BRISCOE AND KESEBERG
Celebration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico City after being declared winner in Mexico’s federal election of July 1, 2018. (Wikimedia/Salvador alc)
68 | FEATURES PRISM 8, NO. 1 Great Expectations and Grim Realities in AMLO’s Mexico By Mary Speck
ndrés Manuel López Obrador—known simply as AMLO—assumed Mexico’s presidency on Dec. 1, 2018, with a robust mandate. He won a clear majority in the July 1 national elections, trouncing rivals from both the conservative National Political Action Party (PAN) and the ruling Institutional ARevolutionary Party (PRI). His National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) and its electoral allies will dominate both houses of Congress and took five of the nine state governorships in contention, along with their state legislatures. Such margins could give López Obrador more federal power than any president since 2000, when Mexico ended seven decades of single-party rule.1 He has promised to use his mandate to launch a “fourth transfor- mation”—i.e. epoch-defining change on the order of Mexican independence in 1821, the liberal reforms of the mid-nineteenth century, and the popular revolution that convulsed the country from 1910 to about 1920. Though as President-elect López Obrador toned down his rhetoric—sounding more like the pragmatic pol- itician he proved to be as mayor of Mexico City—he must still manage high expectations. He has promised voters that he will address poverty and inequality by launching universal pensions for the elderly and pro- viding paid apprenticeships for 200 million youths; help the struggling middle class by freezing fuel prices; revive the energy sector through massive investments in the country’s troubled state-owned oil company—all without increasing the deficit.2 AMLO must also fulfill hopes for peace in a country plagued by some of the world’s most vicious drug gangs. Some 230,000 people were murdered between 2008 and 2017, more than double the number killed in the previous decade. Experts blame up to one-half of these homicides on criminal gangs.3 Tens of thousands more have reportedly disappeared.4 This tsunami of violence has continued to crest—in July 2018 police recorded the highest level of homicides for any month on-record.5 Fulfilling his promise to drastically reduce this violence is López Obrador’s most complicated challenge. The president-elect has ignited controversy by seeming to contradict the pacifist promises and slogans—such as offering “abrazos no balazos” or “hugs not bullets”—that characterized his campaign. 6 But his security policies are still evolving. As President-elect he struggled to define his position on such thorny issues as the
Dr. Mary Speck is a Senior Associate (non-resident) with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and Interna- tional Studies.
PRISM 8, NO. 1 FEATURES | 69 SPECK militarization of law enforcement. Nor has he accepting shared responsibility for the illegal drug explained how he will finance the country’s ongo- trade—long a Mexican demand—the United States ing justice reforms and strengthen local police. Like has secured cooperation on security issues that would his predecessors, López Obrador must grapple with have been unthinkable less than a generation ago. the reality that federal power alone is unlikely to This article examines the evolution of security bring the country’s highly localized violence under policy under AMLO’s most recent predecessors: control. There is no populist playbook for building Presidents Felipe Calderón (PAN) and Enrique effective police and efficient courts. Peña Nieto (PRI). The first began his term with a As candidate, AMLO vowed to de-militarize frontal attack on drug cartels, though he came to the fight against organized crime, but as President- understand that Mexico could not control organized elect he has proposed creating a military-controlled crime without social programs and institutional National Guard. The new force—drawn largely from reforms. The second preached demilitarization, the ranks of army and navy—would start at 50,000, embracing violence prevention. But he failed to sus- growing to 150,000 within three years.7 It would tain these efforts, opting instead to institutionalize operate under command of the Secretary of Defense, military interventions. Both failed to enact reforms an active-duty general. Human rights groups imme- that would strengthen local police. diately condemned the proposal, urging López Obrador to instead strengthen civilian police forces.8 Calderón’s Crusade As candidate, López Obrador floated the idea Calderón took the Mexican public by surprise when of offering an amnesty to drug traffickers. As he decided to confront the cartels with military President-elect, after hearing from irate victims, he force at the start of his term, proclaiming a “national stressed justice, with forgiveness only for low-level, crusade” against crime.12 As candidate, he had not non-violent offenders, and promised that truth placed security issues at the forefront of his cam- commissions would investigate the worst abuses and paign, much less argued for a military offensive provide reparations to victims.9 During the cam- against organized crime. In his memoir, Calderón paign, AMLO also spoke of legalizing marijuana would reject the phrase “war on drugs,”—which and permitting the cultivation of opium poppies, he dismissed as a slogan coined in the U.S—say- though his team may be reconsidering