Growing Violence in Mexico and the Mérida Initiative
While last week we speculated about what would happen if the drug cartels in Mexico actually reached a truce, this week's news coverage on Mexico remains grim. According to El Universal, 508 people were killed in drug-related violence in January 2009 alone - more than double the amount of deaths in January 2008. An article in Sunday's Washington Post cites the increasing difficulty lawyers face in Ciudad Juarez as a result of the increase in drug-related violence and threats against their families. The article alludes to a breakdown in the justice system and the military's takeover of law enforcement as major obstacles to trying drug offenders. As law enforcement and the justice system lose hold in the region, other institutions, such as schools and hospitals, become undermined by increased violence.
Lawyers in Ciudad Juarez describe a chaotic legal landscape in which they are threatened by their clients, opposed by biased judges and harassed by the Mexican military, which has sent 2,500 troops to the city and has taken over law enforcement duties here, mostly by running heavily armored patrols and setting up roadblocks, but also by pursuing its own investigations, interrogations and detentions. "In this environment, it is almost impossible to do your job," said Héctor González Mocken, a criminal defense attorney and a leader of an association of Juarez lawyers, whose own office wall features a large portrait of the Virgin of Guadalupe. González said that one by one, the institutions and professions in Ciudad Juarez are being undermined. Teachers have been victims of extortion rackets shaking them down for their Christmas bonuses. Doctors stage protests, asking for more protection when they work on gunshot victims in the emergency room. Business leaders are kidnapped. More than 60 police officers in Juarez have been killed, and some officials are assumed to be working for or alongside the cartels. Journalists are also routinely threatened -- or worse. In November, one of the city's most experienced crime reporters, Armando Rodríguez, was assassinated in his front yard as he got ready to drive his daughter to class.
The majority of the aid allocated to Mexico through the Mérida Initiative is in the form of equipment and training for the security forces. Less resources are going to elements necessary to make a true dent in Mexico's drug violence, such as strengthening institutions like the judicial system, erasing corruption from and strengthening the police force and removing the military from civilian law enforcement roles. Even more pressing is the need to reduce the demand for drugs in the United States and stop the flow of weapons from the United States to Mexico. At a George Washington University event last week on Transnational Criminal Organizations, Manuel Suárez-Mier, from the Embassy of Mexico, used the basic argument that any student of Econ 101 learns (as long as there is demand, supply will continue) to explain that Mexico sees the Mérida Initiative not as a way to end the "war on drugs," but instead as a way to increase the cost and liability of "doing the drug business" in Mexico so that it merely goes somewhere else. In essence, pushing the cartels out of Mexico and into some other country with weak institutions and law enforcement. It is not clear whether Mexico can actually make the business of trafficking drugs too expensive or dangerous within their borders, especially as long as drug traffickers can make a larger profit as the street price of drugs increases, but the argument does make the need to address the demand side more apparent. An article in yesterday's Washington Times reports on a recent resolution passed by the El Paso City Council that asks the U.S. federal government to begin an "open, honest national dialogue on ending the prohibition of narcotics." El Paso, Texas is a U.S. border city that not only fears the spillover of the violence in Mexico to their town, but also is home to many Mexicans that have fled from nearby Mexican cities such as Ciudad Juarez. While there is much room for debate on the prescription they recommend, El Paso's citizens and City Council are at least acknowledging the need to address the United States' role in Mexico's drug-related violence: not just U.S. addicts' voracious demand, but the weapons-smuggling and money-laundering that occur on our side of the border. The Mérida Initiative does not address these important aspects of the drug trade. Nonetheless, doing so is going to be extremely important in finding an end to the drug-related violence and drug-trafficking currently plaguing Mexico.