Armed vigilantes against drug traffickers in the Mexican state of Guerrero (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Also due to the policies of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who tried to reduce the number of murders but gave room to drug trafficking
When leftist Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office in 2018, he promised to end the war on drug trafficking that had plagued Mexico for more than a decade with an unprecedented strategy: “Abrazos, no balazos.” , which means hugs, not bullets. The idea was to limit the opportunities for drug-police clashes, curb violence and focus on the social development of the country's poorest areas, where the drug cartels have the greatest influence.
At the end of his term, many analysts believe that the “Abrazos, no balazos” strategy did not produce the desired results. The violence of the drug cartels has not abated, and in fact Mexico has had at least 30,000 murders per year for five years in a row, although last year they fell: there are 23 per 100,000 inhabitants, 40 times more than in Italy. And without the repressive measures of the police, drug dealers have very often expanded their territory into previously peaceful areas of the country and expanded their drug trafficking activities. This also has consequences outside of Mexico: the number of Mexican migrants arriving at the US border has been rising sharply for months, partly due to cartel violence.
Mexico's war on drug trafficking as we know it today began in 2006, when then center-right President Felipe Calderón decided to send the army onto the streets to violently counter drug trafficking activities. A bitter war ensued in which the drug cartels organized themselves militarily to respond to the army, thus becoming armed units capable of controlling territory and waging war among themselves.
It is estimated that from 2006 to the present, 450,000 people have been killed in Mexico, 70 percent of whom were involved in drug trafficking violence.
After Calderón, subsequent governments, supported by the United States, also pursued a similarly hard line of repression and open conflict with the narcos: They achieved isolated successes, such as the killing or arrest of numerous criminal leaders, but were unable to reduce violence and violence overall stop the expansion of the power of drug addicts.
López Obrador was the first to radically change his strategy, focusing on social development rather than repression. At the start of his term, AMLO (as the Mexican president is known, using an acronym of his full name) created a new 125,000-member police force, the National Guard, whose mission was not so much to actively combat drugs but rather to maintain peace the region: “You cannot fight violence with violence, you cannot put out fire with fire,” he said. He also allocated enormous resources to social development programs in various parts of the country, with the aim of depriving drug dealers of their recruiting reserves among the poorest sections of the population.
More than five years later, the plan has failed, just like its predecessors. The police have effectively reduced the opportunities for violent encounters with drug traffickers: while police arrested 21,700 people in 2018, the figure fell to just 2,800 in 2022. But this has only partially reduced the violence, and only last year saw a slight decline in the number of murders.
On the other hand, the drug cartels, which are now structured military organizations, have taken advantage of the power vacuum left by the police to wage war against each other and conquer new territories.
According to the International Crisis Group, a study center in Brussels, around 200 criminal groups and drug cartels operate in Mexico today (there were 76 in 2010, a sign of high fragmentation). To put it very simply: the cartels are mainly involved in transporting various types of drugs from the places of production (Colombia, Peru, Bolivia) to the United States and other rich countries such as Europe, often in conjunction with local organized crime. In Mexico, the cartels also deal with ordinary crime: extortion, robberies, kidnappings, territorial control.
The two main drug cartels in Mexico today are the Sinaloa cartel, one of the oldest and most influential (it's “El Chapo's” cartel, so to speak), and the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, founded about ten years ago and often referred to as “El Chapo.” is called the Jalisco Cartel.
Two fundamental things have happened in recent years. First, the cartels have been doing exceptional business thanks to a sharp increase in both demand in Europe and the United States and production: in Colombia, for example, coca harvests increased by 13 percent in 2021. Second, the cartels grew stronger and, without interference from Mexican law enforcement, began waging war against each other to expand into new territories.
These phenomena can be observed very clearly in Chiapas, a state in southern Mexico where the Sinaloa cartel operated until a few years ago. Overall, the Sinaloa Cartel's activities in Chiapas were undisputed and a certain level of calm was maintained: for years, Chiapas was the safest state in all of Mexico. But in 2021, the Jalisco Cartel invaded the state and began a vicious war between the cartels that has led to a sharp increase in violence and insecurity. Murders have increased, but so have extortions and kidnappings. The cartels set up checkpoints on the streets and impose curfews in the areas they control.
Chiapas is still a very safe state compared to states that have been affected by drug trafficking violence in the past, for example in the north of the country and on the east coast. But it is one of the countries where homicides increased the most in 2023, in contrast to slightly declining national data.
However, the difficulties in the fight against drug trafficking are not harming López Obrador politically in the same way that they had harmed his predecessors: according to polls, his approval rating is around 60 percent, and in the June elections the candidate he chose, Claudia Sheinbaum, is by far the most popular Favorite to succeed him.
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