this stance. ing his intention was to end the “cynical impunity” As President-elect AMLO stressed that Mexico will enjoyed by powerful criminals who had infiltrated work within the United Nations to modify interna- Mexican institutions.13 But those institutions were tional drug control conventions.10 ill-equipped to handle the fallout as federal troops The United States has a huge stake in Mexico’s fought organized crime on multiple fronts. Instead success: The criminal organizations responsible for of taking preventive measures, Calderón launched rising violence in Mexico have also fueled a U.S. drug his offensive without considering “how the crimi- epidemic resulting in 72,000 fatal overdoses during nals would respond.”14 2017 alone. U.S. agencies have worked closely with He was not the first president to deploy troops Mexican police and military forces to capture drug in counter-narcotics operations. The army had been kingpins; Congress has also appropriated nearly $3 eradicating marijuana and poppy crops for decades. billon in equipment, training, and capacity building His predecessor, Vicente Fox, sent troops to the assistance.11 This is only a fraction of the approxi- northern border states under his “Secure Mexico” mately $14 billion Mexico spends each year. But by program beginning in 2005, when the military
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In 2007 the towns of Nogales, Arizona (United States), left, and Nogales, Sonora (Mexico), stand separated by a concrete and steel fence. (U.S. Army/ Gordon Hyde) removed hundreds of police in Nuevo Laredo for “high-value targets” or kingpins, capturing or conspiring with drug traffickers.15 But Calderón’s killing dozens of major traffickers. Powerful organi- efforts were on a much larger scale: By the end of zations, such as the Beltran-Leyva, Tijuana, Juárez, 2007, the federal government had launched joint and Gulf cartels, lost top leaders. The hyper-vio- military/police operations in nine of the coun- lent Zetas (formed by ex-Gulf hitmen with military try’s 32 states; at the height of the offensive in 2011 experience) were especially hard hit, by both the it was deploying about 50,000 soldiers. Calderón government and former allies.18 also strengthened the federal police, dramatically It also quickly secured backing from the increasing the force from 6,000 agents in 2006 to United States. In March 2007, Calderón and U.S. 36,000 by 2012.16 President George Bush met in the city of Merida, The mission quickly racked up impressive Yucatán, to begin a “new and intensified level of results, including the seizure of more than $200 bilateral cooperation” against drug trafficking. million in cash crammed into closets, cabinets, and From 2008 to 2010, Congress appropriated about suitcases at an upscale home in Mexico City and $1.5 billion for the initiative, including $421 mil- the confiscation and destruction of some 23 tons lion in foreign military funding, which allowed of cocaine (with an estimated street value of about Mexico to purchase aircraft and helicopters. The $2.7 billion) found in a container ship at the port Obama administration would provide an addi- of Manzanillo.17 Calderón also went after so-called tional $425 million from 2011–12.19
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As much or more important than U.S. fund- initiative: a constitutional reform establishing “uni- ing—which represented only a small fraction of fied commands” that would have placed municipal the $14 billion the Mexican government itself spent forces under the control of state governors. each year on security toward the end of Calderón’s Although homicides initially fell during 2007, term—was U.S. cooperation. The Drug Enforcement they rose sharply in 2008, peaking at more than Administration, along with other U.S. law enforce- 27,000 in 2011, almost three times their level just ment and intelligence agencies, worked with vetted four years before. The rise was especially steep in Mexican military or federal police units to capture states along the border and the Pacific coast where or kill “high-value targets.”20 Fusion centers allowed Calderón had sent federal forces to confront the U.S. and Mexican agencies to exchange intelligence. cartels. The government’s assault had left drug Cooperation was especially close with the Mexican trafficking groups wounded, but still danger- navy—a nimbler, less insular institution than the ous. Fragmented criminal organizations engaged army—whose marine units often took the lead in in bloody battles for succession or territory, in high-profile counter-narcotics operations.21 some cases outsourcing enforcement to street The United States also helped ensure that cap- gangs. Federal forces were stretched thin as they tured kingpins would face trial, relieving Mexico’s took over local law enforcement in multiple hot overburdened justice system. Extraditions to the spots; patrolling urban and rural areas, manning United States increased dramatically under Calderón, checkpoints, sometimes even directing traffic.24 who sent nearly 600 suspects to face trial in the Aggressive tactics led to abuse. Complaints against United States, twice as many as the total number both the federal police and the military for human extradited by the two previous presidents combined.22 rights violations quintupled between 2007–12.25 Less visible–though potentially more import- ant—were efforts to fortify Mexican institutions. The Juárez Calderón government passed