A Government Approach Against the Drug Wars

Jepté Vergara -Benitez

A New Beginning

In the year 2000, Vicente Fox assumed Mexico’s highest public office while representing the National Action Party (PAN) and ended a longstanding dominance of  the nation’s presidency. Throughout previous 71 consecutive years, it seemed that Mexican presidents only represented the political party Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI (BBC News). A group founded on the basis of maintaining balance between social equality and social hierarchy, the Institutional Revolutionary Party gained a notorious reputation of corruption through scandals that respective members carried out as presidents. The types of fraud linked to PRI-affiliated presidents included, amongst many, electoral tampering, secret bribes, unlawful grants, and secret funds (Glade, 741 Note 1).

It became even harder for Mexican government officials to establish themselves as law-abiding figures in the eyes of citizens once many had been accused of benefiting from drug trafficking organizations’ (DTOs) illicit drug sales. In United States sales alone, Mexican DTOs profit around $14 billion to almost $48 billion (qtd. in Smith 89). By 1997, General José Gutiérrez Rebollo was arrested for corruption and faced possible charges of treason after a two week investigation into the General’s affairs (Fazio, 78). An investigation revealed that the Juarez Drug Cartel’s leader had bribed Gen. Rebollo had been in exchange for protection from arrest (Anderson, p. AI). Such act of corruption was not only a blow to Rebollo’s career, but also a strong factor in diminishing the Mexican government’s credibility as a force against drug trafficking considering that Rebollo was arrested as the head of the federal government’s National Anti-Drug Institute – an organization intended to crackdown on illegal drug trades.

President Fox hoped to restore confidence in Mexico’s governing body. The President recognized during his first days as president that corruption’s long history in Mexican politics has “dishonored” the country. Thus, President Fox helped design and approved the creation of the Commission for Transparency and Fight against Corruption in the Federal Public Administration (CITTCC) in December 1st of 2000 (p. 1). The commission was made with the goal of preventing corruption and promote transparency in federal organisms throughout the Mexican states (p. 2).

After one year of operation, with its vision of making the Mexican people regard federal agencies as honest, transparent, and trustworthy, the CITTCC was able to achieve some success. For instance, the committee punished up to 974 public officials with administrative sanctions (p. 76). CITTCC  also expelled 6 members from the federal armed forces, PGR, that tried to extort money from drug traffickers (p. 99).

The anti-corruption organization presented itself hopeful in the wake of a fresh political beginning, but it had been too late already. PRI’s historical influence of venality was nearly impossible to clear. After President Fox ended his presidency, corruption amongst law enforces and officials still ensued and grew even though the CITTCC continued. By the time Fox left his presidential post, Mexico ranked 89th in the Transparency  International Annual Report (Transparency International, p.53) – a decline in performance (qtd. in Smith 89).

The Mexican government had become strongly, deeply tangled with corruption while in the middle of highly dynamic and influential drug trafficking. By 2009, legal and economic adviser to the UN Dr. Edgardo Buscaglia estimated in his research “that 17 of 31 of Mexico’s states” where in control of “narco-republics”. Under such circumstances, Mexican states had their governments, including courts and police, controlled by organized crime (qtd. in Caputo 69). Thus, news like the one about Noé Ramírez Mandujano filled the media post Fox’s presidency. In 2008, accusations of corruption came out against Noé Ramírez Mandujano, head of an investigative force in organized crime, once a drug cartel member testified about the officer’s monetary agreement with the Sinaloa Cartel. Mandujo allegedly received $450,000 a month from the crime organization  once revealing federal tactics targeted at the sinaloense drug cartel (La Jornada).

Drug trafficking organization’s infiltration into government would not only cost Mexico’s political dignity, but it soon gave way to acts of violence, terror that would cost the lives of the innocent and the perceived enemy – not including drug cartel rivals.

Terrorism Hits

The state of Michoacan’s Center of Control, Command, Communication, and Computation (C-4) received a rather peculiar phone call days before Mexico’s day of independence. A federal administrative office that dispatches armed forces and emergency responders, Michoacan’s C-4 received a call that said “Be ready on Monday 15th of September because there will be a disaster on the day of Mexico’s cry for independence”. The call was surely no lie; one of Mexico’s beloved moments of patriotic unity was destined for a dark turn of events.

In the city of Morelia, Michoacan, late in the night before Mexico’s day of independence as Michoacan’s Governor Leonol Godoy Rangel paid tribute to revolutionary heroes, the predetermined disaster happened in the midst of countless of people. Two grenades were thrown into the celebratory main square of Melchor Ocampo, killing a total of eight and leaving 132 others deeply injured – some lost their arms and legs. Another explosive detonated four blocks away from Morelia’s main square targeted at policemen. The act of terrorism was unprecedented in Morelia.

 

 

A hint on the group of people responsible for throwing the grenades would not go unsaid. Four days before Michoacan’s emergency dispatcher received the threatening phone call, a call and written note about the explosives was delivered to the communications agency. The early reports unanimously said that Mihoacan state’s very own drug cartel, La Familia Michoacan,  was planning Morelia’s night of terror on the 16th of September.

