Mexico

On July 18th, the Mexican Navy intercepted a mini submarine that was transporting more than 5 tons of cocaine. This is a significant operation that highlights the ability of Mexican armed forces to combat drug trafficking by air, land, and sea. Bilateral cooperation between the United States and Mexico contributed to the capture of the submarine. Given the current context, it is important to ask whether foreign assistance in the form provided by the Mérida Initiative or Plan Colombia actually reduce drug trafficking.

Answering such a question is not an easy task. Indeed, there are methodological issues that do not allow to test whether military assistance provided by one country (or countries) to another actually reduce drug trafficking. A large transfer of resources to combat drugs is public information. Drug cartels can observe this transfer. Having observed the transfer, they can modify their activities accordingly. However, this modification is not observable—although intelligence agencies should be able to observe these activities. Cartels can improve their efforts and become even more difficult to catch (they become better drug traffickers); or they can reduce their efforts, thus giving the impression that the aid is working (they play a low profile). This last event is a response to the transfer, not a response to the actual implementation of the funds provided by the transfer.

But high office is run by politicians and not by researchers. Indeed, it is always good to show the photos of a submarine being taken over by Special Forces. We can expect observing more dramatic seizures of drugs under a new bilateral relationship between Mexico and the United States. The question is whether those seizures will be masking other types of illegal operations that make use of even more fantastic ways of transporting drugs across countries.

It seems that some municipalities are governed by criminal organizations. According to the Attorney General’s Office, drug cartels control 80 municipalities. However, Mexico has more than 2,500 municipalities and controlling 80 of them is far from controlling the entire country. In spite of this, a qualitative interpretation of these events would suggest that things are just not right in Mexico, especially since cartels are said to behave as a form of a government that collects taxes and provides some public goods. The cartels also profit from the sexual exploitation of persons, according to the report.

It is not surprising to learn that drug cartels present a clear and present danger to Mexican democratic institutions. This was recently declared by Guillermo Valdés, head of Mexican intelligence. Unfortunately, the current fight against drugs has not improved the situation. During the last year, the country has experienced a dramatic increase in the number of drug-related casualties. In addition, the federal government has overexposed the military to a force it was not prepared to fight. This explains the need to minimize the involvement of the armed forces and increase the budget to recruit more regular police forces.

The question is whether the new impulse in the fight against drugs in Mexico will start having an impact before the situation becomes unmanageable and drug cartels control more municipalities in the country.

The Merida Initiative would provide $950 million dollars in two years to Mexican law enforcement agencies to support their efforts against resourceful and elusive criminal organizations. The Mexican government needs the aid and the executive branch in the US is willing to provide it. But the US Congress would only grant the funds conditional on the improvement of human rights in Mexico. At these crossroads, the positions of these actors are not precisely original.

First, key members of the US Congress—like Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont and member of the Senate’s Committee on Appropriations—believe that Mexican law enforcement agencies are not trustworthy and that tax dollars should not produce further corruption and human rights abuses. This is not the first time the US Congress conditions the use of tax dollars abroad and definitively not the first time the Mexican government is accused of corruption and human rights violations.

Second, high ranking Mexican officials like Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino, as well as members of the political parties, have argued that the conditions established by the US Congress for the provision of the funds are not only unilateral, but also represent interference and even infringe national sovereignty. This is not only an old argument that could have been presented by a 19th century Mexican minister of foreign affairs, but also represents a myopic perspective that does not seem to acknowledge that there is nothing wrong with improving human rights in the country.

Third, the White House, right in between the US Congress and the Mexican government, has argued that conditioning aid to Mexico is counterproductive and that the funds are vital in the War Against Drugs both in the US and Mexico.

