drug cartels: the growing violence in mexicowikileaks.org/gifiles/attach/21/21632_stratfor...the...

5/11/2007

© 2006 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. 1

DRUG CARTELS: THE GROWING VIOLENCE IN MEXICO

Oct. 23, 2006

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D R U G C A R T E L S : T H E G R O W I N G V I O L E N C E I N M E X I C O

Executive Summary A congressional oversight panel has issued a report stating that U.S. Border Patrol agents are outmanned and outgunned by Mexican drug cartels, which – officials say – are now effectively controlling human trafficking across the border. The House Homeland Security subcommittee’s report, issued Oct. 17, specifically mentions that drug cartels “use automatic assault weapons, bazookas, grenade launchers and improvised explosive devices," whereas “Border Patrol agents are issued 40-caliber Beretta semiautomatic pistols." This description is on target. Mexican drug cartels not only are well-equipped, but exceedingly well organized and entrepreneurial. Their ready access to military weapons suppliers is an important factor behind a spurt in violence -- particularly in areas along the U.S. border – that soon could make 2006 the most deadly year for drug-related violence in Mexico. The violence is receiving more attention in the United States in part because drug cartels have begun adopting increasingly gruesome methods of torture and killing, unlike the patterns that were customary when Colombian cartels began to emerge in the 1980s. Mexican cartels appear to have torn a page from the playbook of terrorist groups and rebel movements from other periods of history: Victims today may be beheaded, burned alive or otherwise brutalized, as opposed to merely being shot, as gang members seek to intimidate their enemies and the public. Such methods, and the fear they incite, can tend to amplify perceptions of a cartel’s actual power. However, the upward trend in violence in Mexico involves both form and substance, with causes deeply rooted in the nature of drug operations that span the length and breadth of Mexico. At this point, most of the drug business is controlled by three fiercely competitive cartels: the Gulf, Tijuana and Sinaloa organizations. Because they battle for market share and territory, conflicts between these groups tend to be most brutal in areas surrounding key shipment nodes, such as coastal ports to the south and U.S. border checkpoints. That said, there also are external factors: Notably, inter-cartel violence tends to swing upward after U.S. or Mexican authorities manage to weaken or disrupt a given organization. At any point, if rival groups sense an organization might not be able to defend its turf, they will swoop in to battle not only the incumbent group, but each other, for control. With the bravado afforded by wealth and superior weaponry, drug cartels also have grown brazen in carrying out reprisal attacks and intimidation campaigns against the “establishment” – police, government security forces and journalists whose reporting exposes or threatens their business.

Finding solutions is, clearly, a challenge. Not only are U.S. agents required to beat the violence back from the border, but Mexico City also must confront issues such as rampant corruption in official institutions, deep political division and the weakness of the central government in a highly decentralized system. A U.S.-proposed initiative to help fund and drive countermeasures might not be beyond the question, but implementing a “Plan Colombia” – which was implemented to address a crisis most closely resembling that in Mexico – could prove unworkable, for numerous reasons.

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Drug Cartels: The Growing Violence in Mexico

