by RUDIGER PUNZET
The spectre of drug wars and failure of governance looms large even as the nexus between politics and drug cartels becomes stronger.
SEVERAL indicators point to the fact that the state is fading into insignificance in Mexico. The contours of the state are increasingly withering away in this significant country. It appears that in the province bordering the United States state control has already vanished. In fact, some amount of Mexican territory (12 per cent by some accounts) has fallen completely into the hands of powerful drug cartels. Attempts to appoint a Mayor and restore some form of administration were in vain in the north-eastern regions of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. Even the police force has disappeared in these places and only the criminals remain.
In the northern regions of the country, the drug cartels are engaged in a fierce battle against each other to capture the best routes to smuggle drugs into the U.S. and fear their competitors more than they do the 50,000-strong Mexican military. Every year, cocaine, heroin and amphetamine, originating mostly in Colombia, find their way into the U.S. The U.S. State Department estimates that the Mexican drug trade is now worth between $13 billion and $46 billion. According to a recent central government report, about 35,000 people have died in cases relating to drug trafficking since Felipe Calderon assumed office as President in December 2006.
The spectre of drug wars and failure of governance looms large over Mexico even as the nexus between politics and groups engaged in nefarious activities becomes stronger. Mexico’s leading newspaper El Universal points out that in the past few years 70 per cent of the electoral campaigns were allegedly funded by drug traffickers and that 78 per cent of Mexican business houses are believed to have strong connections to the drug cartels.
Recently, a well-known politician congratulated a cartel boss on his victory over his competitors and assured him of all possible support. The telephone conversation between the two was tapped and broadcast on radio. A high-ranking government official heading the department to combat organised crime is alleged to have passed on recently confidential information pertaining to his department to the drug cartel of Sinaloa for a huge sum of money.
The question of what is legal and what is not sounds impertinent in the regions dominated by violence. Representatives of the police force, the military and the government originally deployed to crush the criminals wonder if they have also assumed some of the criminals’ traits. The means used by the state do not vary much from those used by the cartels. Amnesty International has accused the Mexican military of severe human rights violations.
The drug cartels have emerged time and again as the most successful multinational firms of Latin America. As a consequence, their bosses, such as Joaquin Guzman, figure on the Forbes list of the world’s richest people. The unbridled greed of the cartels to increase profits has intensified their conflict with the government and culminated in their politicisation.
The breakdown of government machinery is evident on the law and order front. Mexico’s independent press indicates that the majority of the criminals go scot-free and only 5 per cent of the cases have so far been investigated. Occasionally, bosses of drug trafficking groups are nabbed; Flavio Mendez Santiago, the head of the most dreaded cartel “Los Zetas”, was arrested in January this year. Fierce fighting among the various cartels to gain supremacy is often the fallout of such arrests and worsens the situation.
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