3597_PA631_1stClass:3597_PA631_1stClass 1/15/2009 9:43 AM Page 1 No. 631 February 2, 2009 Troubled Neighbor Mexico’s Drug Violence Poses a Threat to the United States by Ted Galen Carpenter Executive Summary While U.S. leaders have focused on actual or oughly corrupted by drug money. Washington has illusory security threats in distant regions, there is rewarded Calderón’s government by implement- a troubling security problem brewing much closer ing the initial stage of the so-called Mérida to home. Violence in Mexico, mostly related to the Initiative. In June 2008, Congress approved a $400 trade in illegal drugs, has risen sharply in recent million installment modeled on Plan Colombia, years and shows signs of becoming even worse. the anti-drug assistance measure for Colombia That violence involves turf fights among the vari- and other drug-source countries in the Andean ous drug-trafficking organizations as they seek to region. That program, now in its ninth year, has control access to the lucrative U.S. market. To an already cost more than $5 billion, without signifi- increasing extent, the violence also entails fighting cantly reducing the flow of drugs coming out of between drug traffickers and Mexican military South America. The Mérida Initiative will likely and police forces. cost billions and be equally ineffectual. The carnage has already reached the point that Abandoning the prohibitionist model of deal- the U.S. State Department has issued travel alerts ing with the drug problem is the only effective way for Americans traveling in Mexico. U.S. tourism to to stem the violence in Mexico and its spillover cities on Mexico’s border with the United States, into the United States. Other proposed solutions, where the bloodshed has been the worst, has including preventing the flow of guns from the dropped sharply. Even more troubling, the vio- U.S. to Mexico, establishing tighter control over lence is spilling across the border into communi- the border, and (somehow) winning the war on ties in the southwestern United States. drugs are futile. As long as the prohibitionist strat- U.S. officials, alarmed at the growing power of egy is in place, the huge black market premium in the Mexican drug cartels, have pressured the gov- illegal drugs will continue, and the lure of that ernment of Felipe Calderón to wage a more vigor- profit, together with the illegality, guarantees that ous anti-drug campaign. Calderón has responded the most ruthless, violence-prone elements will by giving the army the lead role in efforts to elim- dominate the trade. Ending drug prohibition inate the drug traffickers instead of relying on fed- would de-fund the criminal trafficking organiza- eral and local police forces, which have been thor- tions and reduce their power. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, is the author of eight books, including Bad Neighbor Policy: Washington’s Futile War on Drugs in Latin America (Palgrave/Macmillan). PA Masthead.indd 1 2/9/06 2:08:34 PM 3597_PA631_1stClass:3597_PA631_1stClass 1/15/2009 9:43 AM Page 2 Even supposed wanted signs and hanging a giant banner victories in the Introduction: across a major thoroughfare. The banner’s The Rising Tide of Violence message was: “The Zetas want you, soldier or drug war prove ex-soldier. We offer a good salary, food and to be mixed There has been an alarming spike in vio - benefits for your family. Don’t suffer any more 6 blessings at best. lence in Mexico in recent years, most of which mistreatment and don’t go hungry.” is associated with the trafficking in illegal Even supposed victories in the drug war drugs and the efforts of the Mexican govern - prove to be mixed blessings at best. As Stratfor, ment to shut down that trade. The extent of a risk-assessment consulting organization, violence was already at a troubling level as ear - notes: “Inter-cartel violence tends to swing ly as 2002 and 2003. 1 Since then, though, the upward after U.S. or Mexican authorities man - situation has dramatically worsened, and the age to weaken or disrupt a given organization. carnage is increasingly impacting communi - At any point, if rival groups sense an organiza - ties in the southwestern United States. It has tion might not be able to defend its turf, they reached the point that it poses a legitimate will swoop in to battle not only the incumbent national security issue for U.S. policymakers. group, but also each other for control.” 