A congressional oversight panel has issued a report stating that U.S. Border Patrol agents are outmanned and outgunned by Mexican drug cartels, which – officials say – are now effectively controlling human trafficking across the border. The House Homeland Security subcommittee’s report, issued Oct. 17, specifically mentions that drug cartels “use automatic assault weapons, bazookas, grenade launchers and improvised explosive devices," whereas “Border Patrol agents are issued 40-caliber Beretta semiautomatic pistols." The statement is far from hyperbole: Ready access to sources of military weapons are is one of the driving trends behind the growing strength of the drug cartels, which have been blamed for soaring violence throughout Mexico – and particularly along the U.S. border – during the past three years. This year is shaping up to be the bloodiest yet: As of mid-September, some 1,500 deaths had been attributed to cartel wars, nearly matching the 1,543 totaled for 2005. The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City issued a travel advisory for Americans in September after a string of incidents in Nuevo Laredo that provide another snapshot of the situation: the abductions of 25 employees of a Texas-based company (mistaken as members of a rival drug gang), the deaths of six teen-agers in a gang-related shooting and a shootout between cartels that raged in the city’s downtown area for more than an hour. Meanwhile, the abductions of at least 20 American citizens this year from Nuevo Laredo remain unresolved. Given the international boundaries, the issue is far beyond the powers of U.S. federal agents to resolve – and, given the weaknesses of the Mexican government, it appears to be well beyond Mexico City’s powers as well. If the House subcommittee is correct in its assessment – that the drug cartels are the strongest forces operating in the U.S. border area – a clear understanding of the groups, trends and issues in play is key for those who live, work and travel through the region, not to mention for those saddled with finding solutions to the violence. Drug Routes: Mapping the Violence Although many cartels operate in Mexico, most of the drug trade is controlled by only three: the Gulf, Sinaloa, and Tijuana cartels. That said, drug operations -- the import, production, shipping and distribution of cocaine, marijuana, heroin and crystal methamphetamine (meth)– are run throughout the country. The drugs flow north from Colombia and Peru to the Pacific ports of Acapulco and Puerto Escondido, as well as to coves along less populated stretches of Pacific coastline in states like Michoacan, Nayarit and Sinaloa. On the Atlantic side, drug cargos sail from Venezuela and Brazil to the ports of Cancun and Veracruz. Some of the traffic comes overland from Guatemala into the southern states. Drug shipments are trucked from there to the north, along both coasts and up through the center of the country, to reach various smuggling routes – known as “plazas” -- into the United States. Some of the most important distribution points are the border towns of Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo, Juarez, Agua Prieta, Nogales, Mexicali and Tijuana.

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Not all the drugs originating in South American countries, such as Colombia, pass through Mexico: A growing percentage of shipments are being sent directly to U.S. ports via shipping containers. This method allows Colombian cartels to avoid paying a customary transport fee (50 percent of the load) to Mexican counterparts that funnel the drugs into the United States – and, in so doing, assume responsibility for shipments that are lost or seized. However, this trade route trend will not greatly impact overland movements through Mexico or the battles for control over those routes. For one thing, the busy international bridges along the U.S.-Mexican border are an attractive venue for smuggling other forms of contraband into the United States; for another, giving Mexican cartels oversight of the final transport stages allows Colombian cartels to offload some of their business risks. Another trend – the shift of methamphetamine production from the United States to Mexico --also will ensure that the country remains a key route for drug traffic. At one point, the United States was a dominant force in meth production: There were no natural or climatological barriers to the drug’s manufacture, and crime groups saw advantage in eliminating the risks encountered at import checkpoints. However, U.S. authorities have cracked down on meth labs and passed laws to make it more difficult to buy key ingredients, such as the pseudoephedrine found in cold medicines, in sufficiently large quantities. However, demand for meth on the U.S. market has not declined, and Mexican gangs can produce it cheaply. Growth of the Mexican meth industry can be expected to keep drugs flowing across the border – and cartel battles over trafficking infrastructure hot.

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Drug Cartels: The Face of Violence

As noted, the majority of Mexico’s drug trade currently is controlled by three key cartels – the Gulf, Tijuana and Sinaloa (or Federation) organizations. This has not always been the case, however. Drug cartels, like empires, can rise up, be weakened and fall, giving way to successor regimes that build on the ruins. The interplay between cartels is, in fact, very much like that between states in the international system: The chances for peace are highest when a kind of stable coexistence is maintained and profits flow freely. However, any disruption to the system – such as the arrests or deaths of cartel officials – generates tensions and, frequently, bloodshed. If any of the key groups is seen as weakening, rivals will scramble to fill the void in the power structure.

The Gulf Cartel

The Gulf cartel is led by Osiel Cardenas Guillen, who was arrested in 2003 after a shootout with police in Matamoros. With Cardenas Guillen in prison, his lieutenant, Jorge Costilla Sanchez, is believed to be responsible for the cartel’s daily operations (though incarcerated kingpins often manage to retain control of their organizations by bribing and threatening prison officials and promising favors to fellow inmates). Though the Gulf cartel's center of operations is in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, its operational territory extends from Matamoros west along the U.S./Mexico border toward Laredo -- through Reynosa, Nuevo Laredo, Miguel Aleman and surrounding communities.

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The Gulf cartel is hamstrung by internal divisions. Cardenas has been trying to oust Gregorio "El Goyo" Sauceda Gamboa, the deputy who oversees Reynosa and Matamoros. Gamboa is suspected of colluding with the Sinaloa cartel’s expansion efforts, and Cardenas is seeking to replace him with the presumably more loyal Jaime "El Humme" Gonzalez Duran. Duran is second in command of the Los Zetas security force – the paramilitary unit responsible for protecting Gulf operations.