If any measures were taken by Michoacan’s forces to stop the explosives from going off, the bombers were obviously one step ahead of the government. Another sense of trickery evolved in subsequent events after the bombing. Once investigations into the tragedy began, carried out by federal agencies Office of the General Prosecutor (PGR) and Assistant Attorney General’s Office for Special Investigations on Organized Crime (SIEDO), another anonymous call popped up about the mysterious terrorist. The call, however, did not re-emphasize that La Familia was behind the public killings. This time federal officials were told that members of Los Zetas, rivals of La Familia, were guilty. To make the call even more fruitful in tips, exact descriptions of the location where the ones who threw the grenades could be found were given. As a favor, the anonymous caller ensured that the suspects were tied up to prevent an escape. PGR forces followed given directions and found possible suspects in Apatzingán, Michoacan, southwest of Morelia. The suspects were Juan Carlos Castro Galeana (“El Grande”), Alfredo Rosas Elicea (“El Socio”), and Julio César Mondragón Mendoza (“El Tierra Caliente”). The three suspects were soon brought to trial. While in court, the suspects testified to be members of Los Zetas and  “authors” of the Morelia bombings.

Further research on the suspects followed after their testimonies. Data by on-site fire and explosives, criminology, and forensic teams and C-4 camera images established  sufficient evidence that Juan Carlos Castro and Galeana Alfredo Rosas Elicea worked together in setting off hand held grenades at the main square. In an interview with SIEDO, Julio César Mondragón Mendoza confessed to being the one who triggered the second grenade four blocks away from his two colleagues. All three suspects were charged with penalties dealing with terrorism.

Prior to gathering substantial evidence, PGR targeted La Familia Michoacan and  Los Zetas as highly probable suspects three days after the bombings. Both groups were already locally considered notorious in the eyes of the law. If anyone did decide to act as terrorists in Michoacan, getting away with murder would have been especially difficult. In 2006, just days before assuming Mexico’s presidential office, President Felipe Calderón initiated the military operation “Unit Michoacan”. The mission included a heavy dispatch of five thousand Mexican armed forces to the state of Michoacan. Military units, in conjunction with PGR,  included: 200 terrestrial soldiers, 200 aerial soldiers equipped with 46 military helicopters and 131 base operations each housing 30 more personnel. All forces sent to Michoacan focused on organized crime. The then president of Mexico, made the military dispatch order as a response to the state’s increase in violence. By 2006, the number of homicides in Michoacan represented 25 percent of the nation’s deaths caused by organized crime.

 

 

 

Knowing that military forces were ready to attack drug cartels, the goal of both La Familia and Los Zetas to detach their names from the bombings and blame it on an enemy was evident. A blame game between the drug cartel rivals became obvious through their public statements. Five days after the terror attacks,  it was reported that La Familia placed giant, rectangular pieces of cloths near busy highways and walk bridges of Morelia. A total of six of those cloths were placed throughout the city with a message against Los Zetas. The public message blamed Los Zetas as the terrorists responsible for the deaths in Morelia’s town square. An attempt to create a sense of unity, La Familia asserted their patriotism, love for Michoacan and their disapproval of Los Zetas’  effort to “spread terrorism in Michoacan” and country. Los Zetas’ public proclamation about the mass killing reportedly followed ten days after La Familia made theirs. The medium Los Zetas used was the media through which they stated in letter that they are not “insane to kill the innocent”. In its defense, Los Zetas added that they were blamed as part of a scheme another drug cartel rival, the Sinaloa Cartel, had started in agreement with the government. According to the public message, the scheme was done to get rid of Los Zetas so that the Sinaloa Cartel could take over disputed territory. Los Zetas claimed to know that La Familia was used as a whistle blower against them. Another effort into clearing the name of Los Zetas came in the form of a letter to the PGR stating that the bomb suspects they had in custody were falsely accused. The letter stated that the suspects were kidnapped by masked individuals, taken to Apatzingán, Michoacan and violently and “psychologically” forced to lie they were Zeta members and the responsible bombers.

 

 

Even if the ones charged for the grenade bombings were not part of Los Zetas, La Familia and other rivals would consider the capture as a success in their name. The arrest and final charges of terrorism against the suspects was worth celebrating since the charges were also linked to the head of Los Zetas. The judge in charge of the Morelia case also charged Los Zetas leaders as the “intelectual authors” of the bombings and would be punished accordingly – potentially 30 years in prison – once in custody. Thus, a loser arose in the drug cartel blame game. It would have been detrimental and exhausting for any drug cartel operating in Michoacan to fight against a Morelia bombings investigation aided by large Mexican forces readily available. Therefore, for the drug cartels, someone had to be called responsible, maybe not entirely  in the name of justice, but to clear names from terrorism and avoid hot pursuit. Federal investigations in subsequent events were susceptible to the back to back accusations. For instance, the large pieces of cloth were later taken down and analyzed for clues by local police. Hence, a manipulative tactic from the drug cartels can be seen in the government’s investigative behavior. The trickery of the criminal organizations, from the public statements to the reported kidnapping of the suspects, implied exploiting the governments  resources in an advantageous manner. If convinced well, Mexican forces would used their intelligence, technology, weaponry, etc. against whichever drug cartel rival – which is what happened with Los Zetas. Moreover, Los Zetas’ image, as losers of  the blame game, was crippled. With the Morelia bombings attached to their record, Los Zetas were placed under an even more alarming category than criminal: terrorist.

