The presumed kidnapping of Diego “The Boss” Fernández de Cevallos, one of Mexico’s most powerful politicians, has put Mexico’s security crisis in the international spotlight yet again.
De Cevallos, a member of the ruling National Action Party (PAN), ran for president in 1994 and served four terms in Congress. His associates hold key positions in President Felipe Calderón’s cabinet and the Supreme Court. De Cevallos’ law firm successfully blocked a recount in the disputed 2006 presidential election, handing Calderón the win. In the 1990s, the Mexican government investigated (but never prosecuted) his law firm for having represented companies linked to the Juarez drug cartel.
While the government hasn’t confirmed that a drug trafficking organization (DTO) kidnapped de Cevallos, his disappearance raises questions about the future of Mexico’s drug war.
Ardelio Vargas Fosado, president of the Mexican Congress’ National Defense Commission, told the press, “This act marks a turning point. Surely the way we are handling public security and domestic security will have to change… There will have to be a very detailed revision of the strategy that deals with the issue of public security and the risk and threat to the country’s domestic security.”
“Change” appears to mean more of the same. President Calderón, reacting to de Cevallos’ disappearance, compared Mexico to Colombia: “There are phases that were present in organized crime in the ‘80s and up until the present decade [in Colombia] which are presenting themselves in Mexico, and fortunately we are combating them… We are confronting them and they will probably occur faster and we can resolve them faster. What took Colombia nearly 20 years, should take us maybe five, six, seven years or less, depending on how persistent we are in our action.”
Calderón’s comparison of Mexico to Colombia is telling. While Colombia did dismantle its major DTOs by killing or arresting their leadership, many more boutique cartels sprung up in their place. Cocaine continues to flow from Colombia to the United States; the only difference is that now Mexican DTOs dominate the trafficking routes. Both coca cultivation and cocaine production increased over the course of Plan Colombia despite significant US military presence and financial and logistical aid to Colombia’s military.
Mexico appears to be headed down a similar path. Like Colombia, Mexico’s military and law enforcement strategy aims to dismantle DTOs through arrests, killings, and seizures. The US government encourages this strategy through the Mérida Initiative, an aid package that supports the Mexican military and police in the drug war. One of the Mérida Initiative’s two performance measures for Mexico is the “number of high profile drug traffickers and criminal kingpins arrested.”
However, just as the disappearance of one of Mexico’s most powerful politicians does not weaken the federal government, killing or arresting drug kingpins has not weakened the drug trafficking industry. Just like the government, DTOs adjust to new circumstances and new people step up to fill gaps left by deaths, arrests, and disappearances. And the war rages unabated.
Since Calderón deployed the military in late 2006 to fight DTOs, drug seizures have decreased and drug production has increased in Mexico. Meanwhile, the security situation rapidly deteriorated. Over the same period, human rights violations committed by the military increased six-fold. The murder rate has increased dramatically every year, with a total of 22,700 drug war-related deaths since late 2006.
Up until now, the drug war’s architects have been immune to its effects. But, as one Mexican magazine wrote in response to de Cevallos’ disappearance, “The ruling party is beginning to harvest that which it has so dedicatedly sowed, because ‘he who sows wind harvests tempests.’”
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Kristin Bricker is a freelance journalist based in Mexico. You can find her work at her blog, My Word is My Weapon (http://mywordismyweapon.blogspot.com/), and on the narcosphere blog (http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker)
Tags: Colombia, drug cartel, Merida Initiative, Mexico, security
