Recent News Overview in Mexico
12/03/10
Latin America and the Caribbean
- To start the week, on November 29 a convoy of gunmen, reportedly working for drug traffickers, shot and killed female police chief Hermila Garcia Quiñones on her way to work in the northern Mexican town of Meoqui. Her death is the most recent example of the shared goal amongst drug cartels to intimidate officials and disrupt the rule of law.
- The Mexican army arrested 14 year old drug hitman Edgar Jimenez, ‘El Ponchis’, as he tried to make his way into the United States. As a member of the South Pacific Cartel, Jimenez admitted to taking part in four murders and beheadings, but alleged that he was intimidated and forced to do so. Youth involvement in drug cartel operations is a rising trend in Mexico because “young people without hope, without opportunities” are attracted to the allure of the potential profits from the trade.
- A number of high profile arrests have been made this week. Mexican federal security forces arrested La Familia drug kingpin Jose Alfredo Landa Torres in Morelia. In addition, Mexican forces arrested Eduardo Ramirez Valencia, regional leader of the Zetas cartel. He is allegedly a large player in the drug trafficking supply routes involving the Dominican Republic and Panama, and thus the federal police operation fractured a major route for illicit narcotics to the United States. The arrests are interpreted by some to be a victory for President Felipe Calderón’s strategy amid growing criticisms of the military’s role in fight against the cartels.
- Conversely, the Associated Press ran an article highlighting the fact that the largely publicized drug cartel arrests often yield little to no noticeable change in drug trade operations. The article claims that the government is quick to widely publicize these busts in an effort to generate public support, but asserts that these efforts do not often result in a substantial slowdown of the actual violence.
- The Guardian has printed some of the diplomatic cables from Wikileaks pertaining to Mexico. The cables have revealed that the U.S. government is losing confidence in Mexico’s ability to win the drug war. A lack of inter-agency cooperation, impunity and corruption were amongst the prominent criticisms.
- The steadily decreasing levels of confidence in Mexico’s capacity to fight the drug war underscores the fresh debates about what form the U.S. role in disrupting cartel operations and quelling border violence should take. In an interview with MSNBC early last week, Texas governor Rick Perry called for border security; with provisions to send U.S. military troops south of the border. The Mexican government has been traditionally opposed to direct U.S. military intervention, but as the body count continues to rise, with a high concentration of those deaths centered near our shared border, the U.S. military option will likely receive more serious attention.
- In addition to drug-related violence, another indicator of public insecurity and government inefficiencies have come to light. The Washington-based Disability Rights International published a study that detailed the plight of disabled people in Mexico. The group visited shelters, orphanages, and mental health facilities and found that many of the poor conditions that existed 10 years ago when the study was first conducted remain the same. The patients are reportedly tied to wheelchairs, denied proper treatments, and have also gone missing. Mexico is a party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities (2006), and will therefore have to answer to the international community in light of the study.
- This post was written by CIP intern Allison Gilchrist