Stirring the Calderón

So how would you feel if the government decided to use the army – not being able to trust the local police – to fight a declared war on drug gangs? What if it provoked open warfare on the streets, with gunfire so common that people were loathe to walk or drive city streets? If over 12,000 were killed as part of the conflict and scores of others seriously injured? Civilian casualties caught in the crossfire, kidnappings, businesses closing, tourists staying away in droves, a nation spiraling out of control? And what if suppressing those drug gangs were of profoundly more benefit to another neighboring country, not your own? That’s a pretty good description of the fight between the Mexican government and the large drug cartels operating within her borders that battle to maintain firm control over the drug routes to the United States.

President Felipe Calderón declared that war just two-and-half years ago shortly after his election. Authorities have arrested 76,765 suspected drug traffickers; 187 cartel members have been extradited to the United States. But the toll on daily life for average Mexican citizens has changed the general mood from supportive of this government campaign to increasing resentment that Mexicans must endure bloodshed and chaos to deal with a problem that appears to be nothing more than solving a U.S. problem – the demand for drugs from American buyers, the motivator for the drug war in Mexico, is where the solution lies, many believe, and not to control the supply of drugs from within Mexico.

The cartels, well financed and pervasive, have the money to pay for “soldiers” in a world where jobs are few and poverty rampant. While the government hopes to move the battle from the military to local, better-trained police, the seven major cartels have the money and reach to “buy” local officials and neutralize these efforts. Simply, the people want an end to the violence that has become woven into their daily lives. Calderón’s policies, which are losing support by the day, may ultimately lead to the election of a new regime that is no longer willing to allow Mexico to be the battlefield for what is increasing viewed as a huge U.S. benefit with insufficient value to Mexico.

The July 28^th Washington Post notes that the cartels are growing in strength across Central America as well. But other than capitulate to the cartels, what are the alternatives to Mexico? The Post interviewed Mexico’s Interior Minister Fernando Gómez Mont: “‘No one has told us what alternative we have,’ [said the Minister], gently slapping his palm on a table during an interview. ‘We are committed to enduring this wave of violence. We are strengthening our ability to protect the innocent victims of this process, which is the most important thing. We will not look the other way… We have to do this while we are strong enough to do it,’ he said. ‘We know we are right. Do I have to accept corruption as a way of stabilizing our society? No. I have to act.’”

But the cartels play Robin Hood on occasion, winning the hearts and minds of the locals, while the government responds with hard line attacks. Seemingly a war without end, local support is eroding faster in some areas. The Post: “Dan Lund, president of the MUND Group polling organization, said public support for Calderón's strategy appears to be weakest in the places where the federal government needs it most. ‘In a series of national surveys, polls consistently have found a reasonable but cautious level of support for using the military in the front lines against the cartels,’ he said. ‘But in all the states where the military is actually deployed, the support goes down, sometimes dramatically.’”

The cartels also have stepped up the level of violence to intimidate the people… and the authorities. The Post: “In Mexico, neither high-profile arrests nor mass troop deployments have stopped the cartels from unleashing spectacular acts of violence. [Recently], the cartel called La Familia launched three days of coordinated attacks in eight cities in the western state of Michoacan. Responding to the arrest of one its leaders, La Familia abducted, tortured and killed a dozen federal agents; their corpses were found piled up beside a highway… Calderón appears to be increasingly isolated in Mexico, weakened by his party's defeat in recent mid-term elections and by the relentless carnage. The cover of [of a recent edition of the] influential news magazine Proceso … featured a photo of the 12 federal agents, their bound and mutilated corpses in a pile, beneath the headline: ‘Calderón's War.’”

I’m Peter Dekom, and I thought you should know.