Abstract
This paper analyzes the current situation in the fifty year war on drugs that has raged within Mexican boarders because of US policy towards drug trafficking. Mexico is not a production center of drugs, but a transit point from Colombian cocaine to reach an illegal US drug demand. As much as ninety percent of all cocaine that ends up in the US is trafficked through Mexico. Since Pablo Escobar began the first one, the drug trade in Mexico has been controlled by powerful entities known as cartels. This, mixed with lack of opportunity and poverty in Mexico, has led to a destabilization of security throughout the country. While there are a number of solutions on the table, even many of these are contradictory.
During the last 50 years Mexico, due to pressure from the United States, has been in a war with the motive of stopping the illegal transport of cocaine from South America into the US. The death toll from this war has been significant, with not just drug traffickers, but also innocent Mexican civilians suffering from the war. It is a war where while all parties believe that a change must occur, there are various theories as to how that change can occur.
Traffickers in Mexico are known as narcotrafficante, or the more abbreviated version, narco. Both of these terms refer drug smugglers within the country that are overseeing operations, and those from other countries who are either crossing border with drugs, or receiving them. Mexicans from all walks of life are familiar with these terms since the effects of narcotrafficking affects their everyday life. Though estimates vary, the figure of annual revenues that comes to Mexico from the drug trade is set at between fourteen and fifty billion dollars (Longmire, 2011).
According to the US State Department, as much as ninety percent of all cocaine that comes to the US through Colombia comes through drug routes in Mexico. All of the revenues from cocaine goes to enable the narcos with vast financial means. This allows them to be powerful, militant entities and leads to corruption, crime, and what is known as parallel power structures. In any country, the most powerful entity of the country is the government. But one groups other than the government, non-elected groups, obtains political power that rivals the legitimate government, these are known as parallel power structures. Many in Mexico believe that the narco traffickers are parallel power structures that rival the power of the states (BBC News, 2008).
The current President of Mexico, Enrique Piñera Nieto, was elected because many citizens thought that he would bring about a better way of handling an issue that is currently out of control. Drug trafficking was one of the most important issues of the campaign.
This is not just a current issue in Mexico, but one that has a far reach into the history and geographical location of the country. Because Mexico is just south of the US, the country that consumes more cocaine per capita than any other country in the world, it makes sense that these problems would erupt in Mexico, which stands geographically between the US and Mexico (Vulliamy, 2011). Also, Mexico already has long established trafficking routes that immigrants have used to get illicit products and other contraband across the border. These routes go back far into the history of the relations between the countries. During the time that alcohol was illegal in the US, Mexico smuggled more alcohol into the US than any other country. As a drug cultured emerged in the US during the 1960s, drug trafficking began to reach the scale that we see between the countries today (Vulliamy, 2011).
Historically the most prominent figure in the Mexican drug trafficking trade is a Colombian named Pablo Escobar, who is often called the father of the drug trade. (DEA History, 2011). Connecting the supply of drugs in his power in Colombia between the US, he set up the first cartels in Mexico. During the eighties and the nineties he was the kingpin of the illegal trade, and managed the production operations in Colombia and the transport routes in Mexico. Before his time, these drug routes were generally operated between the Colombia and the US via South Florida and the Caribbean. As cracking down in those areas increased, Escobar shifted the trade to through Mexico, many of which still exist today.
With time Escobar’s cartel split into various factions which formalized into the large entities that exist today.
New York Times has said that there, there is currently a power vacuum that exists since the breakup of a single cartel and so today many cartels not only fight the Mexican government in their efforts to shut them down, but also fight amongst each other (Buscalgia, 2013).
Since after fifty years, neither Mexico nor the US can claim much victory in the wars on drugs, other options have emerged as solutions. One is being furthered by Otto Perez, the president of Guatemala who is open to looking at all options, including across the board legalization of all drugs, which will leave the problems in the US which consumes the drugs that go through Mexico (Buscalgia, 2013).
The New York Times points out that while organized crime is the problem, Mexico is a unique case when it comes to the violence that results from the organized crime that runs the drug trade. He writes that other places such as China and Russia have organized crime elements that are even more powerful than Mexico with vastly lower body counts. The heart of Mexico’s problem Buscalgia believes is the rife poverty and lack of opportunities for everyday Mexicans. Plenty of disenfranchised youth see drugs as their only way out of the poverty traps that they were born into. While China and Russia are not necessarily model countries for educational opportunities, Mexico by comparison invests much less to the GDP. Mexico also has a powerful teacher union which often is an obstacle to reforms that aim to target the unequal distribution of education resources.
As the World Economic Forum has it, Mexico does put a significant part of its GDP in education. In 2009 they spent 5.3% of their GDP in education. However, the same report also shows that plenty of people still receive subpar education partly because Mexico has a powerful teachers union that blocks needed reforms which democracy through the elimination would allow for an equitable distribution of educational opportunities (Longmire, 2011).
The criminal justice system prevents the government from taking necessary action due to it being filled with corruption. Buscalgia believes that nothing will help the countries security without the country first completing a “transition to democracy through the elimination of state power vacuums and the establishment of the rule of law” (Buscalgia, 2011).
As this essay indicates, the problem of the drug trafficking in Mexico is a complicated one. It involves multiple countries and historical and geographical realities. Poverty, and a weak government, and a strong parallel power structure of narco traffickers compound the issue. The solutions proposed are sometimes contradictory. Some believe there is more military might is needed. Others believe that legalization needs to solve it. It is an issue though that will continue to affect the Mexican government, it’s people, and most notably the border states in the US in which elements of the conflict have crossed over.
Sources:
Analysis: Mexico’s drug wars continue. BBC News. 2002-03-12.
Buscalgia, Edgardo. Mexico’s Deadly Power Vacuum. The New York Time. Mary, 30 2013
“History of DEA Opperations” DEA History. US DEA. Retrieved 2008-09-21. http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/history/history_part2.pdf
Longmire, Sylvia Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexico's Drug Wars. Macmillan. pp. 103–104. 2011.
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