7 Although there are nearly a dozen drug- The turf battles have been ferocious. In 2005, trafficking organizations in Mexico, including more than 1,300 people perished in drug-relat - seven significant cartels, two groups are espe - ed violence. By 2007, the yearly total had soared cially powerful. One is the Federation (some - to 2,673. And it continues to get worse. By early times called the Pacific cartel), an association August 2008, the body count for that year that emerged from a 2006 accord between the already exceeded the number of fatalities in all Sinaloa cartel and several secondary traffick - of 2007. 8 By mid-November, some estimates ing syndicates in and around Mexico’s Pacific put the toll at more than 4,500. 9 state of Sinaloa. The Federation’s principal There have been especially nasty episodes rival is the Gulf cartel, based in the city of this year. In early May, more than a hundred Matamoros in the Mexican state of Tamauli- people were killed in a single week. On Mexico’s pas, along the eastern portion of the border national day in September, drug gang hitmen with Texas. It has another major base farther tossed two grenades into a packed crowd cele - west in the city of Nuevo Laredo. 2 Both groups brating the holiday in the city of Morelia, killing are extremely violent, with the Gulf cartel hav - eight people and wounding dozens. And over a ing an especially potent cadre of enforcers—the seven-day period in late October, 50 people died Zetas—who are highly trained anti-drug mili - in shootouts or executions in one city alone— tary personnel who defected to the traffick - Tijuana. 10 ers. 3 A third faction, the Tijuana cartel (once Although most victims seem to be partici - perhaps the most powerful organization), has pants in the drug trade, several hundred police declined somewhat in recent years as several officers and soldiers have also died in the fight - top leaders have been arrested or killed. 4 ing. Many police personnel feel under siege. In Indeed, over the past six or seven years, the May 2008, three Mexican police chiefs request - Tijuana cartel has been the frequent target of ed political asylum in the United States high-profile police and military operations. because of drug cartel threats to them and their These groups, especially the Gulf cartel and families. 11 There is a growing number of other the Federation, battle law enforcement agen - casualties as well, including 24 journalists who cies and one another for control of the access have been killed execution-style since 2000. 12 corridors to the lucrative U.S. drug market. 5 Many reporters now flatly refuse to cover sto - An incident in Nuevo Laredo in April 2008 ries involving the cartels. 13 And there are the illustrates how brazen the drug traffickers innocent bystanders who are caught in the have become. The Gulf cartel’s Zetas openly crossfire when fights erupt between the drug sought recruits to their ranks, posting help- gangs or between gang members and the 2 3597_PA631_1stClass:3597_PA631_1stClass 1/15/2009 9:43 AM Page 3 authorities. Newsweek correspondent Michael Laredo five major hotels have shut down. 20 Miller notes that innocent victims just this year Mexico’s main tourist locales, such as Cancun include a little girl in Ciudad Juarez, six people and Acapulco, have fared significantly better so in front of a recreation center in the same city, far, but officials and business leaders are ner - a 14-year-old girl in Acapulco, two small chil - vous as reports proliferate about the bloodshed dren in Tijuana, and other people who were afflicting other areas. simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. 14 The violence sometimes takes on especially gruesome characteristics. Victims typically Impact on Americans bear signs of extensive torture, and one of the favorite tactics the cartels use when they wish The turmoil in Mexico is no longer a con - to make an emphatic point is to behead their cern merely to that country. Increasingly, the victims and display those heads in a highly vis - violence is affecting Americans who travel or ible place. 15 Two years ago, the heads of a mur - do business in Mexico, and there are even a dered police strike force commander and one troubling number of incidents in which of his agents were left jammed onto a fence in Mexico-related violence has spilled across the front of the police station in the prominent border into the United States itself. Pacific seaside resort of Acapulco. 16 A short A State Department report released in There are time later, five severed heads were tossed August 2008 noted that 131 U.S. citizens were indications that across the dance floor in a nightclub in the victims of homicides or “executions” in Mexico cartel hitmen state of Michoacan. Others have been left near between July 1, 2005, and June 30, 2008. 21 Most schools, courthouses, and other government of those victims perished in cities along the have struck at facilities.