Operation “Unit Michoacan” was just the beginning of  President Felipe Calderón’s “war against organized crime”. Calderón, a “panista” who succeeded President Fox,  kept PAN’s presence in Mexico’s presidential office for six more years and as so achieved distinguished and troublesome accomplishments in regards to the drug wars.

Missions like the one in Michoacan spread across Mexico while sharing a common goal: control violence and destroy drug cartels. In order to cover the country’s violence, around 50,000 elements of Mexico’s armed forces were sent across different states. Powerful drug cartels were hit hard as a result. For example, in 2010, after opening fire, Mexican forces killed La Familia’s principle leader and one of its founders Nazario Moreno Gonzáles, also known as “El Chayo”. The killing of “El Chayo” dismantled La Familia’s structure as respective members abandoned the organization to make their own drug cartels, making La Familia extinct. Classified as one “of the most violent drug trafficking cartel” of North America, the Arellano-Felix Organization (AFO) was also destroyed into a smaller, weaker group after confrontations with the the army. One of AFO’s major leaders, Benjamín Arellano Felix, was arrested in March of 2002 and his brother Ramon, “the chief enforcer”, was killed in a shoot out with Mexican authorities. Arturo Beltrán Leyva also died, leader of the Beltrán-Leyva cartel, while in combat against Mexico’s navy. Mexico’s military also eliminated The Sinaloa Cartel kingpin,  Ignacio Coronel Villarreal.  Overall, all five major drug cartels of Mexico  suffered some type of organizational destabilization.

President Calderón’s strategic success did come with a price, however. The war on crime cost the lives of many including innocent people killed during military-drug cartel confrontations in civilian areas. According to Human Rights Watch Organization, a total of 35,000 deaths related to organized crime occurred during President Calderón’s six year term; the exact number of innocent deaths are yet to be recorded, a controversial mystery attributed to the Mexican government. By the time President Calderón ended his term, Mexico was considered a highly unsafe place. The 2014 Global Peace Index ranked Mexico 138th out of 162. Mexico’s ranking was dependent on “level of safety and security in society” and “the extent of domestic conflict”. The Global Peace index recognized that the military and drug cartel shoot outs were an influential factor of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) murder rates in Mexico. UNODC found that in places where turf-wars were common murder rates “exceeded 100 per 100,000” people.

The citizens of Mexico, four years after the military operations started, felt the danger of Felipe Calderon’s iron-fist strategy. A national survey conducted by Consulta Miofsky found that 78.3% of the 3,000 Mexicans surveyed across the country considered mexico’s insecurity as “‘worse”. In the northern border states, places where the most profitable smuggled drugs are handled,  80% believed that Mexico’s  security had worsened.

 

Possible Solutions

Mexico’s greatest poison is corruption. Continued infiltration into federal anti drug, crime and corruption initiatives will halt Mexico from improving governmental order, legitimacy in rule of law, and national security.

A large military intervention in Michoacan could have been avoided if local policemen were better trained against corruption. Last summer, heads of the Secretariat of Public Security in the municipality of Tarímbaro were discovered as associates of a crime organization. Eighteen other members of Tarímbaro’s police team were also guilty of corruption. Plus, twelve more police men were linked to corruption in the indigenous town of Charapan. Thus, in Michoacan alone a total of 32 police officials were charged of corruption in one Summer. Better pay to officers could also dissuade policemen from resorting to illicit money. During President Calderon’s presidency, state policemen in Tamaulipas, a northern border state near Texas, were paid 3,818 pesos (~2,075.40 USD) per month. Such salary was recorded as the lowest in 2011.  

In terms of the future, children should be discouraged from taking part in the illegal activities they see grown ups do. If not addressed soon, future policemen, policy makers, judges, and ultimately Mexican adults, will continue the corrupt system Mexico is stuck in. Luckily, Mexico’s education system could assess future corruption. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has teamed up with Mexico to implement an anti-corruption curriculum in public schools. The program would instruct students how to prevent corruption and promote a culture of “legality, transparency, and “accountability”. If implemented well, such education could discredit drug cartel as a empowering organization.

The practice of freedom of speech that internationally demonstrates Mexico’s current destabilized state, challenges illicit ideas and promotes new, just movements should continue. An example of this comes from Jorge Ramos, a Mexican native recently named as one of Times’ Most Influential People. At the Most Influential People ceremony, Jorge called out Mexico’s current president as corrupt for setting up deals with government contractors in exchange for a luxurious home.

 

 

 

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