Mexico Drug War Escalates

 

MEXICO CITY (Economist) February 4, 2008  —  Over the past few weeks, gunfights between police and drug gangs along Mexico's border with the United States have left dozens dead. At the same time, two assassination attempts against a senior official in the public prosecutor's office have been foiled — the latest on January 17th when three men with grenade launchers and assault rifles were arrested.

On taking over as Mexico's president a year ago, Felipe Calderón decided to deploy the army to combat Mexico's escalating drug violence. Originally sent in as a temporary measure, the troops are still there. Faced with a relentless drugs war, Mr. Calderón is now seeking to overhaul the justice system, too. The measures are ambitious; whether they will actually work is a different matter.

The very size of recent drug seizures might be seen as a sign of failure, underlining the magnitude of the trafficking. In October officials seized 23.5 tons of cocaine, the largest seizure ever reported in Mexico, though only a tiny fraction of the estimated 530-710 tons that cross into the United States every year, according to a recent report commissioned by an American senator, Richard Lugar. Mexican gangs already control America's lucrative methamphetamine trade. They have also been expanding their custom in heroin. In 2006 Mexican heroin production leapt by 58%.

Sometimes an apparent victory can actually make matters worse — at least in the short term. Last month Mexican troops arrested Alfredo Beltrán, a big shot in the Sinaloa cartel, one of Mexico's biggest drug gangs. But this may create a power vacuum leading to even more violence. Osiel Cardenas, head of the Gulf cartel, another powerful gang, has been in jail in Houston, Texas, for a year, with little discernible effect on the flow of drugs.

Many wonder whether Mexico is heading the same way as Colombia in the early 1990s, when the narco traffickers' influence began to undermine the state. Thomas Shannon, the senior American official for the Western Hemisphere, is among the worried. “It's obvious that democratic states in Mexico and Central America are under assault by organized crime, drugs- and weapons-traffickers,” he says.

In October the Bush administration announced a plan to boost its anti-narcotics aid to Mexico by a factor of 12 — to some $500m a year. But Congress has yet to approve the funding, and may well not do so. “On Capitol Hill”, notes Mr. Lugar's report, “ill-will prevails, especially among Democrats.” This is partly because the plan was prepared in secret; even Republican legislators only learned of it through the media.

If the funding is approved, America will provide Mexico with anti-drugs training and equipment over the next three years. Meanwhile, the justice system is to undergo a radical transformation. After years of talks, Mexico's Congress looks set to approve, by mid-February, a reform that will convert the country's legal arrangements from a Napoleonic-style inquisitorial system to an Anglo-American-style adversarial system. Also in the reform package are plans to give the police new powers, including the right to enter homes without a warrant when in hot pursuit.

But many are skeptical. Samuel González of ITAM, a university in Mexico City, says the measures won't help: “It is a problem of corruption, not of a lack of legal powers.” Ernesto López Portillo of the Institute for Security and Democracy, a think-tank, points out that Mexican police lack standardized procedures, such as an automatic review after discharging a firearm, and will continue to lack them even after the reforms are passed.

Overall, the number of drug-related homicides has leveled out in recent months, but this may be because there is less infighting among rival gangs as they unite, temporarily, to confront the government's forces. Mr. González estimates that drugs now contribute roughly 4% of GDP. If, as is likely, America enters a recession, this will put further pressure on the Mexican economy, and drive migrant workers back south, unemployed — not a good recipe for greater law and order.

Both America's assistance plan and Mexico's judicial reform are well-intentioned, but will they succeed? Mexico's economy must grow faster than its drug trade and the will to tackle corruption must permeate the political system if any real changes are to occur. Few doubt the goodwill of Mr. Calderón or his top law-enforcement lieutenants, who are widely respected by their American counterparts. But down the chain of command, corruption remains the rule rather than the exception, and many doubt that the new measures will be able to change that.