Mexican Drug Cartels: Strategies and Consequences

The Specter of the Border

• Calderón's presidency was marked by a bloody drug war that had roots in the birth of Mexican drug cartels decades earlier.
• During the twentieth century, PRI governments essentially protected cartels as long as they maintained peace in Mexico and focused on shipping narcotics to the US and Canada.
• The Mexican state ignored the involvement of federal, state, and local politicians and police who were bribed by drug traffickers.
• Intensified efforts began by Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderón chose to declare all-out war on Mexican drug cartels, who were expanding their markets in both Mexico and the US
• Annual profits at the time were between $15 to $25 billion which is around 10 percent of the Mexican GDP.
• In the decade since the end of the twentieth century, global consumption of marijuana and cocaine had more than doubled, while opiate consumption had tripled.
• El Chapo outlived his enemies and his Sinaloa cartel expanded and became the largest even as competition intensified.
• Cocaine profits can triple from purchase in Colombia to wholesale in the US, and retail sales can triple the price yet again.
• Mexico began manufacturing methamphetamines on a large scale, initially using legal and then illegal chemical imports from China.
• President Calderón collaborated with US agencies like the DEA, ATF, CIA, and FBI in order to target cartel leaders and seize money, weapons, and drugs.
• Calderón mobilized the army and the navy to combat traffickers, bypassing the official and police involvement in protecting the trade.
• This effort raised concerns among Mexicans about military overreach and led to increased violence among cartels vying for power, in which people were beheaded and more.

Violence and Casualties

• Innocent people got caught in the crossfire and narcoviolence expanded to the street level.
• By the end of Calderón’s term, approximately 60,000 people had died, and 100,000 had disappeared.
• Politicians, mainly mayors refusing bribes, and journalists investigating and reporting the trade were among those targeted.
• Government attempts to stop the drug trade sparked a major conflict between the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels, with Sinaloa, the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains, and the lowlands of Michoacán and Guerrero becoming entrenched narco-enclaves
• The worst violence of the drug war occurred in Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Coahuila, and Durango.
• The Zetas, former army commandos hired by the Gulf cartel for assassinations, split off and created their own organization focused not only on drug smuggling but also human trafficking, kidnapping, and extortion.
• In 2011, when casino owners in Monterrey refused to pay for protection, the Zetas set the building on fire killing fifty-two people, including elderly women playing bingo.
• Cartels found new ways to transport drugs, including planes and underground tunnels stretching from Mexico into California and Arizona.
• An increasing number of weapons were being purchased in the United States where gun control was lax or nonexistent.
• Bribing Mexican officials was commonplace with Mexico’s drug czar revealed to be complicit in 2008 and some American border patrol guards could also be bribed.
• The cartels doled out bribes to federal, state, and municipal authorities. Whole police forces and prison security guards were on the payroll in many places.
• Cartel leaders spread their wealth to communities, building schools, public works, and churches.
• They are celebrated in narco corridos and on narco blogs as Robin Hoods.
• As violence escalated, citizen groups formed to protect their communities which catalyzed the torture and death of Javier Sicilia's son in 2011, leading Sicilia to form the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity.
• Caravans were organized to tour the country and the US to bring attention to the plight of families of victims overlooked by the government as the movement blamed Calderón's plan for the deteriorating violence.
• Mexico’s government was seen as being on the edge of social and ethical collapse.
• President met with the victims and provided an apologetic response for the deaths, however, declined to retreat on military deployment.
• The United States is a factor with about 35 million drug users and an untold stockpile of arms.
• In 2009, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama went to Mexico to meet with authorities and address this issue.
• Mexican drugs are distributed through distribution centers in US cities like Atlanta to move cocaine, marijuana, and cash, which troubled officials.
• The US Congress approved the Mérida Initiative which was providing financial and military assistance to Mexico in effort to prevent drug trade.
• Obama pledged increased border cooperation

