It has been two years since Cecilia’s son, Carlos, set sail from the coast of Ecuador on an ordinary day’s fishing voyage. She has not heard from him since.
At first, she feared that his fishing trawler had sunk or been attacked by pirates, but the fate Carlos turned out to have met was more surreal than that, and in a way, even more harrowing: Deep in international waters, thousands of kilometers from the US, he was detained by the US Coast Guard. He has been locked away in a New Jersey prison ever since.
Carlos, who faces an 11-year sentence, is one of hundreds of men ensnared in an expansion of the US’ “war on drugs,” whereby US authorities now apprehend and detain foreign fishermen in international waters. Those fishermen’s’ families — particularly the women — are left agonizing over what might have happened to their loved ones, and they are often pushed to the brink of destitution.
Before Carlos was arrested, he and Cecilia lived in a modest house in Manta, a seaside city with sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean.
In a good week, a fisherman like Carlos might take home the equivalent of US$7 to US$8 for his catch. However, in recent years, even this meager income had begun to dwindle, as large industry vessels and tourist-chartered deep-sea fishing boats depleted once-healthy stocks of marlin and swordfish.
In desperation, some of Manta’s fishermen, prodded by smugglers who prowl the port looking for men with boats and without options, have turned to small-scale drug running.
The smugglers promise to pay the fishermen to carry cocaine on their trawlers out to sea, where they are met by larger boats that traffic it onward to the US via Central America. More often than not, those promises are not kept.
Carlos had been approached by the smugglers many times and had always refused to participate. However, after his mother’s tenant got rough with her one day, he decided she needed her own house. He agreed to carry 5kg of cocaine on his boat into international waters, but before he could hand it off to the larger ship, the US Coast Guard stopped him.
The coast guard has been ramping up its arrests of small-time traffickers in international waters as part of an effort to prevent larger shipments from reaching the US. The strategy represents a legally questionable expansion of extraterritorial drug enforcement, as well as a shocking abuse of the rights of the arrested sailors.
No one knows how long Carlos was on the coast guard ship before he was delivered to New Jersey, but it could have been weeks or even months, according to reports about the practice.
And, as a 2017 New York Times report shows, the conditions aboard these ships are appalling. Detained men are shackled, underfed and forced to defecate in buckets. They are also sometimes made to stand all night, unable to sleep while exposed to the elements. These scenes drove one former coast guard lawyer to describe the ships as “floating Guantanamos.”
However, it is not only the men who suffer. As I learned when I visited Cecilia this year, the women who are left behind, suddenly deprived of income, face a different kind of hardship.
In Ecuador’s machismo culture, women are expected to keep house, raise children and clean the fish their husbands bring home.
As a result, many lack marketable skills. So, when one of their husbands, sons, or fathers disappears at sea, they often are left with no money and no options.
In the Philippines, countless widows struggle in the wreckage of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s violent drug war to support the children left behind.
Some desperate women might be driven to follow the path of the man they have lost.
In March, a UN Working Group determined that the global surge in incarcerated women is being fueled partly by a spike in convictions of women for low-level drug-related offenses. The incarceration of these women “perpetuates a vicious cycle of victimization, placing them in situations of further injustice.”
The women who do not end up in prison are left mired in extreme poverty, which has far-reaching repercussions. When men are jailed en masse for drug offenses — as has occurred with men of color in the US — the economic impact can leave their families marginalized for generations to come.
Despite their lack of options, communities are developing innovative ways to cope.
Cecilia has organized a group of about 150 women whose husbands, sons and brothers have been caught in the dragnet of the US’ drug war. Together, they are petitioning the Ecuadoran Department of Justice to repatriate the men, so that they can at least serve their time close to home. Cecilia and her cohorts attempt this at their own risk.
Smugglers, who have frequently forced fishermen at gunpoint to traffic drugs, have already threatened some of the women in the group not to make noise.
However, the women feel that they have no choice but to act. They worry about the health — indeed, the survival — of their loved ones. They have heard the harrowing stories of life aboard the US Coast Guard ships. Of the few men who have been repatriated, some have returned with tuberculosis.
Undergirding this coordinated legal effort lies a communal support system that women like Cecilia have cultivated to survive. The women talk about their own plight and that of their communities. When one is in financial straits, others swoop in to help.
Against the vast and immovable US justice system, they are fighting to survive — and to bring home their loved ones, the victims of a brutal, unjust and failed drug war.
Kasia Malinowska is director of the Global Drug Policy Program at the New York City-based Open Society Foundations.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (李顯龍) decision to step down after 19 years and hand power to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), on May 15 was expected — though, perhaps, not so soon. Most political analysts had been eyeing an end-of-year handover, to ensure more time for Wong to study and shadow the role, ahead of general elections that must be called by November next year. Wong — who is currently both deputy prime minister and minister of finance — would need a combination of fresh ideas, wisdom and experience as he writes the nation’s next chapter. The world that
The past few months have seen tremendous strides in India’s journey to develop a vibrant semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The nation’s established prowess in information technology (IT) has earned it much-needed revenue and prestige across the globe. Now, through the convergence of engineering talent, supportive government policies, an expanding market and technologically adaptive entrepreneurship, India is striving to become part of global electronics and semiconductor supply chains. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision of “Make in India” and “Design in India” has been the guiding force behind the government’s incentive schemes that span skilling, design, fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging, and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry