Decade of Failure Since Mexico Embarked on a Full-on War on Illegal Drugs Maureen Myer - The New York Times
go to original October 11, 2016

Wearing a military cap and jacket, Mexican President Felipe Calderon, center, walks with state and military officials to meet with federal forces involved in ongoing anticrime operations in Apatzingan, Michoacan, in January, 2007. Calderon sent 7,000 troops to his home state of Michoacan immediately after taking office on December 1. (AP/Guillermo Arias)

In 2006, Felipe Calderón, then the incoming president of Mexico, vowed that change was coming to fix the problem of drug trafficking and drug-related violence. To fulfill this promise he sent the army into the streets and embarked on a full-on war against drug trafficking.

Things did indeed change.



The year before he took over, Mexico’s homicide rate was 9.5 per 100,000 inhabitants. The rate soon doubled, prompting the government to deny there were any civilian victims: those dead in the war against drugs were either evildoers (drug traffickers) or heroes (the policemen and soldiers who fought them). A decade later, too many unknown victims have fallen in this war. The estimates are close to 150,000 dead and 28,000 missing. Mr. Calderón’s promise was epic; his strategy, simplistic.

The war of drug traffickers against the government and among themselves has expanded. In places like Tamaulipas, along the border with the United States, to speak out is often a death sentence. In what’s known as the Golden Triangle (Chihuahua, Durango, Sinaloa), controlled by the Sinaloa drug cartel, threats by “sicarios” (the cartel’s hit men) force the inhabitants to flee their communities. Tourist resorts are no longer sanctuaries. Acapulco is now the country’s most violent city, and one of the world’s most violent.

Even if Mexicans believed Mr. Calderón’s promise, the question to ask was and still is: Why would thousands of people work in drug trafficking?

...For thousands of Mexicans, drug trafficking is a way to survive. The weakest links in the chain, like the growers or the drug mules, do not ponder whether it is right or wrong. They work only to subsist.

The war on drugs turned out to be a complete failure. Drugs continue to stream north to the United States, the great user, and firearms enter Mexico in return, where they kill thousands.

Read the rest at The New York Times

Related: In Mexico's Drug War, Government Still Lacks a Strategy (Mexico Voices)

Related: Carnage, Corruption Stain Mexico’s War on Drugs (Reuters)

Related: Legal Pot Could Upend Years of Drug Smuggling in Arizona (Associated Press)

Related: Mexico Drug War: Military Revenge and Political Blackmail (Mexico Voices)

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