a series of constitu- Ciudad Juárez on the U.S. border became a virtual tional reforms in 2008 to transform its judicial system war zone. Aas federal forces took control of law during a period of eight years from a closed-door pro- enforcement, homicides accelerated from less than cess based on written dossiers to an adversarial model 200 in 2007 to 3,000 in 2010—a rate of more than where defendants can challenge the evidence against 200 per 100,000 people, or about 12 percent of the them in open court. Mexico has both a federal-court country’s total homicides. Thousands fled across the system and 32 state (including the federal district) border into Texas. Outrage over mounting casu- systems, all of which needed to train judges, prosecu- alties erupted into protests, especially in January tors, and defense attorneys in oral trial procedures for 2010 after gunmen, apparently looking for rival more serious crimes and alternative dispute resolu- gang members, burst into a birthday party in the tion mechanisms for lesser offenses.23 working-class neighborhood of Villas de Salvárcar, The Calderón government also tried to address killing 15 people, mostly teenagers.26 deficiencies in law enforcement. It raised selection The massacre of high-school students in a standards, enacted vetting, and improved training for city occupied by federal forces made national and the federal police while also expanding subsidies for international headlines. The Calderón govern- state and municipal police to do the same. It created a ment, which was already preparing to change tack, national database designed to allow police at all levels decided to make the northern border city its test to share information. However, it failed to pass its key case for a new approach. “Military action is not
72 | FEATURES PRISM 8, NO. 1 GREAT EXPECTATIONS AND GRIM REALITIES IN AMLO’S MEXICO enough,” Calderón told the citizens of Juárez when By the end of 2013, the Peña Nieto govern- he announced a major initiative to address vio- ment had passed finance, telecommunications, and lence in February 2010. His government invested education reforms, plus a controversial energy bill more than $380 million in the city under a program that permitted foreign investment in the oil and dubbed Todos Somos Juárez” (We are all Juárez), gas sector for the first time since Mexico expropri- which financed social programs designed to make ated foreign oil companies in 1938.29 The youthful communities—especially those with large numbers president’s free-market agenda won him high of un- or underemployed youth—more resistant to international praise, including a cover photo on violent crime. The idea was to create a multi-sectoral the international edition of Time with the head- model to address risk-factors while strengthen- line, “Saving Mexico: How Enrique Peña Nieto’s ing institutions of justice and law enforcement. Sweeping Reforms Have Changed the Narrative in The crisis also spurred institutional reforms at the his Narco-Stained Nation.”30 Chihuahua state-level. The state prosecutors’ office Peña Nieto also moved quickly to put his stamp was purged, subjected to vetting, and offered better on security policy by dissolving the Secretariat of training and work conditions.27 Public Security, created in 2000 under President Although homicides remained historically high, Vicente Fox, and moving federal police and civilian violence was ebbing when Calderón left office in intelligence back into the interior secretariat. He 2013. It subsided especially rapidly in Juárez, which promised to take the military out of counter-narcot- the government cited as vindication of its approach. ics operations by deploying a new civilian-controlled But the Calderón government remained identified gendarmería, a paramilitary force recruited with the militarized counter-narcotics opera- largely from former military officers, which would tions blamed for tens of thousands of deaths. The have 40,000 members.31 During his first year in incoming president would publicly repudiate his office, Peña Nieto also appeared to put the Merida predecessor’s actions even as he adapted or contin- Initiative on hold, by requiring, for example, that ued many of the same policies. all cooperation go through a “single window” in the interior secretariat, which delayed dispersal of mil- Peña Nieto’s Pact lions in assistance.32 When Enrique Peña Nieto took office in December The PRI government embraced violence 2012, some feared the PRI’s return to power meant prevention citing efforts in Ciudad Juárez as a restoration of the “democratic authoritarian- model. It created the National Program for the ism”—i.e. periodic elections within a system of Social Prevention of Violence and Delinquency de-facto single-party rule—that had characterized (PRONAPRED) to channel federal subsidies to state PRI governments during most of the 20 th century.28 governments for disbursal in more than 50 districts He assumed office with great political strength. The identified as violent hot spots in 2013 and to more PRI controlled not only the presidency but also 21 of than 80 two years later. Municipal governments and the 32 state governments in the country. Although civil society groups were to use the funding to iden- his party failed to win a majority in either house of tify and address risk factors, reclaim public spaces Congress, the president had already secured support and strengthen local capacity.33 from the country’s three major parties for an ambi- Peña Nieto’s new approach soon fell apart. tious reform program dubbed the “Pact for Mexico” His government never managed to secure politi- before he took office. cal support for the idea of a gendarmerie, which
