This raises fundamental questions. “If they designate drug dealers as narco-terrorists, will they also include the Americans who are part of these networks? Because we are talking not only about the famous drug cartels, but also about traffic networks, money laundering, arms trafficking and other structures, many of which are incorporated in the United States There is enormous complexity in defining where a cartel begins and where it ends and relationships on both sides of the border involved in narco-terrorism is to talk about something imprecise and imprecise, more indeed, its use is eminently political.
According to Zavala, the story allows figures like President Trump to use the concept of narco-terrorism as a tool of intimidation, threat and blackmail to the Mexican government. “Rather than describing realities, narco-terrorism is based on spectral notions, on political phantoms that are used to force Mexico to align itself with Washington’s interests,” he says.
Executive Order to Intervene Militarily in Mexico
Intervening militarily in Mexican territory through selective incursions aimed at harming the cartels is something that has been on the US radar screen for some time. But analysts argue it would be a shot in the foot for the Trump administration.
“Using the concept of narco-terrorism, the US government authorizes itself to intervene militarily in Mexico. This is something very complicated, because to intervene in this way would seriously damage the binational relationship, which is very delicate. It is almost unimaginable. [the idea of military aggression],” explains Zavala. “I believe that apart from the bravado, the Mexican government in general has been aligned because ultimately our security policy has always been subjugated and violated; even subordinated by the United States.”
This Wednesday, the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, said that the secretary of foreign affairs, Juan Ramón de la Fuente, spoke by phone with the US secretary of state Marco Rubio. She did not give details about the conversation, but said it was a “very cordial conversation” and they discussed “migration and security issues.” Rubio said that he would prefer that any action, any decision taken by Washington have the consent, the cooperation of the Mexican government.
“Cartels Don’t Exist”
Oswaldo Zavala (Ciudad Juarez, 1975) specialized in Mexican history, and has an alternative vision of the narco phenomenon in Mexico. He believes that the image of the power of the cartels is exaggerated and sponsored by the State. The author of The Imaginary US-Mexico Drug Wars: State Power, Organized Crime, and the Political History of Narconates (1975-2012)explains to WIRED that the war against drug trafficking is generally built on fantastical, contradictory and often absurd concepts that gradually form an imagination that presents drug trafficking in an alarmist way.
“The US government has succeeded with great skill in creating a long list of concepts, monsters and criminal actors that not only dominate the public debate in the United States, but also in Mexico. Thus, when Americans want it, one or another organization becomes the center of discussion In the 1980s, it was the Guadalajara Cartel, with figures like Rafael Caro Quintero and Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, a figure was El Chapo Guzman, and later, Amado Carrillo Today, the conversation revolves around fentanyl and, above all, the Sinaloa Cartel”, Zavala explains.
Zavala argues that the stories used by the US government are ways of simplifying a complex problem, giving common sense to the debate that would otherwise be much more complicated. “If we consider that a large part of drug consumption takes place in the United States, that there are organizations within that country that facilitate trafficking, launder money and, in many cases, are as or more dangerous than the Mexican ones, the discussion becomes much more complex for the Mexican panorama What those stories do, then, is to simplify the situation, presenting Mexico as the main enemy of American security also politically, diplomatically and even militarily in Mexico,” he says.
“As citizens we have to be very careful with the stories that are generated by Washington,” he warns. “It is essential to learn to analyze them critically and to distance ourselves from what we are told. This process is neither easy nor quick, because, unfortunately, not only the Mexican government repeats these stories, but also the media replicates them, and sometimes institutions and other actors push them And, to make matters more complicated, a popular culture is created that feeds these ideas: today there is already racing about fentanyl, about the ‘Capites’ and about the supposed criminal empires of the cartels. It’s very difficult to escape from all this.”
A war that left more than 100,000 people missing
More than 100,000 people have disappeared in Mexico since 1964, when the count began. The National Register of Disappeared and Unaccounted Persons has been exceeding this figure for months, which is proof of the serious situation in the country. Most of these people have been registered as missing since 2006, when the administration of Felipe Calderón began, which took the army to the streets to fight the violence of organized crime.
“Many of the most serious effects of the anti-drug policy we have been suffering in Mexico for decades. More than half a million murders since the militarization began with President Calderon, more than 100,000 forced disappearances. We know that all that violence is unleashed. , above all, against poor, racialized, brown youth who live in the most disadvantaged areas of the country,” says Zavala, who is surprised when people are alarmed by what trump says. “As if we were not already living, for years, a really serious wave of violence in the country.”
According to the researcher, military violence is often expressed as a form of social control, as the management of violence. “You will not see militarization in areas like the Condesa or Roma, but in the margins of Mexico City, in the poorest areas. The violence takes place in the peripheries, in the poorest neighborhoods, where there is not even adequate monitoring by the media or human rights institutions,” Zavala says.
What should surprise us, Zavala says, is the very high rates of violence we are experiencing as a backdrop to what is already happening, not something yet to come. “I think we still do not fully understand that this violence has a clear class dimension. It is not generalized violence, but systematized and directed against the most vulnerable sectors of society,” he says.
The Solution: Demilitarization of the Country
Calderón’s decision 16 years ago to entrust the Army with the responsibility of public security in several areas of the country showed us its fatal consequences. Both Enrique Peña Nieto and Andrés Manuel López Obrador promised, during their respective election campaigns, to return us to peace, security and civility. However, after coming to power, both presented proposals to consolidate, through legislation and even constitutional reforms, the militarized model of public security. The situation does not seem to have changed with the administration of Claudia Sheinbaum.
In this way, the recent presidents of Mexico have maintained a policy of “peace and security” based on a militarized strategy, justifying it on the supposed operational incapacity of police corporations to face organized crime.
“I agree with the opinion that drugs should be decriminalized, addictions should be treated, all that. But in my opinion, most of the violence in Mexico is not necessarily related to drug trafficking, but to the experience of militarization itself. And I think , that there is solid empirical data to support this idea. We know that there is a ‘before’ and ‘after’ militarization in Mexico,” explains Zavala. “Before the deployment of the military, our homicide rates were down across the board country, and there is a direct correlation between military occupation, the presence of the armed forces, and the increase in murders and enforced disappearances.”