The Tijuana Cartel

The Tijuana cartel is led by the Arellano Felix family, a clan of seven brothers and four sisters (though not all siblings are active leaders in the cartel). Following the death of Ramon Arellano Felix in 2002, his eldest sibling, Benjamin, took the reins. Though he was arrested later that same year, he continued to control the organization from prison. Javier Arellano Felix also held a position of some authority prior to his arrest by U.S. agents in August 2006, though he was seen as more of a thug and a playboy than an effective leader.

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It is now thought that one of the sisters, Enedina Arellano Felix, or the fourth of the seven brothers, Francisco Eduardo, have assumed the key leadership role in the free world (though U.S. officials say they don't consider Francisco "capable of leading the organization at this time.") The rival Gulf cartel is attempting to take advantage of the weakness stemming from Benjamin Felix’s arrest – prompting Mexican intelligence to issue warnings about increased violence in Baja California, Guerrero, Michoacán, Quintana Roo, Tamaulipas and Nuevo León states.

The Sinaloa Cartel/Federation/Golden Triangle Alliance

The Sinaloa cartel is led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, who escaped from prison in 2001 by bribing guards. The cartel has bases of operation in Sinaloa, Sonora and Chihuahua states and distribution cells throughout the United States – including Arizona, California, Texas, Chicago and New York. Sinaloa leads a federation of cartels that operates from one end of Mexico to the other. The Federation, also known as the Golden Triangle Alliance (a reference to the states of Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Durango), also includes organizations headed by Ismael Zambada and Juan Jose Esparragoza – formerly top members of the Juarez cartel, who have now thrown in their lots with Guzman. The three seem to be related by blood to some degree, and all come from two towns in Sinaloa.

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Zambada Garcia’s organization within the federation deals in cocaine, which is shipped in tons by sea from Colombia. After taking control of the imports, the organization ships the cocaine by air and truck to the U.S.-Mexico border. The cocaine is then smuggled, usually along routes from Sonora to Arizona, to major distribution cells in Arizona, California, Chicago and New York. The Zambada organization, like other cartels, then ships the proceeds back across the border. Following a common practice, Zambada launders the money through a number of legitimate businesses in Mexico, sometimes through family members. His holdings include real estate investments, a large dairy company, a bus line and a hotel. Zambada's primary areas of operation are in Sinaloa and Nayarit states, but he also exerts influence in Cancun and Monterrey. His organization is based in Mazatlan and competes with the Tijuana cartel. Like Zambada, Esparragoza had reached a position of prominence in the Juarez cartel before spinning off an independent trafficking organization and joining the Alliance.

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Esparragoza was a key figure in the Guadalajara cartel – one of Mexico’s first prominent drug organizations. The Guadalajar group later gave rise to the Carillo Fuentes organization or Juarez cartel, in which he became a senior leader. His allegiance, however, was shifted to the Federation as the Juarez cartel’s fortunes declined. Esparragoza has overseen drug operations in Baja California. U.S. authorities issued a $5 million bounty for him in 2004 due to the large amounts of marijuana and cocaine he has pushed into the United States over the years. Other Federation members run junior cartels of their own or command operations that are controlled by Guzman, Zambada and Esparragoza. These junior members include:

• Luis Valencia and his Milenio cartel: The Milenio cartel, which operates primarily in Michoacan and Jalisco, reportedly was responsible for trafficking as much as 20 tons of cocaine a month into the United States between 1999 and 2002 -- mostly through Texas and into Atlanta, Chicago and New York. Milenio has joined with other Federation organizations in offensives against the Gulf cartel in Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros.

• Ignacio Coronel Villareal: This leader is known by two nicknames -- "Nacho

Coronel" and the "King of Crystal," which refers to the scope of his activities in crystal meth production and trafficking.

• Otto Roberto Herrera Garcia: U.S. government agents believe this operative, who

spent 13 months in a Mexican prison before escaping in May 2005, is moving close to 2 tons of cocaine monthly into the United States.