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Memorial for the victims of the September 26, 2014 attack by local police on students from the rural college of Ayotzinapa in the city of Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico leaving six people dead and 43 missing. (Inter-American Commission on Human Rights) fell prey to bureaucratic infighting over responsi- commands municipality by municipality, but results bilities and budgets. When the new force finally were mixed.34 debuted in August 2014, it had been reduced to only His national violence prevention plan also suc- 5,000 members. Peña Nieto’s proposed constitu- cumbed to confusion and controversy. The program tional reform mandating unified police commands never developed clear criteria for selecting projects at the state-level stalled in Congress. Major cities or rigorous procedures for evaluating them. Civil objected to putting their forces under state control society groups complained that it provided only and critics questioned whether state police were any short-term funding, which arrived months behind more effective or honest than municipal forces. The schedule, making planning impossible, and that idea limped along as some states negotiated unified municipal governments selected projects based on
74 | FEATURES PRISM 8, NO. 1 GREAT EXPECTATIONS AND GRIM REALITIES IN AMLO’S MEXICO political, not community, impact. After 2015, the challenges to the law—including suits filed by eight federal government slashed and then eliminated municipal governments—in early 2018.39 the subsidies amid a series of budget cuts, though While he institutionalized use of the mili- some funding returned in 2018. Peña Nieto never tary for domestic security, Peña Nieto did little to overcame the perception that his signature violence strengthen police. The size of the federal police prevention program had degenerated into an exer- remained at about 37,000, increasing by only 400 cise in political patronage.35 during six years. The federal government also Peña Nieto’s security policies ended up looking failed to increase the subsidies sent to the states for much like his predecessor’s. He continued to arrest security, though according to its own diagnosis, the high-value targets with the help of U.S. intelligence, country should double the number of state police. Of capturing or killing 109 of the 122 traffickers that those currently serving, only about 40 percent had his government considered most dangerous. The passed basic competency exams and only 10 percent government had less success in bringing these had completed training in criminal investigation. alleged kingpins to justice. By mid-2018 Mexican Thousands remain on state forces, despite failing courts had convicted only four of them. 36 Like background checks.40 Calderón, Peña Nieto sent the most notorious Peña Nieto’s government faced problems beyond to the United States for trial, including Joaquín its control, such as weak oil prices that shrank govern- Guzmán, the Sinaloa Cartel chief known as “El ment revenues and slowed economic growth. Anger Chapo,” who after escaping twice from Mexican over corruption and cronyism–especially his wife’s prisons faced trial at a federal district court in purchase of a $7 million home on favorable terms Brooklyn, NY.37 from a government contractor—also undermined his Peña Nieto’s reliance on the military to cap- popularity. But the greatest scandal faced during the ture “high-value targets” and to patrol high-crime Peña Nieto government was its bungled response to areas sparked opposition both from human rights one of the country’s most horrific atrocities. groups and within the military itself. “We did not train to pursue criminals,” Defense Secretary Ayotzinapa Salvador Cienfuegos told journalists in December On September 26, 2014, local police in the city of 2016, voicing an unusually public critique. “We are Iguala, Guerrero, attacked several busloads of stu- assuming duties that are not ours because there is dents from the rural teaching college of Ayotzinapa no one else.”38 The president acceded to the mili- leaving six people dead and 43 missing. Instead of tary’s demand that its role be “regularized,” pushing immediately ordering a federal investigation, the Peña a new Internal Security Law through Congress in Nieto government spent eight days dithering with the December 2017. The law gives the president author- state government over who should take responsibility. ity to order the armed forces to take on police Then it launched a massive federal probe that arrested functions in high-crime areas, while giving the more than 100 people, including 70 municipal police military greater autonomy to identify threats, lead who allegedly turned the students over to local gang operations and collect intelligence. Critics argue, members who then executed them, incinerating their however, that it violates Mexico’s constitution by remains. But it dismissed allegations that federal and expanding the armed forces’ jurisdiction over state authorities—who reportedly knew about the civilians without subjecting them to civilian over- disappearances in real time and failed to act—were at sight. The Supreme Court started to review various all complicit or negligent.