Migration Issues

• In April, a border czar was appointed to oversee US actions aimed at ending cartel violence and lowering unlawful immigration.
• No changes were implemented in the fundamental plan to prevent drug trade. Drug trade continued unabated in Calderón's administration and overshadowed other problems.
• The Mexican state had no authority over violence and the absence of a strong state, pervasive corruption, and American market and weapon demand merged into an issue that was impossible to resolve.
• Illegal migration, which included a growing number of women, was rising and there was a longer-standing issue because NAFTA had become an important stimulant.
• Cheap US goods imports put Mexican farmers out of business and encouraged migration and border remittances were crucial for community survival.
• New border surveillance techniques, building a seven hundred-mile fence, and the economic down turn in America began to stem migration in August 2007.
• Migration from the south had dropped 25 percent by the next year, but several million undocumented immigrants primarily worked in service industries with over 50 percent.
• 38 percent worked in construction an manufacturing so setbacks in these sectors meant declines for resident migrant employment opportunities.
• In 2008, remittances dropped by nearly 4 percent for the first time since Mexico began tracking money flows in 1995.
• In 2010, Less than 100,000 border-crossers stayed in the United States and it was the lowest number since the 1950s, suggesting the Mexican economy was providing more employment.
• Along with higher coyote prices and border drug violence, an Arizona border wall and more border agents heightened the risks.
• Economic decline and growing drug smuggling volume boosted anti-immigrant sentiment in parts of the United States, in which terrorism and drug trafficking reached hysterical proportions.
• The strictest anti-immigrant legislation in recent history known as Senate Bill 1070 reached the radically conservative Arizona and went into effect in 2010.
• The Arizona law required law enforcement officers to check an individual's immigration status during a lawful stop with reasonable suspicion that they were in the United States illegally.
• The law imposed penalties on those who sheltered, hired, and transported unregistered immigrants and was criticized as encouraging racial profiling, prompting organized protests.
• Cities and convention organizers called for boycotts of Arizona, but there was considerable support for tougher immigration laws given failure to take up immigration reform after 9/11.
• Other states enacted laws similar to SB1070, with legal challenges over the Arizona law's constitutionality delaying its implementation, with eventually the US Supreme Court striking down some of its provisions.

Political Shifts

• The US Congress did not take action on immigration because of these legal issues, but the Democratic Party reconsidered immigration due to Latino population stance.
• Many Republican candidates that ran in the federal elections of 2012 lost to Democratic Party candidates, including President Barack Obama.
• Latino voters, 10 percent of the electorate, were a crucial factor, with 71 percent voting for Obama.
• Before the election, the president halted the deportation of as many as a million illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States as children by executive order.
• Republicans blocked the Dream Act, which would have provided residency and eventually citizenship for immigrant children who resided in the United States as minors.
• This act required minors to graduate from high school and live in the country continuously for at least five years before the bill's enactment.
• Mass deportations of Mexicans caused concern among the Republicans for the Democrats appealing to immigrant and minority communities.
• Hispanics are the fastest-growing minority in the U.S. and are estimated to be 132 million strong by 2050, making up 30 percent of the country’s population, which is why Republican Party leaders began to contact this constituency.
• Obama continued to enforce the border, deporting millions of immigrants, knowing that these immigrants contributed to the United States.