• The Beltran Leyva/Enriquez Parras partnership: This alliance comprises two

sets of brothers, whose trafficking organizations work closely together. Creating the Federation allowed the Sinaloa and other cartels to maintain and expand operations rather than squandering resources in turf wars over new opportunities. The greater organization uses the local assets of its various components to consolidate control over transport routes from end to end. These methods produce efficiencies – which in turn leads to greater profits – and improve the cartel’s force projection capabilities from the considerable territory under its direct control. Other Cartels Mexico is home to other, independent cartels as well, but none that rival the Tijuana, Gulf or Sinaloa/Federation organizations in power or territory at this time. The Juarez cartel, currently led by Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, was a prominent force in years past, but has lost much of its turf and manpower to the Federation. Leadership of the organization passed to Vicente when his brother Amado died (while undergoing extensive plastic surgery, to change his appearance) in 1997. Fuentes was arrested in 2005 -- the same year Gilberto Lugo, the lieutenant in charge of the cartel’s North Texas operations, was arrested in Dallas. Currently, Carillo Fuentes’ son, Vicente Carrillo Leyva, appears to be the most senior leader who is both actively involved in operations and not behind bars. Other cartel leaders in Mexico include Juan "The Grandfather" Farias, who runs an independent organization in Michoacan state; Pedro Diaz Parada, the head of the Del Istmo (Oaxaca) cartel in southern Mexico; and Adan Salazar Zamorano and Juan Diego Espinoza Ramirez, who lead an operation that has clashed with the Enriquez Parras/Beltran Leyva group in Sonora state.

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Regions of Violence As Mexico’s cartels battle for market dominance and territory, crime and violence have grown accordingly in regions of key operations. This is particularly true along the U.S.-Mexico border, where control of the distribution points -- and thus, access to the huge U.S. market for illegal drugs -- is crucial for business. Along the border with Texas, Nuevo Laredo is the biggest flashpoint for cartel violence. Here, the number of murders soared from 68 in 2004 to at least 182 in 2005, with 114 more reported through May 2006. Mexican authorities believe most of these killings to have been drug-related. The crime rate reflects Nuevo Laredo’s strategic importance for cartels: 40 percent of all legitimate Mexican exports to the United States – an estimated 6,000 truckloads per day -- pass through it, and smugglers piggyback on this traffic – hiding drug shipments among the commercial goods. Juarez, another flashpoint, closely trails Nuevo Laredo in violence, with 108 drug killings reported through May 2006. However, the issue of drug violence is somewhat blurred, and frequently overlooked by the press, in Juarez as a result of a separate trend that has gained prominence: the disappearances and murders of numerous young women in recent years. The Arizona border is another point of concern for U.S. authorities. In fiscal 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available, there were 32 instances in which shots were fired at Border Patrol agents in the Tucson sector, up from nine in 2004. If the gunshot assaults from the Yuma sector are added, the figures rise to 45 and 15, respectively. With construction of a steel border fence under way and more U.S. law enforcement deployed to the Nogales area, much of the drug traffic has shifted toward Agua Prieta, directly across the border from Douglas, Ariz. Conflicts are growing in frequency and ferocity at the other end of the drug supply chain as well, at critical ports like Acapulco, Veracruz and Cancun. Acapulco, for example, is a key transshipment point for cocaine, which arrives by boat from Colombia and Peru. Because the coastal waters here are less heavily patrolled than those around Cancun, multiple cartels are competing for control over the import business – and the city of 1.5 million is not big enough to accommodate the various factions peacefully. There were 51 drug-related killings in Acapulco in 2005; in response, the government deployed 100 federal agents to the city early this year – a move that sparked brutal reprisals against local officials and the Federal Preventative Police. Twice this year, in April and July, cartels placed the severed heads of law enforcement agents outside an Acapulco municipal building – a clear warning to government agencies to back off. Because Mexico’s ports of entry traditionally have drawn steady flows of tourists, the wars between the cartels and anti-police violence pose a danger to foreigners as well as the country’s economy. So far, the impact to tourism industry revenues has been confined mainly to the U.S. border region: The Mexican consul to Laredo said in late May that merchants catering to tourists have seen sales drop by as much as 90 percent. In Acapulco, however, the number of visitors grew in 2005 to 5.7 million, an increase of 400,000 over 2004. Cartel warfare and violence is an issue in parts of Mexico’s interior as well – usually in states that have coastlines or lie along the major overland trafficking routes that cartels are striving to control. Non-border states that have been afflicted include Sinaloa, Nayarit, Oaxaca, Jalisco, Tabasco and Michoacan, which has joined Guerrero and Tamaulipas on a federal police watch list for violence.