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Prosecutors rushed to close the case with the clandestine cemeteries in other states with unsolved attorney general himself presenting their findings in disappearances, which according to a government reg- January 2015 as “the historic truth,” though investi- istry have reached about 37,000 nationwide.42 gators had been unable to find or identify most of the Peña Nieto invoked the Ayotzinapa tragedy students’ remains. To quell the outcry, the government when he launched a ten-point security strategy in invited international experts to review its investiga- November 2014. It repackaged some previous pro- tion. That too backfired when the commission issued posals, such as Calderón’s state-led unified police a scathing 500-page report detailing inconsistencies commands, and added a reform that would establish and irregularities, including the possible torture of procedures for the federal government to take over suspects.41 Meanwhile the search for the missing corrupt municipal governments. He even echoed his students spurred the relatives of other missing per- predecessor’s slogan about the still-popular initiative sons to demand justice. Around the city of Iguala, in Ciudad Juárez, declaring “We are all Ayotzinapa” relatives—who called their loved ones “the other dis- as he proposed additional social and economic appeared”—discovered dozens of unmarked graves, investment in the region.43 The constitutional often acting on anonymous tips. Human and victims’ amendments affecting local governance—which rights groups also intensified efforts to find such would have transferred considerable authority away
A woman votes in Mexico City during the country’s general election on July 1, 2018. (Wikimedia/ProPlasmaKid)
76 | FEATURES PRISM 8, NO. 1 GREAT EXPECTATIONS AND GRIM REALITIES IN AMLO’S MEXICO from municipalities—died in congress, though moreover, has a long history of leftist activism, giving the government did push through legislation to its supporters the determination and means to keep strengthen laws on torture and enforced disap- the issue alive. Peña Nieto’s government would never pearance. A year later Peña Nieto, whose approval recover from its mishandling of the tragedy, especially ratings had fallen sharply, appeared to have aban- as homicides, which had declined during the first two doned much of his November strategy.44 years of his term, started trending upward. With local police reform impossible, the federal government’s main tool remained the deployment Diffusion and Diversification of military force. In the wake of the Ayotzinapa On July 2, while many Mexicans were celebrating disappearances, the government sent troops to take López Obrador’s historic victory, gunmen inter- over law enforcement in a dozen Guerrero munic- cepted a red pickup truck in Tecalitlán, Jalisco, ipalities. Nonetheless homicides continued to rise killing Victor Díaz, the municipality’s 28-year-old in the state, including in the municipalities where mayor, in a barrage of AK–47 fire.47 The assassi- federal police or military troops provided public nation was far from unique; criminals murdered security. Locals complained that while federal forces some 152 politicians and activists during the 2018 set up checkpoints and patrolled highways in heavily campaign, plus more than 350 non-elected officials. armed convoys, they did little to protect ordinary Most of these political cadres (125) were involved people from violence or predatory crimes, such as in municipal politics; a much smaller number extortion. Criminal gangs could simply retreat to were competing at the state level (26); only one was outlying areas, temporarily lowering their profile campaigning for federal office. 48 Many bore the until federal forces withdrew. 45 hallmarks of organized crime hits; interception by a The Ayotzinapa disappearances were not the vehicle filled with heavily armed men who quickly only atrocities involving security forces during Peña dispatch their victims with automatic weapons fire. Nieto’s government, nor were local police the only Police are also dying in record numbers. 