Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Having turned drug lords into important political players will be, without a doubt, the most cursed inheritance that López Obrador will leave Mexico at the end of his term as President of the Republic.
The massacres recently carried out by drug cartels in Veracruz, Zacatecas, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Baja California, San Luis Potosi, Guanajuato, Sonora and Tamaulipas can now be defined as acts of terrorism. In Mexico, we are no longer only facing violent actions between cartels fighting for territory and control of routes for the distribution of their product. Nor are we alone facing confrontations between cartels and the security forces of the federal government or state and municipal forces.
We are facing what could be understood as a “superior phase” of drug trafficking dominance in Mexican society. Today, organized crime in Mexico acts as an alternate state in large parts of the country. Today, for the first time, drug trafficking is acting politically, aware of its new role in Mexican society. In large areas of the country, the cartels control the administration of justice, economic activities, and tax collection, not the constitutionally established national State.
How did we arrive at this situation?
The phenomenon of the “politicization” of drug trafficking is directly related to the arrival of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to the Presidency of Mexico and his idea of a “new” way of exercising power. He is the first President who has had public dealings with drug traffickers. Other Presidents have undoubtedly had dialogues with drug trafficking leaders, but indirectly, usually through their heads of governance and intelligence and security, as happened, for example, with President Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado. Something similar happened during the six-year term of Salinas de Gortari. The justification for these meetings and dialogues was to ensure that the illegal activities of drug trafficking organizations were kept in the shadows and out of the public eye while recognizing the impossibility (or unwillingness?) of totally eradicating the business that also enriches public officials. The purpose of this negotiation was also for drug trafficking to modulate its violence to not go beyond certain limits of acceptability and tolerance for society.
The current President of Mexico has publicly dialogued with drug traffickers and met with their figureheads. In the first public dialogue case, he congratulated drug traffickers for their social behavior, as he did after last June’s elections, thanking them for their “respectful” presence on election day. He also offered to mediate with the United States government to allow the return of Chapo Guzmán to Mexican territory so that he could be close to his family. And he has visited several times, and without explanation, Badiraguato, Sinaloa, headquarters of the Sinaloa Cartel, to meet with Chapo Guzman’s family members, especially with the matriarch of the cartel. They shared food and chatted amicably, lawyers from both sides included. And, obviously, it was the President who ordered the release of Ovidio Guzman, Chapo’s son and grandson of the lady, when he was apprehended by federal forces responding to an extradition request from the United States.
Within the governing circle, some believe that it is necessary to protect “the drug economy” because of its economic importance and because “it is our national economy.” In other words, a sovereign and nationalist vision are expressed when they proudly refer to drug trafficking.
However, the breaking point in the politicization of the cartels was their inclusion as part of the electoral strategy of Morena-the President’s party-to win the governorships in dispute. From the point of view of their commercial strategy, the cartels were interested in gaining transit territory for their merchandise. They were not so interested in the issue of congressional seats. This explains why Morena won so many governorships but lost ground in the areas that mattered least to drug trafficking. Morena lost control of the Chamber of Deputies by losing many federal deputies and also lost significant urban areas, such as the State of Mexico, Mexico City, Jalisco, Nuevo Leon, Puebla, and urban fringes of Veracruz and Michoacan.
Morena won the territorial spaces from where drug traffickers could increase the control of their merchandise movement. But the problem with López Obrador’s agreement with drug traffickers is mainly with the Sinaloa Cartel, not with the Jalisco Cartel – New Generation (CJNG), which is currently the most militarily forceful in the country. This tactical “mistake” of López Obrador of making a pact with only one cartel, the Sinaloa cartel, assuming, as it happened in the times of Miguel de la Madrid, that making a pact with the Guadalajara cartel meant making a pact with all the groups, is the result of mistakes made by his advisors who recommended him to take that route. They were wrong because although they did it that way before, today, the map of drug trafficking has changed radically. The “decent” of Sinaloa control a significant part of the business, but not all of it. The massacres we are witnessing today are the product, and effect, of the failed negotiation of the federal government with some and not with all, especially by the exclusion of the CJNG. In their new territories (Zacatecas, Sinaloa, Sonora, Colima, Nayarit, Baja California, Guerrero, San Luis Potosi), the Morenista governors will have to learn to serve their new masters, not the President of the Republic, but the drug traffickers of their localities. They are comfortable with opening their new routes but with bullets.
In 2022 new elections will be held in six states. One thing is the Pacific route, and another is the central part of the country and the Gulf. The same violent effect is predicted in the next election in Quintana Roo, the official entrance of cocaine from South America to Mexico, as in Oaxaca, which is the transit point for national narcotics, or in Durango, the port of arrival of drugs to access the northern border. The same happens in Hidalgo, which is an inland route similar to that of Zacatecas, a stone’s throw from the capital of the Republic. The candidates nominated by Morena will respond, among other things, to the same logic of having been chosen because they will be subject to the nature of the presidential pact with cartels. It is a straitjacket that forces the party in power to agreements that will lead to its self-destruction, especially in the democratic game, even if it wins the election. Especially in Quintana Roo, the jewel in the crown and a sure contender for a future of violence and decomposition. A process that, by the way, has already begun.
The insistence on including drug trafficking as an actor and ally of Morena in the elections is the bed where more and more violence is engendered. Having turned drug traffickers into important political players will be, without a doubt, the most cursed inheritance that López Obrador will leave Mexico at the end of his term as President of the Republic. Because removing drug trafficking from politics, and returning the military to their barracks, will be the most challenging and suffering task and responsibility that future Mexican generations will face, who will inherit this legacy of violence, death, and terrorism left by the 4T.
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