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Triggers, Trends and Tactics Competition for turf and trade routes is only one of the many factors fueling the spurt in cartel violence, however. Also to be considered are government crackdowns, which invite reprisal attacks from well-armed criminal gangs; intimidation campaigns against journalists and security forces; and, of course, the periodic rush to fill the power vacuum when a strong cartel has been weakened in some way. It is not entirely clear whether the sophisticated weaponry available to cartels increases their courage, but it certainly increases the degree of violence and risks of collateral damage. Gang battles are not necessarily restricted to shootouts with guns or even automatic rifles: As the U.S. congressional panel aptly noted, rocket-propelled grenades, AK-47s and hand grenades have been added to the mix. Guns and other weapons are difficult to obtain in Mexico, but they are easier to come by in the United States and Central America. During the Cold War, U.S. and Soviet forces kept their proxies in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador well supplied with arms, making these countries solid sources of heavy weaponry for cartels. An early 2006 raid in Monterrey unearthed a stash of grenades and other weapons that were traced to Central America. Drug cartels not only can boast about having military equipment, but may employ well-armed and well-trained paramilitary teams of their own as private security forces. Elite units often are made up of former army and special forces troops from Latin American states, and some were trained at the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas (now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), which offers services to members of the Organization of American States. The most famous of these elite units is the aforementioned Los Zetas, the security force for the Gulf cartel. The Zetas originated from a group of elite anti-drug paratroopers and intelligence operatives who deserted their federal Special Air Mobile Force Group in 1991. Today, they have bases in the Gulf territory of eastern Mexico and Chihuahua, and they operate extensively in Acapulco and in northern Mexico. In the United States, Zeta cells can be found in Mission, Rio Grande City and Roma, Texas, and they have been active in Dallas. The Sinaloa cartel maintains a similar force of its own, called Los Pelones. The unit’s leader is based in Acapulco, and the Pelones have used Laredo, Texas as a staging ground for operations. Some cartels employ outside mercenary units as security forces: Former Guatemalan commandos called Kaibiles, who hire themselves out for such purposes, have been linked to operations in southern Mexico -- including kidnappings and beheadings in Veracruz and Acapulco. (There were three suspected Kaibiles among five people arrested in Michoacan in September: The suspects allegedly were transporting twelve assault rifles, thousands of rounds of ammunition, three fragmentation grenades, nine Kevlar helmets and replicas of police uniforms.) The intimidation campaigns and reprisal attacks that drug cartels carry out against non-criminal groups – police, government security forces and journalists – who threaten their business are quite significant, and gruesome executions (including decapitations, which were emerged for the first time as the work of Mexican drug gangs in April 2006) are very much a part of that. Several law enforcement officials have been assassinated – including a new police chief in Nuevo Laredo, slain about eight hours after being sworn in to replace another chief, who also had been assassinated. That said, the crime gangs are not always precise in their targeting. At times, they have mowed down police on the streets with assault rifles or attacked police stations with grenades and other heavy weapons.