These three actors seem to agree on the fact that American support is important and necessary since the demand of drugs and the flow of arms from the US have fueled the conflict in Mexico. They also coincide on the structural inability of Mexican institutions to fight the drug cartels. However, this is not enough to guarantee the approval of the bill and the provision of the funds. Indeed, the US Congress, the White House, and the Mexican government need to find a middle ground that keeps constituents pleased with the efforts of the officials and lawmakers that represent them, while making sure that they engage in true bilateral cooperation to solve a multinational problem like drug trafficking and consumption.

Drug-related murders in Mexico have soared in the last two months. Municipal, state, and federal police officers have died in clashes against heavily armed commandos or have been assassinated on the orders of drug bosses. It has been argued that this rise in violence is a signal of the Mexican government’s progress in the War Against Drugs. The argument is that cartels, while retreating, have launched a series of desperate attacks on police forces. This “measure of progress” has been complemented by some dramatic drug and cash seizures.

These events have contributed to the recent advance of the Merida Initiative in the US Congress—both the Senate and the House have approved bills that include aid to Mexico, although they still have to agree on a single bill. But is Mexico receiving aid because its forces are doing really well and need further support to win the battle with the cartels or is the country doing so badly that it needs urgent assistance before it loses the War on Drugs? Carrying out the world’s largest cash seizure has definitively contributed to victory over drugs, but losing the chief of federal police has not, specially since this highlights the government’s inability to protect its main strategists and operatives against drug cartels.

The fact is that Mexico needs help to curve ubiquitous violence across the country and strengthen, professionalize, and protect the law enforcement agencies leading the War on Drugs. Indeed, not only are police officers resigning but also asking for asylum in the US. Furthermore, the country’s general population is now affected by drug consumption and fear caused by cartel members roaming through rural towns close to the trafficking routes.

In short, in a multi-front war against drug trafficking and consumption, the Mexican government’s efforts seem to be mixed. In order to recover the confidence of the population and the aid of foreign actors like the US Congress, the Mexican government must reach higher standards, particularly when it comes to the status of the police forces and their members.

The Mexican armed forces are a pillar of the war against drugs. Indeed, thousands of regular troops are patrolling several municipalities and large cities across Mexico while Special Forces make most of the arrests of high-profile drug lords. In a country plagued by corrupt police forces and heavily armed drug traffickers, the army (which also controls the air force) and the navy have become the country’s last resort in a war that has produced thousands of casualties. Unfortunately, the armed forces themselves are likely to become another victim of this war.

The Mexican army has experienced thousands of desertions in the last few years. According to an investigation of the newspaper Reforma, between 2001 and 2006, the army has lost an average of 30,000 members per year. Although the rate of desertion has decreased to 17,000 in 2007, this is still a very significant number; especially considering where these soldiers go after leaving the armed forces.

The likely cause of desertion in the armed forces is poor working conditions for the meager salaries. According to Benito Jiménez from Reforma, a regular soldier makes between $300 and $400 dollars a month. They could easily make a few more hundred dollars by joining private security companies. More alarming is when soldiers are paid much more for joining drug cartels. This makes the cartels much more deadly, for the trained soldiers are familiar with government procedures. In fact, cartels are now openly recruiting soldiers.

In addition to soldiers leaving for better-paid opportunities, the army is under close scrutiny regarding human rights violations. Although police forces are traditionally associated with violations of human rights in Mexico, the army is no beacon of virtue. Indeed, many military camps served as prisons during the Dirty War of the 1960s and 1970s that produced more than 1,500 disappearances. Even though the country’s human rights records have shown overall improvement, violations continue to occur throughout the territory.

As a result of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the armed forces were deliberately separated from politics. Their function was limited to the protection of the country from external threats and to relief efforts during national disasters. For decades, the army enjoyed legitimacy unmatched by other Mexican institutions. Lamentably, things have changed. Senior military officers have been tainted by corruption scandals, former member of Special Forces are now bodyguards for drug bosses, and young people aspire to work for drug cartels rather than the army.

So far, nobody knows how this other war within the armed forces will end. If the situation does not improve soon, the army, and the country, will lose the war against drugs.