2017 perpetrators. In July 2014, the army shot 15 alleged was the deadliest year yet for police; nearly 400, kidnappers in Tlatlaya, Guerrero; in January 2015, mostly municipal officers, were killed on duty. 2018 federal police shot at least six demonstrators in may match that record—240 had suffered violent Apatzingán, Michoacán; and in May 2015 federal deaths by late August.49 police killed 42 alleged members of the Jalisco New Tecalitlán (once best known for its mariachis) Generation Cartel in Tanhuato, Michoacán. In the had already made national news twice before in Tlatlaya and Tanhuato cases, the National Human 2018. In January, the president and secretary of Rights Commission found evidence that federal defense visited the town to inaugurate a new army forces shot the victims after they had surrendered base, one of three new facilities planned to provide and then tried to make it appear they had died in a security in the region.50 A month later, three Italian fire fight. In Apatzingán it found that federal police businessmen went missing while visiting the area. used excessive force against unarmed civilians, exe- Investigators say they were kidnapped by local police cuting at least one of the victims.46 and then turned over to the Jalisco New Generation Ayotzinapa struck an especially deep chord, Cartel or CJNG, a relatively new group now believed however, because it involved young students with to be one of the country’s most powerful cartels.51 no apparent link to organized crime. The Escuela The municipality, which has a population of Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos in Ayotzinapa, about 16,000, is in a dangerous neighborhood; it sits
PRISM 8, NO. 1 FEATURES | 77 SPECK within the western Sierra Madre mountain system, As criminal organizations fracture and diversify into which extends along Mexico’s Pacific Coast and new rackets, the control of local territory becomes produces most of the heroin consumed in the U.S. increasingly important. This puts mayors and other Its mountainsides not only offer an ideal climate local officials in the cross fire. Many local leaders are for growing opium poppies and marijuana, but also victims of extortion themselves; they pay local gangs provide cover for labs that fabricate synthetic drugs, off out of municipal coffers to guarantee their own using chemicals often made in China and then smug- and their community’s protection.57 gled via cargo ship to Pacific coast ports.52 The five states on the U.S. State Department’s “do not travel” Basic Lessons list for August 2018 are located either within this cor- There is no single strategy that can quickly over- ridor (Sinaloa, Michoacán, Colima, and Guerrero) or come the violence consuming many Mexican along the United States border (Tamaulipas).53 communities. AMLO can no more save Mexico But while violence remains high along these through massive social programs than Peña Nieto drug production and trafficking routes, it has also could by enacting sweeping economic reforms or spread to central Mexico. Guanajuato—a major Calderón by deploying tens of thousands of federal automobile manufacturing center that has opened forces. Mexico’s criminal groups have proven to be four new plants since 2014— suffered more homi- as complex as the country itself, with an uncanny cides in the first six months of 2018 than in all of ability to mutate and migrate. Change will come 2017, when it had an already historically high annual community by community, municipality by munic- rate of 38 per 100,000 people.54 Homicide rates also ipality, and state by state by initiating effective rose during 2017 in neighboring Zacatecas, a min- violence prevention programs, ensuring genuine ing and manufacturing center (up more than 500 transparency, strengthening civilian law enforce- percent since 2013), Hidalgo (up 260 percent), and ment, and building a justice system that is both Puebla (up 180 percent). efficient and fair. The uptick of violence in central Mexico seems López Obrador—who repeatedly stated during related to increased competition over two lucra- his campaign that “only I can fix corruption”—must tive rackets that have taken off in recent years; fuel modulate his own insurgent instincts. Institution theft and train robbery. Fuel thieves or huachi- building is a painstaking process that will require coleros (from a slang term for adulterated gas or collaboration not only across regions and political diesel fuel) are costing PEMEX, the state-run parties, but across Mexico’s vibrant and vociferous oil company, more than $1.6 billion a year. They civil society groups, from business and professional tap pipelines, board ships or oil platforms and associations to universities and think tanks to social siphon fuel from tanker trucks, sometimes aided activists and human rights defenders. To avoid the by corrupt employees.55 Train robbers use rocks mistakes that undermined previous governments, or vehicles to obstruct tracks or sometimes loosen the new president must undertake reforms guided rail fasteners to cause derailments. Then they by certain goals or principles: break into the freight cars, rapidly loading waiting vehicles with auto parts or appliances or even bulk 1. Violence prevention programs should be goods, like grain and cement.56 based on evidence, not political expediency, To carry out such crimes, gangs rely on local and adapted to achieve outcomes, not political support and official complicity or, at least, negligence. expediency. This means the next government