The PRI Reborn in the 2012 Elections

• Midterm Mexican congressional elections in 2009 favored the PRI due to Calderón’s unpopularity and a splintered PRD.
• The party leaders found their golden candidate in Enrique Peña Nieto as the PRI was intent on a comeback.
• Physically attractive and youthful, he had been a governor of the state of Mexico in 2005 at the age of 39 and served in government before being elected.
• Peña Nieto improved public transportation, built clinics, and expanded the state’s tax base as governor.
• Trouble arose when he sent police to crush protestors opposing Mexico City airport expansion in San Salvador Atenco, unleashing civil unrest.
• Amnesty International and others called for the freedom of prisoners, punishment for excessive police force including rape, and reduction excessive sentences.
• Peña Nieto was later seen as controversial due to the high rate of femicides in the state of Mexico, his wife's sudden death in 2006, and his remarriage in 2010 to Angela Rivera, a television actress.
• Some Mexicans believed he was mentored by old PRI stalwarts such as Carlos Salinas de Gortari after becoming the official PRI candidate for the presidency in 2011.
• Candidates from the prominent parties, also one from the New Alliance Party that ran to create a constituency for Esther Elba Gordillo ran in the 2012 campaign year.
• Esther Elba Gordillo had been a dominant force over Mexico's education policy for years, but she lacked true attempts reform a flawed system that favored loyalty over merit.
• The PAN selected Josefina Vázquez Mota, the first woman to lead a major political party on the campaign trail, but she lacked support from the party.
• Josefina Vázquez Mota campaigned as a symbol of federal electoral laws to distance herself, women had come to hold a quarter of congressional seats, but only 6 percent of mayors were women.
• Political analysts blame this low number on patriarchal culture and political process transparency.
• The PRD selected Andrés Manuel López Obrador, after Marcelo Ebrard, the mayor of Mexico City, withdrew as the popular PRD mayor.
• López Obrador and Vázquez Mota trailed far behind Peña Nieto in the elections as the campaign was underway and memories of the 2006 elections diminished AMLO’s candidacy.
• Rumor had it that PAN leaders had supported the PRI candidate and supporters of the PAN and PRD held rallies targeting Nieto’s record as governor and making fun of speech slip-ups.
• Though it looked like Nieto would win the presidency, the internet threw him for a loop.
• In May 2012, Peña Nieto held a campaign event where students from the Universidad Iberoamericana started protesting.
• Nieto fled after Jesuit influence regarding social justice led to political resistance from the students, but the student protest movement followed.
• Begun by 131 students, it became known as the Yo Soy 132 (I am the 132nd) as students from more than a dozen universities in Mexico City and others in the states joined and rallies were organized weekly along with summoning large crowds.
• To guarantee the right to information and freedom of expression, students demanded democratization within media, and created secular, free, scientific, pluricultural, democratic, humanist, popular, critical, and quality education reforms, including health care reforms.
• As students wanted participatory democracy and removal of the army, Yo Soy 132 spurred optimism, while others called it "The Mexican Spring."
• consciousness was raised about media monopolies, broad public concern about human rights, drug wars, and support to democratize education.
• Pena Nieto received 39.1 percent of the vote with the elections help on July 1, 2012 and López Obrador fell behind at 32.42 and Vázquez Mota at 26.06.
• Media bias and public awareness led to a much narrower loss than what was predicted for López Obrador with Yo Soy 132 regarding lack of transparency and democracy.
• He presented considerable means used to buy votes for the PRI and the federal court actually ruled AMLO surpassed campaign limits, proving it had been compromised.

Peña Nieto's Political Reform, 2012 - 2017

• Continued as mayor through inauguration day was Miguel Angel Mancera who took 63% of the vote and Mexico City continued with the PRD which was a show of faith over environmental matters and improving public services.
• On Sept 1, 2012 new senators and deputies took seats with the PRI in majority by 32% in both houses with PAN having about 25% and PRD failing below 20% but minor parties made important making alliances.
• Congress passed Labor Reform that removed rights for the unions on transparency but opened the way for jobs with trial periods and hiring on temp and hourly rates.
• The Pacto por México was agreed-to to provide judicial reform which was focused on security, schools and making business and sectors for energy more competitive was signed but PDR representatives but in his support.
• Then members with López already launched MORENA to launch National Regeneration to reinvigorate the left.
• February 25, 2013 The president then signed educational standards for teachers that would be based on how well they did with teaching not years or inheritance and made it were all Mexican schools would be noted, recorded and counted.

