Observers of the present situation in
Mexico have no choice but to conduct their own tally: the government of
Felipe Calderon of the Partido Acción Nacional
(PAN) has yet to provide its own death count, despite previous promises. The
official numbers, which may be more conservative than those provided by the
media, are now expected to be released later this month.
All in all, media observers estimate that
over 50,000 people have died in Calderon’s “war on drugs”, which began
shortly after he took office in December, 2006. To put this into some context,
the United States suffered an estimated 58,000 combat and non-combat deaths in
the Vietnam War – all overseas, and for a country which at the time had approximately
double the present population of Mexico.
For 2011, there was a generalized consensus among respected
media sources in Mexico. The daily
newspaper Reforma reported 12,359 drug-related killings in 2011, a 6.3%
increase over 2010. The paper claimed there were 2,275 drug killings in 2007,
the first year of Calderon’s campaign.
Daily Milenio recorded 12,284 drug-related deaths last year.
Interestingly, La Jornada counted 11,890 deaths in 2011, a 11% decrease from the previous year.
But Mexican political scientist Eduardo Guerrero Gutierrez
has estimated a significantly higher number. He believes that the number of
murders in 2011 was around 16,700, up 9% from 2010. If so, 2011 could be Mexico’s
1968. One can only hope that, as with the Vietnam War, the government will pull
out and the deaths will decrease.
2011 notable for
increased militarization
Last year was notable for the increased militarization of
domestic space in Mexico, and also for the horrifyingly violent turf wars
between the two dominant cartels, the Sinaloa (Pacific Cartel) and Los Zetas.
Edgardo Buscaglia, a well-respected crime analyst, has gone as far as to claim
that 71.5% of Mexico’s municipalities are under criminal control, though this
claim has been disputed.
When I spoke to Mr. Buscaglia last November for an article I
was researching, he stated that the situation would not improve until Mexico’s
elites were affected. He clearly believed that the violence in Mexico was allowed
to continue due to a corrupt society that, to date, still served the ruling
classes.
Around the same time I spoke to John Ackerman, a law
professor at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México (UNAM). In our conversation Ackerman expressed the view that the number
of dead – which he then agreed was at 50,000 and climbing – had spiralled out
of control as a result of Calderon’s war and the militarization of Mexican
society.
Why had this happened? The answer wasn’t as complex as one
might imagine: in Mexico’s rush to democracy, a corrupt system that had
previously been integrated with one political party – the Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled Mexico for much of the 20th
century – was now out to tender.
This created an open market on government services, most
notably the political and security apparatus. As a result, criminal activity
increased. In response, Felipe Calderon decided to play tough. In his view, the
military could be relied upon, with the navy being the most trusted of all.
Then all hell broke loose, as the country fell into
scenarios not seen since the Mexican Revolution, in which local police forces,
federal and state authorities, the military – both army and navy – and at least
five major criminal organizations, as well as many subsidiary gangs, embarked
on an ultra-violent campaign for money and turf.
And when war is declared, we can be sure of one thing, and
one thing only. The victor is the most violent. It is, after all, a war. The toughest, baddest, best
organized group will be victorious. Enter Los Zetas, a criminal organization of
psychopathic crudity. It is Los Zetas, we are told, who now operate as the most
powerful cartel in Mexico, stronger even than the Sinaloa Cartel, run by the
most wanted man in the Americas, Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, or “El
Chapo”.
Los Zetas leader Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, trained by
the Mexican military
It is important to note that the chaotic situation has much
to do with how the cartels are themselves organized, and on the effects of the
full-frontal government attack. Los Zetas are a younger organization with a
military background: they are less hierarchical and compact than the
well-established Sinaloa Cartel, and tend to have looser control over many
smaller, local gangs.
Why is this mess the
government’s fault?
The federal administration of Felipe Calderon likes to
present itself as a victim. It certainly did not want the bloodbath that has
befallen the country on the past five years. However, at best it can be accused
of a naiveté that can only come from a stunning disconnect, one that the ruling
classes of Latin America seem to be expert at. This was, after all, a war of choice.
Below are four reasons why the Mexican government should
take the blame for the death of over 50,000 civilians on its own soil.