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Similarly, 10 journalists have been assassinated by cartels since 2004, and the offices of newspapers, magazines and television stations have been attacked – often in retaliation for, or to prevent the emergence of, reports about cartel activities or losses (which can damage perceptions of a group’s overall strength). For example, two grenades exploded Aug. 23 at the headquarters of Por Esto, a Cancun newspaper that had reported extensively on the drug trafficking activities of Ismael Zambada. And Tijuana cartel member Arturo Villareal, who was arrested along with Javier Felix in August 2006, is believed (along with Jorge "El Cholo" Briceno) to be behind the 2004 shooting of Francisco Ortiz Franco, editor of the Baja Californian newsmagazine Zeta, which had published reports about the cartel. More complex factors that drive the violence involve the movement of operatives and leaders – whether into or out of prisons in the United States and Mexico, or between various cartels themselves. Like their legitimate entrepreneurial counterparts, gang members are businessmen who, if strong enough, might spin out of an established cartel to lead independent operations or perhaps join a competitor (though in the criminal world, the consequences of such moves can be deadly). It is noteworthy that when Mexican law enforcement scores a victory against a cartel, inter-cartel tensions spike predictably. For example, arrests of major figures in the Tijuana organization have prompted the Gulf and the Federation organizations to move in on Tijuana’s turf. Once there is blood in the water, so to speak, other cartels are likely to swarm over the share of the market the weakened organization no longer can defend – while also trying to secure it against other rivals. An aggressor will move to destroy the assets of other cartels in the disputed territory, with battles possibly playing out in public streets. The drug world has been particularly roiled by the inroads made against the Juarez cartel, which – as recently as November 2005 -- was the dominant player in between the coasts, controlling 14 percent of the cocaine traffic from Mexico into the United States. The death of Amada Carrillo Fuentes in 1997 precipitated a brief period of instability – with 20 killed in a single month – before his brother Vicente began to consolidate his control. However, eight years later, the cartel was weakened by the successive arrests of not only Fuentes, but financial mastermind Juan Jose Alvarez Tostado and his successor, Ricardo Garcia Urquiz. Rival organizations, especially the Sinaloa cartel, quickly began jousting over Juarez territory. Sinaloa/Federation forces have been aggressively expansionary in other ways as well. For instance, last year – amid Federation efforts to branch out to both the east and west -- the Tijuana cartel was forced to cede the city of Mexicali, in Baja California Norte, and Nuevo Laredo became a war zone as the Federation made inroads into Gulf territory. The Gulf and Tijuana organizations did join together briefly – through a deal their leaders struck in prison – in 2004, seeking to preserve their own room to maneuver and combat the powerful Sinaloa. The alliance crumbled, however, as Osiel Cardenas and Benjamin Arellano Felix fell to squabbling in 2005. At that point, the Gulf cartel began launching violent incursions into the Tijuana cartel territories of Mexicali and Tijuana.

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Systemic Issues Although Mexican and U.S. authorities are having some successes in combating the cartels, the long-term effectiveness of their measures is debatable. In many cases, incarcerated leaders are able to continue running their organizations from prison; in others, one group’s assets are simply taken over by rival cartels. The daily business of drugs and violence is carried on, little disturbed by government efforts. Clearly, systemic problems at the government level – for instance, rampant corruption -- play into the dilemma. At the state and municipal level, Mexican police and other security forces are not only poorly trained, badly paid and ill-equipped, but may be either too intimated by drug cartels to act against them or be working on the cartels’ payroll. This means that federal troops are sometimes sent in to put a dent in the drug business, but they are often no less susceptible to cartel influence and details of operations must be guarded against leaks by corrupt officials – whether at the municipal, state or federal level. Official corruption is a lucrative business in its own right. Federal comandantes that oversee “plazas,” for example, often receive protection payments from the cartel operating in their area of responsibility. If corrupt police or troops seize a load of drugs from a smuggler who has not paid the concession, they may sell his load off to a trafficker who has paid the bribe. The comandante overseeing the border checkpoint into the United States typically gets a cut too, and often escorts the shipment to the border. Under this system, corrupt government forces end up acting as a de facto security force for a cartel. The Mexican federal government has tried to combat these issues by putting the military in charge of drug interdiction efforts, but military commanders have proven equally capable of being bought. As a result, it is not unheard-of for government or security officials to be slain in something other than the line of duty. The top law enforcement official in Guerrero state was killed in 2005 -- allegedly by Gulf Zetas, because he took $500,000 from the Pelones to protect Sinaloa operations -- and Israel Zambada is believed to have paid Mexican police to kill Tijuana cartel leader Ramon Arellano Felix in 2002. Naturally, crime and violence are spilling across the border into U.S. towns and cities. In January and February 2006, law enforcement seized caches of guns, homemade grenades, police scanners and cash from safehouses in Laredo, Texas, a town the Sinaloa cartel had been using as a logistics hub. In April, a Sinaloa drug trafficker who had defected from the Gulf cartel, was killed (along with his 15-year-old nephew) by someone with an AK-47 in Rio Bravo, Texas, about five miles east of Laredo. Moreover, American ranchers along the border have reported encounters with armed Mexicans, sometimes in uniform, on the U.S. side of the border. These could be Zetas, illicit traffickers or even Mexican security forces pursuing Zetas and traffickers. In the past, cartel violence has been viewed as an issue that indirectly fueled illegal immigration into the United States, as Mexicans fled the killing, economic privation and fear. Increasingly, however, the drug organizations are seen as operating in league with the “coyotes,” or human smugglers, and traffickers of other illicit goods. A cartel may grant operating concessions to “coyotes” in areas it controls and protect such partners against poachers or Mexican police – or it might assume more direct oversight of human smuggling enterprises.