Economic Considerations

• Peña Nieto promised progress and growth within the economy of Mexico. Mexico was up to 2 Trillion.00 second one in Latin
• NAFTA made trade a plus now 35%
• 3/4 of exported products were made there but also silver, veggies, bean juice thingies and thread like clothes, all on sell the United States of A
• Eighth largest oil producer had about 3 million barrels daily but was not producing enough and PEX which was what their organization was called was not being well done.
• The estimates were that 4-5 % would be made in Mexican earnings.
• Guanajuato High with many automakers hiring about most people with pays rates more than most maquiladoras in the border cities could. So people opened plants from where Pue to Zac and had nearly 1.3.99 million making cars with a 40% raise
• The economic state was low in 2013 and to 2014 with .1% rise to their things. It moved up later with state side loans to the oil things. Reform and one stated with the giveaway to the foreigners all and gases then the electric went with each other..
• By Sept. 2015 it rose too 2.1%. But salaries did not.
• 1/3 of the budget with government came from gas thing and world prices in gas for not doing well then add productivity and too many poor and a weak structure against some corruption.
• 2014 saw corruption charges and killings by government that not needed. Then several students where murdered.

Instability and Protests

• In Ayotzinapa a couple hundreds went missing at the hands of cartels and then burned. This was caused the mayor and his wife had ordered them killed who then told Guerreros Unidos to do.
• Government soon started to get lots of critics from this.
• 100s of 1000s marched for these families and the cries being we want our boys back and the authorities had the audacity to have their cronies do violence to the crowd so protestors will be discredited.
• Then the authorities agreed to outside help in order to calm things and this became a case for human rights world wide.
• They stayed for month in protest against military and stuff. For 6 months the pro group was there who had family as abducts and officers.They also studied cases. What they had was did not say it was a cover up, but they did have that they were critical in how it was done by the government. One thing they could not solve was does the Army have a building were it burns people close to the land in question.
• Folkloric what a local journalist stated regarding cases of wrongdoings made by the government with families then making protests of all types and kinds over them.

Peña Nieto's Scandals and Corruption

• Carmen Aristegui broke some news over how Nieto house was 7 million and owned by his lover who would get favors.
• She would be fired.
• Then 34 journalists found they were killed for telling of narco and right issue so Aristegui was nothing new.
• Over 90% of the killings went untold for who. One of the worse place for news people was Veracruz.
• 13 of Veracruz people where killed including one for reporting some story as well that had happened during the summer of 2015 that caused violence over the border.
• High gas had risen rates too with homicides under Nieto which stated did not come about. El Chapo got caught but got out the next time by making a tunnel. By 2016 he was caught after one last kill or a little bit. Little changed however cause gas still had the killings happen .Homicides would break how many killings and what were recorded at the time.
• This whole fighting the drug had done little good with corruption being in the mix.
• When the Pope came did little since poverty had sky rocketed close to 50 then he went the border line to comfort.
• The government then had teachers try to get more money with people dying with it, which was with favoritism with government.

Trump and Mexico

• Mexican officials showed disgust did about some ideas with Xenophobe and Trump.
• Mexico city stood tall and had voting and rules and 2016. So, it could emerge to one more nation state.
• Trump was making claim all over Mexico's problems and stated lots of it and that undocumented people were rapist as his points.
• Then he said he would build a great wall and Mexico would pay for it and redo NAFTA which was not true.
• 4 trillion was going to all all the gas drilling.
• With the end of 2017 to was to not be a good idea.
• Trump also seem to have no idea people were upset cause his bully tactic.
• Would make it cheaper building a great wall by ending the taxes.

End of Peña Nieto's Presidency

• Vicente Fox stated he did not like him on the Twitter.
• The 45th President would not just go to Monterey to help and would make all this to.
• Trump moved with actions about not moving so immigrants would flee and make the U.S. more of a issue.
• So what was it all that Trump could could stop to help or if there would be some help from the world.
• Some said that the Mexican way with the whole deal was just a renewal thing.
• 2015 came by with Green party and coalition as a small time win. Murders and death would mark over election times.
• The bottom line and life was it.

Closing

• 130 million people live in that time.
• The World Organisation knew where the nation was in how a citizen life was. The society would work on being democratic and just over their. So from here this chapter shall find what the best will be.

Explore the strategies employed against Mexican drug cartels, focusing on Felipe Calderón's approach and its unintended consequences. Examine the PRI governments' prior handling, the impact of global drug consumption, and the role of international collaboration. Analyze shifts in cartel operations and their methods of expanding influence.