Mexico Should Reconsider Its Approach To Fighting Its Drug War

Since the Mexican government deployed troops to fight against drug cartels in 2006, over 61,000 people have disappeared and violence has only increased. Head of Mexico’s National Search Commission, Karla Quintana, expressed the announcement of this huge number as a great pain for both individuals and their families.

Along with global commerce, immigrant flows, and the development of the unmanned aerial vehicles, there is an increasing number of channels that lack effective control, providing plenty of opportunities for drug trafficking. A leafy suburb named La Estancia has been transformed into a city where “you can feel the fear.” Decomposed bodies can be found in quiet neighbourhoods, triggering significant public concern. An anonymous resident said that they were too afraid to report suspicious activities, revealing the limited progress that the Mexican police has made in fighting drug trafficking.

Over the last decade, successive presidents of Mexico have expended substantial efforts in trying to crush re-duplicative drug cartels. In 2006, President Felipe Calderon dispatched troops to reduce the violence. However, his military strategy also included torture and extrajudicial killing, which resulted in a ballooned murder rate. Large cartels were broken up into smaller groups, but this only led to growing feuds and competitions, causing a high level of homicides.

In 2012, the new President Enrique Peña Nieto tried some different tactics in attacking drug trafficking. The Council on Foreign Relations reports that President Peña Nieto tried to focus his efforts in lowering the amount of violence experienced by innocent civilians and businesses, rather than immobilising the leaders of cartels. However, he also relied heavily on military forces, and by the end of his term, the number of homocides in Mexico reached an all-time high.

Since 2018, the incumbent President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has tended towards a “hugs not bullets” strategy, setting up a controversial amnesty to stakeholders of drug production and trafficking. In May of 2019, illegal drugs, including marijuana or cocaine, were even decriminalized. “This is about thinking how to save lives and achieve peace and tranquillity in the country using other methods.” Lopez Obrador declared.

Whatever the Mexican government has done had unfortunately seen little success. Additionally, corruption between Mexico’s top brass and its drug dealers is known to be common practice. On 9 December 2019, Mexico’s former security minister, Genaro García Luna, was arrested for having accepted a vast number of bribes. The Mexican government has also been criticized for its demotivation, which has been seen through the inattentive probing in the state prosecutor’s office and inactive coordination among various institutions, resulting in full morgues.

In 2018, over 250 unidentified bodies had be stored in refrigeration trailers. Rather than taking basic investigation steps, the police shifted the burden of prosecuting disappearance to those families of victims. The human rights of other vulnerable groups are also threatened. A vast number of migrants may be forced to carry drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border. Journalist Emmanuel Gallardo, who specializes in Mexican cartels, calls the drug war as a farce waged against peasants.

Mexico’s drug war should be seen as a multinational crisis at present. The U.S. has already tried to assist Mexico by providing billions of dollars on modernizing its military force. President Donald Trump emphasizes the requirement of strengthening the cross-border network between the U.S. and Mexico through the up-to-date surveillance technologies and sufficient patrolling. Beyond this, other strategies should be employed, such as an anti-drug publicity campaign, or more systematic punishments on drug users. If this is not done, the demand will always drive the criminal supply chain.

Yuexin Li
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