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In Search of Solutions At this point, we see no forces in place that can arrest Mexico’s descent down the spiral of drug-driven violence, much as Colombia did during the 1980s. There, powerful drug cartels were able to operate with almost complete impunity, carrying out bombings and assassinations that targeted judges, police officers and politicians. In response, the United States funneled millions in military and technical assistance to Bogota, under a program known as Plan Colombia. The program did not quickly yield measurable results, as then-President Andres Pastrana allowed powerful rebel groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia to control a safe haven territory (from which drug operations could be conducted) while pursuing peace talks. With the election of Alvaro Uribe Velez in 2002, however, cooperation with U.S. efforts has increased, and Colombian drug cartels have been weakened – though not eradicated. Plan Colombia might provide some useful pointers for resolving the situation in Mexico, if Washington were so inclined, but it is by no means an “out of the box” solution. In fact, political will and compatibility are issues on both sides of the border. Whereas Uribe’s administration in Colombia is ideologically friendly to Washington and has worked closely with the United States against cartels, the Mexican government traditionally has leaned more to the left and, at times, has disagreed sharply with the United States over policy. Additionally, Uribe came to power with a clear mandate to fight rebel and criminal groups – an issue that has not applied in Mexican elections. One needs only to think back to July, when the PAN’s victorious presidential candidate, Felipe Calderon, crept past the PRD’s Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador with the slimmest imaginable sliver of a margin – and to the tensions that for a time to rip the capital city apart – to sense the scope of the problem. Without a strong mandate from the public, it would be exceedingly difficult for incoming President Calderon to broach the kinds of reforms needed to kill off the cartels. Mexico’s decentralized political system also must be considered. Many of the country’s 32 state governors, who are publicly elected (and many of whom belong to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI), can be reluctant to cooperate with initiatives from Mexico City, particularly when the president is from a rival political party. Though Colombia also is divided into 32 areas, called departments, the heads of these regions are appointed by the president, ensuring greater loyalty and compliance with policies in the capital. In addition, social issues (such as crushing poverty in some areas) and attitudes could combine to impede any externally proposed solutions to the cartel crisis. For instance, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has facilitated some economic growth in Mexico, but it also has contributed to widening income gaps. And because it is viewed as a U.S.-driven initiative, those who associate their poverty or hardships with NAFTA are inclined to be wary of any efforts – including counter-drug campaigns – that appear to be encouraged by Washington. Political sensitivities of this sort were not an issue with Plan Colombia. Finally, there is the fact that Plan Colombia has not necessarily been an overwhelming success. According to the U.S. government, there have been significant advances in the fight against drugs, and officials point to increased drug seizures as proof of effective enforcement. However, there has been no significant rise in the price of street drugs – which might be expected if supplies were being taken off the market. The rise in drug seizures may instead be a sign that more contraband is being smuggled into the United States – and thus, possibly, that interdiction efforts on the production and trafficking side have had little effect.

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A final answer to the problem of cartel violence, it seems, remains distant. Given the inherent weaknesses of Mexico’s political structure, endemic corruption and other systemic problems – not to mention the deep political divisions that will confront President Calderon when he takes office in December – a lasting solution will not be forthcoming from Mexico City in the near term. A national consensus on the importance and means of battling the cartel could do much to help the federal government, but such a consensus would, of course, take time to build. Without Mexico’s cooperation, the United States can do little to put a serious dent in the cartel activity: Along the border, federal agents can combat only the symptoms, not the root issue. But it also is not clear at this time whether the political will exists in Washington to deal decisively with the problems in the border region – even if the necessary resources can be mustered. With the violence increasingly spilling over the international boundary, it is clear that the United States’ territorial sovereignty has grown difficult to maintain. However, the issue has not yet risen to the level of a compelling national concern: The war in Iraq, threats from Iran and North Korea, and other international issues will continue to hold the attention of the Bush administration and the American public as a whole for some time. Furthermore, though both parties in Congress emphasize the need for homeland security, Americans are most concerned about international terrorism, which has not been firmly connected in the public’s mind to the disorder along the border. Mexico’s drug cartels ultimately may go the way of all empires: They rise, expand and eventually crumble, often from within. At this point, the empires are both rising and expanding, with disturbingly few arrestors to the trend in sight.

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