This from the Guardian Newspaper
"But in 1989, under pressure from the US, the Mexican government arrested Gallardo, igniting a war for succession to his mantle, and for sections of the border in which he had ordained control. The present savagery began in December 2006, when Calderón sent in the army to try to pacify the battle at the fulcrum of border trade – both illegal and illegal – at Nuevo Laredo, between the Sinaloa cartel, heir to Gallardo's syndicate, and the paramilitary enforcement wing of the Gulf cartel, Los Zetas, now a terrifying cartel in its own right.
Through the ensuing war, Mexico has been rife with rumours that Calderón favoured the Sinaloa cartel and protected its elusive, fugitive leader, Joaquín Guzmán, the world's richest and biggest mafia criminal. According to some US intelligence estimates, only 12% of those arrested since 2006 belong to the main Sinaloa cartel. In the runup to the election, however, two Sinaloa leaders have been arrested, one last week. Accordingly, politics in those areas affected by the drug war – the US border states, Veracruz, Michoacán, Zacatecas and elsewhere – became contaminated by the cartels' positioning themselves politically.
As Rebecca Rodríguez, a human rights worker in war-torn Reynosa in the border state of Tamaulipas, says: "There are elections between the PRI and PAN, but they are no more than Calderón and the army backing the PAN, so the narcos back the PRI. You have the army on one side, the narcos and police on the other, and – in the middle – the economy, education, political life collapsing, normal communication broken down."
The narco cartels have moved on from the 80s. They are pioneers of modern capitalism, and operate a fragmented free market, outsourcing to a miasma of killing interests and street gangs on which it would be impossible for even cartel leaders to impose a pax mafiosa.
The cartels have "substituted the old pyramidal chain of command for the same concession or franchising system as any other corporation", says Ignacio Alvarez Alvarado, a reporter from Ciudad Juárez. "Like a good modern capitalist, the cartel outsources, it puts contracts out to tender, to give other people a chance to compete. They're a business like any other, and the cartels have got much more democratic in the modern, capitalist sense: outsourced, meritocratic and opportunistic," he adds, drolly.
There has been a generational as well as economic evolution: the Zetas epitomise a new "style" of narco that is working-class, uninterested in patronage and the "honour" of the classical mafia represented by Gallardo or the Sicilian "godfather" figure. They are a form of insurgency and extreme violence is their "brand"; they operate across the internet with sick, black humour. They are less interested in playing politics than getting politics to play their game. "It used to be," says a campaigner in Tamaulipas, Mario Trevino, "that the politicians told the narcos what to do. Now the narcos tell the politicians what to do."
There is of course a long-term and genuinely radical course a new Mexican government could take: to shift the gear of its fight against drug cartels closer to the cogent initiatives emerging from Latin America, and notably Colombia, where President Juan Santos launched his call for a complete rethink of global drug policy to incorporate social issues and an assault on the laundering of the vast drug profits by banks in the US and Europe. This is extremely delicate for a country so dependent on the US and a recipient of a vast military aid budget. But, crucially, there are signs that, for all Mexico's bounden relationship to the US, and its acceptance of military aid along with political heavy-handedness, many of those steering the policy of whatever government comes next are anxious to move towards the Colombian position.
Medina Mora speaks with a blend of care and forthrightness. "If we want to face the problem," he says, "we have to have a thorough understanding of what that problem is, and we have to have a leadership that is committed to doing just that. This is not only an issue of drug trafficking, it is an issue of security institutions that are structurally weak, and cannot guarantee peace and security to Mexican people in the areas affected. This is where we want to go: to work on the police, on the judicial system, towards social cohesion and creating opportunities and jobs for the young people who are vulnerable to the criminals – this is quite clear now. We have to re-examine what we have done. We will have to learn from the Colombian achievements, and from Colombian mistakes." A former attorney general, Mora adds: "Consumption and possession of drugs is not criminal in Mexico, and this is right, but it doesn't end there, and I think it's wrong to talk about blanket legalisation – again, this oversimplification of a very, very complex issue."
In a clear reference to Mexico's northern neighbour, the ambassador said: "There has to be an acceptance of responsibility by countries at the consuming end – with a high drug consumption rate – and countries which cannot control their flow of weapons, and countries at the end of the value-added chain – which is always closer to the consumer in any business." But on the matter of money-laundering, he added: "Of course, the money flows to the US bankers, but it is not enough to be always blaming Wall Street – we all have to do something about the value-added end of the chain, again: another very complex issue that needs to be evaluated. This is how the debate should be: what are the policy choices? And to accept that this is not a matter of good and bad, but bad and worse, worse and much worse."
A senior Mexican diplomatic official admitted to the Observer last week: "What we did was to implement only the enforcement side of the drugs crisis. We did not implement a strategy for going after the money-laundering. We did not implement a strategy for restoring the social fabric. Now our priorities have to be: 1, bring peace to the Mexicans in their communities; 2, break the organised crime business model; and 3, turn this from being a national security threat to a public security issue."
And another senior government official said: "Let's have a full, global debate on drug policy. Not on legalisation – that will just polarise everyone again. Let's have a debate that is not ideological, not moral or emotional, but expert and scientific. Let's get the facts, and sit the Americans down to discuss them. And if the Americans close their minds, let's try to open them."
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Mexico elections: failure of drugs war leaves nation at the crossroads | World news | The Observer
