From December 2018 to last May there were 53,628 murders in Mexico, a record. The role of drug trafficking
In the first year and a half of the government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador – the left nationalist who became president at the end of 2018 – there were 53,628 murders in Mexico. It means almost one hundred people murdered every day from December 2018 to last May, with a rate of 42.5 cases per hundred thousand inhabitants.
The first year and a half of Lopez Obrador’s government was the most violent of the last twenty years. 2019 alone ended with 35,588 victims of willful murder: a number that has been increasing for five years in a row. Despite the crisis, the issue of security occupies a fairly marginal place on the president’s agenda, focused rather on the economic and moral “transformation” – based on austerity in consumption and on a more active role of the state – which he intends to achieve in Mexico.
According to data released in recent days by the National Public Security System, 60 percent of the murders committed in the last eighteen months are linked to organized crime, with peaks of up to 80 percent in some areas. One of the main causes of violence in Mexico would therefore be conflicts between different groups for the control of a territory. But it should be specified, for the sake of completeness, that the crimes are fueled by the very high impunity, over 95 percent. THE END OF THE DRUG CARTS
The Mexican criminal scenario is today very different from that told by the TV series and based on large “drug cartels” that divide the market. The militarized war against the latter – which began in 2006 and is still ongoing, even if covered by a different narrative – has managed to bring about its downfall. At the same time, however, it has exacerbated the levels of violence in the country.
The large drug trafficking groups still intact are few: the Sinaloa Cartel and the New Generation Jalisco Cartel, for example. From the remains of all the others, many small organizations have sprung up, each in direct competition with the other. Not having the necessary contacts and means to operate in international drug smuggling, their “business models” are based on the extraction of resources from local communities: extortion, theft, kidnapping with ransom. The monopoly on a certain territory, to be achieved through the elimination of rivals, and violence against the population are central factors for the economic survival of the new Mexican gangs. THE CAUSES OF VIOLENCE IN MEXICO
Violence is a widespread phenomenon throughout Mexico. Some areas, however, are more violent than high: the states with the highest number of homicides recorded in the last eighteen months are, in order, Guanajuato (5745), Mexico (4337), Baja California (4285), Jalisco (3998). , Chihuahua (3856) and Michoacan (3271). Then there is the state of Colima, sparsely populated but with a very high homicide rate per number of inhabitants (144.5).
The struggle for control of drug trafficking routes helps explain the high number of murders in some territories (Jalisco, Baja California, Chihuahua, Colima). But drugs alone do not allow us to fully understand the geography of violence in Mexico.
Guanajuato, at the center of the nation, is the heart of the Mexican auto industry and home to a major refinery. In this state the violence is concentrated in a handful of municipalities, especially that of Celaya, where the dominant criminal group is the Cartel of Santa Rosa de Lima: despite the high-sounding name and the ambitions of greatness, it is a local gang, most famous for fuel and gas theft. After the Mexican government’s tightening of this practice (known in jargon as huachicoleo), the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel has begun to focus more on extortion.
In Chihuahua, on the border with Texas, timber smuggling has become a major criminal market. As also reported by Reuters, in the most isolated communities of the state, young people are kidnapped by gangs and forced to cut down trees. According to estimates by the Mexican authorities, the smuggling of timber is equal to 30 percent of the quantity collected legally.
In the central-western state of Michoacan, criminal organizations compete for the monopoly of extortion from avocado producers. An enormous turnover revolves around the fruit – not surprisingly renamed green gold – exports are worth 2.4 billion dollars a year.
The small state of Colima, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, is strategically relevant for international drug trafficking by virtue of the crowded port of Manzanillo, which acts as a link with Asia. It is from China, in particular, that Mexican narcos obtain the chemicals (the so-called precursors) necessary to make synthetic drugs destined for the American market. Controlling the port of Manzanillo, therefore, means controlling a fundamental link in the production chain.