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needs to define a clear methodology for select- The United States, for its part, should continue ing the municipalities or districts eligible for to accept its shared responsibility for the rise of funding and then help local authorities or transnational drug trafficking organizations. Both non-profit groups develop projects designed to governments must work together to stop the north- produce measurable results. ward flow of illegal drugs that kill U.S. consumers 2. Transparency is essential to avoid the clien- and the southward flow of firearms that slaughter telism and corruption that has undermined Mexican civilians. U.S. policymakers must also stop both anti-poverty and anti-violence efforts in repeating past mistakes—whose costs in blood and the past. The selection, monitoring and eval- treasure are born largely by the Mexican public—by uation of all publicly funded social programs focusing not only on stopping drug trafficking but should be subject to public scrutiny and outside also, and most importantly, on preventing violence evaluation by recognized experts from Mexican and strengthening law enforcement. In the absence universities and think tanks. of strong police and a capable justice system, cap- turing high-value targets has fractured criminal 3. Demilitarization and police reform should go groups, igniting more violence, with little impact hand-in-hand. The next president should work on the drug trafficking business itself. The United with state governors to establish benchmarks States should instead concentrate on the long-term for the military to gradually withdraw from task of helping Mexico strengthen law enforcement its police duties while empowering specially by sharing expertise to create a new generation of trained and vetted federal police units to take professional police, prosecutors, and judges. PRISM on criminal organizations. States and munici- palities must also obtain the funding necessary Notes to recruit more and better police officers by 1 María Amparo Casar, “Morena toma todo,” Nexos, offering them higher salaries, better training August 1, 2018. and equipment, and merit-based promotions. 2 “Mexico’s López Obrador promises $7.5 billion Police cannot purge themselves of corrupt and for aid to the elderly and job training for youth,” Los Angeles Times, July 4, 2018; “Mexico’s Struggling State Oil abusive officers. External oversight—through Company Awaits New President’s Risky Fix,” Bloomberg, independent auditors or civilian review August 14, 2018. boards—is essential at the federal, state, and 3 This article uses the annual homicide statistics municipal level. collected by Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography, available at
PRISM 8, NO. 1 FEATURES | 79 SPECK rompe otra promesa: Ejército seguirá en las calles,” La Otra in Mexico’s intelligence war on the cartels,” Washington Opinión, August 24, 2018; Sanjuana Martínez, “AMLO, el Post, April 27, 2013. nuevo rehén del Ejército y la Marina,” August 27, 2018. 21 Nick Miroff and William Booth, “DEA intelligence 7 Jude Webber, “Mexico to create new national guard to aids Mexican marines in drug war,” Washington Post, fight spiraling crime,” Financial Times, November 1, 2018. December 4, 2010. 8 Human Rights Watch, “Mexico: Military 22 See “U.S.-Mexican Security Cooperation,” Policing Threatens Rights,” November 16, 2018, Congressional Research Service, for extraditions from 1996 available at
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Financiero, June 8, 2018. 48 Etellekt Consultores, “Séptimo Informe de 35 José Andrés Sumano Rodríguez, “Pronapred: mis- Violencia Política,” July 9, 2018, 16. mos problemas, menos recursos,” Nexos, February 19, 2018. 49 Manuel Espino Bucio, “2017, También el más vio- 36 Zorayda Gallegos, “El fracaso de Peña Nieto contra lento para policías,” El Universal, Dec. 28, 2017. Causa en los delincuentes más buscados en su Gobierno,” El País, Común, a Mexican NGO, maintains an interactive map of July 18, 2018. murdered police agents by state. See “Registro de policías 37 Alan Feuer, “Gridlock on the Brooklyn Bridge? asesinados 2018” available at
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