West running Mexico drug trade: Dennis Small

US, UK running Mexico drug trade: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Dennis Small, Latin American expert from Leesburg, to discuss his views about the recent recapturing of Mexico’s notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and his possible extradition to the United States.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview:

Press TV: So what do you think about El Chapo being extradited to the United States and Mexico’s willingness to actually have him extradited since it’s a sharp reversal from their official position after his last capture in 2014?

Small: The question of the extradition of Chapo Guzman is an important one because the simple fact of the matter is that Mexico’s national sovereignty has actually been violated by the drug trade itself and by the large financial interests that run the drug trade and over recent years have unfortunately become incapable institutionally of making sure that someone who goes to jail stays in jail. And therefore, one of the only things that the drug runners actually fear is to be extradited.

This was the case decades before the case of Colombia in South America, where there were similar battles and the argument that he should not be extradited because this is a violation of Mexican sovereignty is therefore specious.

The issue really, here, is that the drug trade, the drug cartels, have largely taken over Mexico and large parts of other countries in South America, because the international banking system, which is otherwise totally bankrupt and collapsing, depends on laundering up to one trillion dollars in drug money every year. So the people like Chapo Guzman who are often referred to as druglords or kingpins are really just drug pawns. They are minor figures in a game that is run from the very top from Wall Street and the city of London.

Press TV: What do you think the repercussions of El Chapo being extradited to the US would be for the Mexican administration itself, Enrique Pena Nieto’s government?

Small: Well the Pena Nieto government has been struggling to try to maintain some semblance of autonomy and independence on economic policy but has been pressured by the same Wall Street interests that actually launder all the drug money for Mexico to not establish relations with China and other countries involved in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) for the infrastructure and economic development of Mexico.

What Wall Street wants is for Mexico to stay in submission to the drug trade and also in submission to the IMF system that they have so far been part of. So I think that the extradition of Guzman, his capture and hopefully his extradition, would be a positive development. I think that it would go a long way to help re-establish inside Mexico a sense of strength and identity that the country is capable of winning back its own control of its territory from these large international drug cartels, which again are run by international financial interests, not by low-level figures such as Chapo Guzman.

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