Breaking the Bank and Breaking Promises in the Mexican Drug War

 

Mexico’s bloody war with drug cartels will drive July’s presidential election. It has been a strenuous war but one which the next president cannot undermine.

In 2006, newly-elected Mexican President Felipe Calderon initiated a war on the drug cartels and since then violence has been horrifically rampant throughout the country. The numbers are grim with the United States’ State Department claiming that that 40,000 people have died within this 5-year period.

The armed-conflict has vividly impacted the entire country, especially in the northern region of Chihuahua and the Pacific states. Ciudad Juarez, lying on the border with the United States has become the biggest victim to organised crime. In 2010 over 3000 people were killed in Juarez alone with a population of less than a million.

The drug cartels, which have split from former allies, continue to attack each other and innocent civilians in terrifying forms of violence. The bodies of decapitated civilians have become a dismal re-occurrence in the country’s headlines.

The two biggest cartels in the country are the Sinaloa Cartel and Los Zetas. The Sinaloa cartel is led by the infamous Joaquin Guzman Loera or ‘El Chapo’ who heads the world’s most powerful trafficking organisation. ‘El Chapo’ has been listed by Forbes as the 10th richest man in Mexico worth an estimated $1 billion and has become the most wanted man by the United States with a bounty of $5 million for his capture.

Los Zetas are widely considered to be the most violent paramilitary group in Mexico. While the Sinaloa cartel is known for its business model, Los Zetas are notorious for their sheer brutality. They were directly responsible for last year’s Monterrey attacks which left 52 people dead and left the country in a state of disbelief. Monterrey, Mexico´s third largest metropolitan area, had become the setting for some of the most aberrant acts of terror. On this occasion the cartels had set a casino ablaze with innocent civilians trapped inside.

Their war is centred on narcotics with Mexico being the main foreign supplier of cannabis and methamphetamine into the United States. The control for the lucrative trafficking routes into the United States and the multi-billion dollar industry that comes with it has only made this war even more relentless.

Upon his election, Mr. Calderon escalated his campaign against the cartels to the extent of deploying over 45, 000 military troops into action. The president’s strategy has been incredibly direct by targeting the leaders of the cartels.

The initial failure to control the widespread violence plagued his presidency but marginal progress has been made over the past year. There have been divisions within cartels and the arrest of many leaders has led the government to claim that their tough policy is progressively working. Mr. Calderon has actively reinforced the military in volatile areas of the country, as a sign of pure determination to this war.

His presidential reign however will end in December 2012 and his successor will have to immediately build upon Calderon´s limited progress. The elections, which are due to be held in July, will ultimately test the public’s opinion on the ‘war on drugs’ and whether Calderon’s Partido Accion Nacional party (PAN) is best to lead this fight. Early polls suggest that the opposition party holds the advantage especially in terms of security policy.

The accusations on which party will be the toughest on security policy has already commenced with the PAN party accusing the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) of succumbing to the cartels. This year’s election will undoubtedly be tense as Mexico seeks hard answers from itself. The man with the unenviable task of fighting this war will need all the support he can get

Christopher Alvarado