Los Zetas were
trained by the military. This has been written about extensively, but if
you are unaware of the history of this organization, please keep these facts in
mind: the most insanely violent criminal organization in the Americas was
trained by the Mexican military. Specifically, Los Zetas’ leaders started as
members of an elite Special Forces group built specifically to fight the
cartels in Mexico. Thirty of these Special Forces soldiers were hired on as
gunmen for the Gulf Cartel. They then broke off and started their own
organization. Given that they had limited access to commodity-based drug
trafficking, they branched out into human trafficking, extortion, and kidnapping.
At one time they fought for control of the northeast, but now their “plaza”
extends as far west as Guadalajara and as far south as Guatemala.
Militarization has
increased the violence. People look
upon their military fondly because it fights wars elsewhere. As a result, the
military can be romanticized. However, all militarized environments are subject
to human rights abuses and increased violence – this isn’t a criticism unique
to the Mexican military. The military will inevitably be inept at basic
policing, for the simple reason that they are not trained at investigation,
evidence collection, interrogation, and jurisprudence. The government’s
decision to put boots on the ground has only made the situation worse.
The government has failed
in its economic strategy. The PAN is a centre-right party, and was the political
organization that first broke the PRI’s grip on power. The PRI had ruled from
December, 1928, until December, 2000. When the PAN’s Vicente Fox first took
power, Mexico was already six years into the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA). Market liberalization increased under the PAN, but it had
been underway since the Mexican debt crisis in 1982, when the IMF conditioned
lending on privatization. But because Mexico had been a corrupt, one party
country, its privatization resembled Russia’s after the collapse of the Soviet
Union: oligarchs picked up monopolies, and individual Mexicans got burned. As
well, the rich, used to having the system work for them, continued to avoid
paying taxes. With no money for education, health, or law enforcement, and the
wealthy living behind their walls, the drug trade did well. And those who were
making millions trafficking were not about to stand down when Calderon began
his ill-advised war.
Institutions left weak.
The Calderon administration cannot be blamed for having lost patience with endemic
corruption in Mexico, but it was reckless in the extreme to embark on a drug
war when Mexico’s institutions were so weak. There is no magic wand here;
however, a step-by-step approach is required, with the first being to address
taxation and the transparent disbursement of funds for education, healthcare,
and economic development. This then reduces the appeal of criminal organizations,
and strengthens communities. Some
of this is happening, but governance at the local level is in crisis: thirty-one
mayors, former mayors and mayoral candidates have been
killed, as well as Rodolfo
Torre Cantú, the PRI front-runner for governor of Tamaulipas. The police
and the prisons
are still in a state of disarray. To have gone on a full scale assault with
such a weak social infrastructure could only result in disaster.
Cause for hope?
That said, the government would like us to look at some positive
outcomes of late. The first is that in Ciudad
Juarez, known for its extreme violence, killings in 2011 were down some 40%
compared with 2010.
As well, the level of violence nationally seems to have
stabilized, given that from 2009 to 2010 killings jumped by 60%.
And it can be argued that the government is getting smarter
in terms of how it deploys force. There is now a rapid and more effective
deployment of troops and federal police in areas where violence surges,
particularly in response to Los Zetas.
The best examples of this have been in Acapulco (Guerrero),
and Veracruz. Within a few weeks of deployments in October, killings in these
cities were reduced considerably. Sadly, violence is still a serious problem in
both Guerrero
and Veracruz.
As well – and this is very important – the Mexican military
is no longer above scrutiny, with the Comisión
Nacional de Derechos Humanos, or CNDH, Mexico’s Human Rights Commission,
being much braver in its assessment of abuses committed by military forces and federal
police on civilian populations.
There is, however, one cause for concern. After everything
that I have written in this post about how the PAN have screwed up, and how
clumsy they have been in addressing this conflict in which so many have died, there
is one outcome that could be worse for everyone, and that would be the return of
the PRI and its pretty-boy, shallow, and not very bright presidential
candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto.
President Calderon is right to warn that the Enrique Peña
Nieto and the PRI, presently leading the polls, is larded with political hacks
who want to return to the old ways where corruption was fully integrated into
Mexican political life, and everyone had to “pay to play”, including the
cartels themselves.
In this scenario, PRI visionaries who stand up to crime are
taken out, and Mexico never fully transfers into a functional democracy:
instead, it becomes like Russia, a largely peaceful oligarchy run by a corrupt
and criminal elite.
Let’s hope that doesn’t happen, and that this is the beginning of
the end of Mexico’s Vietnam.
Twitter: @TimothyEWilson
Email: lapoliticaeslapolitica [at] gmail [dot] com
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