to pay bribes to government officials. In second and third place we find Bolivia and Ecuador with 45 percent and 41 percent, respectively.

Compare those scores with Canada, the least corrupt country in the Americas with only 3.4 percent of the respondents saying that they were victims of demands for bribes by government officials. Following Canada, LAPOP reports that the U.S. and Chile (in second and third place, respectively) are the next least corrupt.

Corruption also affects countries’ ranking in the annual The Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal’s Index of Economic Freedom, especially in Mexico, Peru, and Honduras. People in Jamaica, Uruguay, and Panama are a little better off.

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[waltky]

Corruption cases collapsing in Mexico...

Once-touted corruption cases collapse in Mexico
Apr 24,`13 -- Some of Mexico's most high-profile corruption cases have unraveled recently on thin or made-up evidence, reinforcing long-held notions that the Attorney General's Office is more focused on political vendettas or favors than justice.

Among the cases to collapse or suffer setbacks are those of a former drug czar and a former No. 2 in the Defense Department, both accused of links to drug cartels, as well as corruption proceedings related to a former governor of Coahuila state who saw $3 billion in public funds go missing during his tenure. Experts say the faulty prosecutions are the product of questionable police work, organizational problems and a justice system dominated by political interests. All three cases began during the government of President Felipe Calderon and were thrown out or quietly shelved during the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto. "There is a deficiency in the organization, in the presentation of investigations. There are serious technical flaws," said Javier Oliva, a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico who studies defense and security. "If the question is, `Why did these cases fail?', it is because they have no legal support."

The first to be freed was former anti-drug czar Noe Ramirez, who was arrested in 2008 in an internal sweep known as "Operation Clean House" on charges that he took $450,000 a month from the Beltran Leyva drug cartel. Last week, a federal judge in western Nayarit state, where Ramirez had been held at a maximum security prison, ordered his release after determining that the main witness in the case lied and prosecutors might have fabricated evidence. The case against Ramirez was launched following the arrest of Gerardo Garay, then the country's acting federal police chief, for stealing money from a Mexico City mansion during a drug raid, according to Samuel Gonzalez, who occupied Ramirez's anti-drug post a decade earlier.

Gonzalez said Garay's boss and ally, federal Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna, was reportedly incensed by the arrest and demanded that Calderon prosecute someone at the Attorney General's Office in revenge. "Garcia Luna was the one who demanded that Calderon go after Noe Ramirez, because charges had been brought against Garay, he wanted someone of the same level charged," Gonzalez said. Two days after Ramirez was freed, retired army Gen. Tomas Angeles Dauahare was also ordered released after the Attorney General's Office dropped the drug corruption case against him because of a lack of evidence.

Angeles Dauahare, a former assistant defense secretary, told The Associated Press that he believes the case against him was also political. He had openly criticized Calderon's strategy of cracking down on the drug cartels and appeared at a May campaign event for then-candidate Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. Days after the campaign appearance, he and other senior military leaders were arrested on accusations of helping the Beltran Leyva cartel. "They tried to destroy everybody who didn't share their opinions," Angeles Dauahare said of the Calerdon government. "The Attorney General's Office was used to carry out this reprisal."

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