Mexico targets the Zetas -- and Sinaloa?
(Video from Mexican Presidency: “Myth 5: That the federal government favors Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and the Pacific criminal group [a.k.a. the Sinaloa cartel]”)
There’s still a lot of debate about whether Mexican authorities are pursuing the Sinaloa cartel, probably the country’s largest, with the same energy that they devote to other criminal groups. Doubts were bolstered by a May 2010 National Public Radio investigation, which found Sinaloa members accounting for only 12% of cartel arrests since December 2006.
While that’s up for debate, what is becoming clearer is whom the Mexican government is targeting most: the fast-growing, hyper-violent Zetas, who operate throughout Mexico but principally in the eastern half of the country.
In a piece by Alfredo Corchado published in Monday’s Dallas Morning News, government officials confirmed that Mexico is shifting its strategy to focus on the Zetas above other groups.
Targeting the Zetas is appropriate, Eric Olson of the Woodrow Wilson Center tells Corchado, because the Zetas are the most violent of all Mexico’s criminal groups right now.
“Given the extreme levels of violence attributed to the Zetas, it would make sense for the government to focus its attention and resources on this particular group. … The truth is, it’s an important tactic to address the violence that is most pressing first. The longer-term needs for judicial and prosecutorial reform, police professionalization, and better educational and economic opportunities for youth are also critical, but in the short run a more focused and strategic approach is probably needed.”
This “target the most violent group first” idea is not new. It recalls the much-copied “Ceasefire” program that Boston used in the 1990s to reduce youth homicides by more than 70 percent. An evaluation by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government described how Boston police went after the most violent youth gangs first.
“The working group wanted youth to realize that this zero tolerance message was not a bluff, but a serious interagency effort. True to its word, when its message was ignored and gang violence erupted, YVSF [the Boston Police Youth Violence Strike Force] used intensive order maintenance and enforcement tactics to quickly suppress flareups of firearm violence in emerging gang hotspots. YVSF targeted noncomplying gangs with aggressive enforcement of public drinking and motor vehicle violations, outstanding warrants, and probation surrenders and made numerous arrests. Street enforcement resulted in two dozen Federal indictments and arrests in August 1996. News of these activities quickly spread to other gangs in Boston whose members saw what could happen if they did not comply.”
This is not a perfect strategy. Mexican organized-crime groups that are less violent than the Zetas might find themselves at greater liberty to deal drugs, smuggle paying migrants and commit other crimes that aren’t inherently violent. Beneficiaries could include the Sinaloa cartel, which the government’s security spokesman just once again denied, on the Mexican Presidency’s blog, that the government favors.
Still, a strategy that clearly discourages the most brutal and barbarous behavior is a good step if, by reducing violence, it gives political and economic breathing room to badly needed, but slower-moving, policies like community policing, justice reform, and attention to at-risk youth.