HIST 361: The Mexican Revolution: Birth, Life, Death

Stephanie Hanson, Council on Foreign Relations, Daily Analysis, Nov. 21, 2008

Mexico’s economy is slowing–remittances from abroad are down, as is U.S. demand for Mexican exports. But one sector is doing a brisk business–the funeral industry near the U.S. border (Reuters). Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon began his offensive against drug cartels and organized criminals in December 2006, drug-related killings have escalated, as has the need for undertakers. Though the drug war receives minimal attention north of the border, some authorities say it increasingly threatens the stability of the Mexican state and poses a security threat to the United States.

Calderon has moved aggressively against Mexico’s drug cartels. He has deployed over thirty thousand soldiers across the country, purged several police forces of corrupt members, and pushed a judicial reform package through Congress. But the violence has only mounted. More than four thousand people have died in drug-related violence this year, up from more than 2,500 deaths in 2007. The escalation is so great that drug gangs are widely suspected of causing the plane crash in early November that killed the interior minister, though the government says pilot error was the cause (NYT).

The drug cartels’ infiltration of the police, judiciary, and political parties has severely compromised the government’s ability to fight the drug cartels, some experts say. As Alma Guillermoprieto writes in the New Yorker, the end of one-party rule in Mexico precipitated the need to run expensive election campaigns, which the drug cartels are reported to now fund. The Mexican army is considered relatively clean, but its deployment has presented new opportunities for corruption, and causes tension with local security forces.

Experts say little progress will be made until Mexico’s police and judiciary are reformed. Mexican professor Ana Laura Magaloni, speaking at the Wilson Center in May 2008, says the focus should be on state-level reforms of the criminal justice system. In the meantime, concerns mount about drug-related violence spilling across the border. “International drug cartels pose an extraordinary threat both here and abroad,” said U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey in September 2008. Mexico’s drug gangs could be a greater threat to the United States than global terrorism, adds John P. Sullivan of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.

Calderon has sought U.S. assistance to tackle the problem. A new aid package known as the Merida Initiative (PDF) will provide $400 million in equipment and communications systems this year, with plans for further funding in the next two years. Some Mexican and U.S. analysts criticize the package for its focus on equipment rather than training and institution building. Others note that the package does not address how to reduce U.S. drug demand.

Drug trafficking is not the only issue of mutual interest between Mexico and the United States. Mexico is the third most important source of oil to the United States but output has been dropping since 2005. A package of energy reforms passed Mexico’s Congress on October 28, but industry experts say it likely does not go far enough to attract the kind of private investment needed to build capacity.

Immigration also complicates the U.S.-Mexico relationship–the majority of illegal immigrants in the United States are Mexicans. The U.S. Congress failed to pass immigration reform legislation in 2007, but some are hopeful that President-elect Barack Obama might revive the issue. It was one of the topics he discussed with his presidential rival, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), in a November 17 meeting aimed at building bipartisan momentum for congressional initiatives. A recent CFR Independent Task Force on U.S.-Latin American relations recommends a U.S. guest worker programs, legalized a path to citizenship, and addressing circular migration for agriculture workers.

As drug cartels battle the government, Mexico descends into chaos

GUY LAWSON, Rolling Stone – Nov. 13, 2008

• VIDEO: Guy Lawson on the bloody war next door, plus a guide to Mexico’s drug lords

The dead policeman is found propped against a tree off a dirt road on the outskirts of the city. He is dressed like a cartoon version of a Mexican cowboy, wearing a sombrero and wrapped in a heavy woolen blanket. The murder and symbolic mutilation of policía has become almost routine in Culiacán, capital of the Mexican state of Sinaloa: Pablo Aispuro Ramírez is one of 90 cops to be killed here this year. There is a note pinned to the body, a warning to anyone who dares to oppose the powerful drug lord who ordered the execution.

“I’m a cop-cowboy!” the note reads. “Ahoo-ya! There are going to be more soon!”

In the United States, the War on Drugs is a political slogan for a policy disaster that has cost taxpayers at least $500 billion over the past 35 years. In Mexico, it is a brutal and bewildering conflict — a multisided civil war that has taken 3,000 lives this year alone and brought the federal government to a state of near-collapse. Narcotics are now one of the largest sectors of the Mexican economy, twice the size of tourism. Most of the country’s drug trade involves transporting contraband from other sources — especially cocaine from Colombia — to satisfy the nearly insatiable demand in the U.S. But Mexico’s narcotraficante cartels have also gotten into the production side of the industry, manufacturing 80 percent of the crystal meth sold in America, 14 percent of the heroin and most of the marijuana. What Mexico offers the global narcotics industry is proximity to the largest market on earth. (more…)