Mexico is the beating heart of Central America. Best known for its history, culture and natural beauty; it draws in hundreds of thousands of tourists, eager to taste of its delights. Yet the business world, most notably the dark side of a burgeoning import/export industry increasingly makes headline news for all the wrong reasons. The question of the Mexican drug trade had long gone unanswered until the interest fashioned itself into a dispute, then a clash and now finally reaching its climax in all out war.
So intense is the interest in Mexico’s narco-issue and so brutal has the violence become that the Guardian dared to suggest the plane on which the war is fought, “the new killing fields”. It is little wonder that such a statement is made with reports of mass graves, bodies hung from bridges sporting warning signs, decapitated heads strategically placed in tourist areas, even up to a brutality that is hard to comprehend.
The dawn of a new era in Mexican politics since Vicente Fox wrested power from a 70+ year reign for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has seen a new government willing to fight back. Yet the war is not being fought on traditional battlegrounds. The enemy has seeped into the very fabric of the nation and with hazy distinctions between allies and enemies; the Mexican government has got a mammoth challenge ahead.
Strategy in Place to Curb Drugs Flow
With the installation of President Felipe Calderon in office, the war against the drug lords stepped up a level. For many years Mexico has been seen as the Narco-Highway with its premium location between supply (South American Nations such as Colombia) and demand (United States). As the movement of illegal substances gained momentum, the landscape over which Calderon now stands seems bleak indeed. Since his election victory, Calderon has upped the ante with regard to disrupting the flow of drugs. He has also demonstrated through use of force that the tide must be turned away from drugs as a socially acceptable norm.
Calderon appears to be determined. In the Guardian article, “Mexico drug war: the new killing fields”, Rory Carroll cites the incumbent; “My government is absolutely determined to continue fighting against criminality without quarter until we put a stop to this common enemy and obtain the Mexico we want.”
Since 2006 Calderon has shown his intent as he has allocated circa 50,000 troops for the cause, has been aided with intelligence and strategic training by the DEA and FBI and has also received considerable sums of US dollars in accordance with former President Bush’s Merida Initiative. More money has been promised by the Obama administration provided Mexico takes seriously human rights abuses and vows to treat soldiers justly. Calderon has also been swift to wield his sword amongst the police, firing up to 10% of the Federal Police force who have been strongly linked with corruption and aiding organised crime.
Yet the downside is stark, disturbing and highly regrettable as more than 28,000 people have been slain since Calderon’s rise to power. And while some senior traffickers have been caught such as Carlos Beltran Leyva or killed such as his brother Arturo Beltran Leyva (two senior drug lords), the levels and intensity of violence and its apparent geographic increase suggests that the war is not going according to plan.
So brutal in fact and so far-reaching, the war has spilled over the borders and Mexico’s Drugmen are now being blamed for escalating violence in the US, Guatemala and El Salvador.
The Last Narco: Hunting El Chapo, The World’s Most Wanted Drug Lord
There is an ever-increasing interest in the drug culture and drug wars being played out in Mexico. News articles are more readily given to recounting the latest violent act. Others have turned their literary attentions to documenting and analysing the issues. One notable portrayal of the inherent drug problem is Malcolm Beith’s The Last Narco: Hunting El Chapo, The World’s Most Wanted Drug Lord.
The book focuses on the rise of arguably the most powerful criminal in modern Mexican history, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera. Head of the Sinaloa Cartel, Chapo is a minor celebrity in his own right, with websites dedicated to him, songs featuring his feats and even a slot on the Forbes list of the world’s most powerful people.
El Chapo encapsulates the essence of the drug culture in Mexico and stands as a figure head for those who equally admire him and despise him. For his followers, his appeal is based on success against the odds. He started life in a broken family under inexplicable poverty and forged by any means necessary, he has built a reputation and financial clout to strike fear into the heart of the government itself. He has evaded assassination attempts as well as numerous operations by the government to capture him, admittedly aided by government officials or police passing on information.
At the same time, the drug lord of Badiraguato, Sinaloa is also directly or otherwise responsible for some 11,000 deaths in the last few years, a drug smuggling machine feeding US streets with every kind of Class A narcotic and an influence in as many as 23 countries. As the Wall Street Journal article, “ The Drug Lord Who Got Away ” describes, “His feuds stretch back more than two decades, leaving a trail of tombstones that act as milestones of the narcotics business”.
Beith’s insightful work on one of the world’s most wanted criminals explores the background behind the illusive cartel boss and together with his own investigations, the picture his book paints explains why the war that the government is waging is proving so difficult to win.
View from a Mexican Perspective
The attitude towards drugs, the business and the gangs is understandably mixed within the Mexican borders. Talking to friends, colleagues or people in the street brings forth a range of ideas and opinions regarding Mexico’s most infamous characteristic.
Yet a pattern emerges as more and more Mexicans express a somewhat surprising view. This view received even greater attention when former President, Vicente Fox stated “We should consider legalising the production, sale and distribution of drugs.” In the BBC article “Vicente Fox backs Mexico drugs legalisation”, he continued, “Legalisation does not mean that drugs are good… but we have to see it as a strategy to weaken and break the economic system that allows cartels to make huge profits, which in turn increases their power and capacity to corrupt.”
Fox’s opinion makes more concrete what many Mexicans believe i.e. that the drug trade cannot be solved by sheer force. The only other alternative promulgated however is to make drugs legal. The intention would be to open up the market, bring in competition and so limit the reach and power of the current cartels.
The proposition supposes that the US would have to do likewise so as to control the flow of drugs, yet the reality of this idea is highly questionable.
The idea also supposes that legalisation would actually create an open market and reduce the power of the existing cartels. If the war on drugs has taught government heads anything, it is that the cartels know no limits on how much force they are prepared to use to get their way. Legalisation cannot guarantee that the drugs bosses will hand in their arms and become fair and honest traders. Walter McKay from a Mexico City based Institute for Security and Democracy, is cited in the Guardian article “War on drugs: why the US and Latin America could be ready to end a fruitless 40-year struggle”, “Cartels would adapt and continue making profits from cocaine, heroin, kidnapping and extortion.”
Legalisation aside, the conflict against the drug cartels is proving to be a war of attrition. For now, the cartel bosses are proving they are equal to the challenge. And with a clear lack of incentives proposed by a drug free economy and society and a lack of commitment by the Mexican government to eradicate its own corruption and raise standards in health, education and economy, it’s easy to forgive Mexicans who hold the government initiative with contempt.
Sources:
Michael Beith, The Last Narco: Hunting El Chapo, The World's Most-Wanted Drug LordPenguin, 2010.
Jorge Castañeda, Mexico's Failed Drug War, Cato Institute, 2010.
David Luhnow & Jose de Cordoba, The Drug Lord Who Got Away, Wall Street Journal, 2009.
Paul Thompson, Mexico drug wars plumb new depths after gang kidnaps man, cuts him in seven pieces... then stitches his face on to a football, Mail Online, 2010.
Mark Stevenson,Leaked documents suggest Mexico drug corruption, The Boston Globe, 2010.
Anthony Rimmer - Anthony has a lot of life experience, working in a variety of jobs, in many countries around the world. He has lived in South Korea, South ...
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