VARGAS LLOSA WARNS OF MORE VIOLENCE IF DRUGS AREN'T LEGALIZED

MEXICO CITY Mario Vargas Llosa, recipient of the Nobel Prize in
literature in 2010, said on Thursday that countries across Latin
America will eventually suffer the same type of organized
crime-related mayhem currently battering Mexico unless a decision is
made to legalize drugs.

"Repressive policies are not going to do away with drug trafficking,"
the Peruvian novelist said here at a press conference, which he gave
to coincide with the Mexico premiere of his theatrical adaptation of
"One Thousand and One Nights."

Vargas Llosa said the struggle against violent cartels in Mexico
where drug-related violence has claimed more than 30,000 lives in
four years has been "courageous, heroic" and filled with sacrifice.
However, he said Latin America should explore other approaches.

The Mexican situation is "a sign, an omen, of what Latin American
countries are going to experience sooner or later," the author said,
adding that drug trafficking "can do away with democracy."

Vargas Llosa said he backs an idea proposed by former Brazilian
President Fernando Henrique Cardoso for negotiations between
drug-producing and drug-consuming countries.

"Legalization is the only way to stamp out the criminality associated
with drug addiction," he said,

Although he acknowledged that a drug-liberalization policy entails
certain risks, the Nobel laureate said that by legalizing drugs and
steering funds away from "repressive policies" to preventative
programs Latin America can avoid the bloodbath that Mexico is experiencing.

Vargas Llosa, an advocate of regulating the sale and consumption of
illegal drugs, will be honored Friday by Mexican President Felipe
Calderon, who adamantly oppose such a solution.

Calderon, who took office in December 2006 after scraping out a
narrow victory amid charges of fraud, decided to launch an all-out
offensive against the drug cartels, deploying tens of thousands of
army soldiers and federal police to violence-wracked cities nationwide.

The strategy has led to the elimination of several crime bosses and
record drug seizures over the past four years.

But shootouts on the street between gangsters and security forces
have become daily occurrences and turf battles between rival cartels
in different parts of Mexico have escalated and drug-related murders
have skyrocketed.

The number of deaths attributed to organized crime-related violence
in 2010, 15,273, was almost six times higher than the total in 2007.

Calderon will present Vargas Llosa with the Order of the Aztec Eagle,
Mexico's highest decoration awarded to foreigners, during a ceremony
at the capital's Chapultepec Castle. EFE