Cartels fight for the USA’s neighboring country. The government mobilizes the army and provokes an escalation of the situation
Drug trafficking and Latin America – when you hear these buzzwords, you can’t help but think of Colombia. But the war for the cocaine market has long since shifted to the north. In Mexico, the USA’s neighbor to the south, several cartels are engaged in bloody confrontations on a par with those in South America. Over 3,000 people have died in this battle for drug market control since the beginning of this year alone. The escalation is increasingly affecting the U.S. as well. Experts now fear that Washington’s military intervention will further destabilize Mexico.
The battle for Mexico is particularly fierce, because control of this territory determines access to the U.S. market. About 90 percent of cocaine enters the United States through the U.S.-Mexican border, with only a fraction coming through the Caribbean or other routes. As a result, several drug cartels have emerged in Mexico in recent years, which – similar to the Colombian models in Medellin or Cali – are not only waging war against each other. Increasingly, state institutions are also being targeted.
The cocaine business in Mexico is in the hands of four groups: In addition to the cartels of Sinaloa in the west of the country, there are other corresponding alliances in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez in the north, as well as on the Gulf of Mexico. Based on the quantities of drugs trafficked and their market value, these groups receive up to 25 billion U.S. dollars annually. The cartels use this money to finance not only an extensive infrastructure, but also private armies that increasingly put the state on the defensive.
New massacres every week
More and more news from the drug war also reaches Europe. In an international police operation a few days ago, 16 tons of cocaine were seized in Mexico and Panama. In the context of the operation "Solar" but drug traffickers were also arrested in the U.S. and Italy. The suspects there are said to belong to a clan of the Ndrangheta mafia organization. This case gives an idea of the extent of the Mexican cartels’ networks.
But the war is fought in the country itself. In the middle of the month, 24 dead bodies were found near the capital Mexico City – apparently victims of the clashes. All the corpses were shot in the head. In view of the increasingly openly fought battles, the inhabitants of the disputed areas sometimes no longer dare to go out on the streets. In the U.S.-Mexican border city of Tijuana, residents have already announced that they will deploy burger guards if the government does not bring the situation back under its control. But the state faces a serious problem: the security organs – police and army – have long been infiltrated by drug-related crime.
In the face of the approaching threat, the USA is relying on a military solution. One year ago, on 22. In October 2007, the administration of George W. Bush’s administration launched the Merida Initiative, a large-scale program to combat organized crime in the neighboring country to the south. A good 400 million U.S. dollars were initially approved for this purpose, with a further 65 million for other Central American states. But the project was blocked in the Washington Senate, largely on the initiative of Democratic Party representatives. Referring to Colombia, they initially demanded guarantees that human rights would be respected in the event of a military offensive.
In the case of the U.S. initiative, critics already speak of a "Mexico Plan", in line with the so-called Colombia Plan. In the course of this plan, the Bogota government has received hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid over the past few years. The military clashes have since resulted in numerous human rights violations. But cocaine production rose again last year by 27 percent.
Doubts about military solution
After taking office in December 2006 (political turmoil in Mexico), Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon made the fight against drug-related crime a central theme of his domestic policy. Tens of thousands of soldiers were sent to the north of the country to put a stop to cocaine smuggling. Government and judicial officials have since pointed to successes: nearly a billion U.S. dollars have been seized, said Deputy Attorney General Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos. Hundreds of tons of cocaine, marijuana, crack cocaine, opium and other narcotics had been destroyed. Nevertheless, the critical tone prevails. According to press polls, the majority of residents do not believe in a military solution or are divided on the ie. are divided on the ie.
Even the United Nations human rights envoy Louise Arbour warned in February during a visit to Mexico of the negative consequences of a prolonged war for human rights. Such a mission should be short-lived, if at all. Instead, the government had to put more effort into strengthening civilian structures. For the Mexican historian and author Carlos Montemayor, too, the dangers of military action outweigh the risks: "Experience from Colombia has shown that such a war results in massive human rights violations and exposes the armed forces of the state to the risk of corruption."
Evidence of this also exists in Mexico. When drug kingpin Arturo Betran Leyva was caught a few weeks ago, his bodyguards, who had defected from the army to the Sinaloa cartel, rescued him. They opened fire on the policemen, killed several officers and brought the godfather to safety. The incident showed once again that the Mexican government is getting more and more defensive despite a stronger military mobilization.