As The Drug War Rages On, Will Mexico Surrender?
Mexico is in the midst of its most violent confrontation with drug traffickers, with an estimated 28,000 people killed since President Felipe Calderon declared war on drug cartels soon after he took office in late 2006.
But drug trafficking has long gone on in Mexico, and for many decades operated under the eye of the government, according to analysts. Mexico changing politics has, in effect, changed the way drug cartels operate.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, ruled Mexico for most of the 20th century. After 71 years in power, the party finally lost the presidency in 2000.[…]
Terrence Poppa, a reporter at the El Paso Herald Post, wrote a biography of Acosta titled Drug Lord to try to explain how the Mexican drug trafficking business worked. What he discovered shocked him.
“It was an organized type of protection that ran all the way to Mexico City, and involved the top layers of government, including the president of Mexico,” he says.
[…]
With so many people in government getting bribes, there was little incentive to crack down on the narcotics trade. The PRI’s kickback system even encouraged the cartels to expand, Poppa says.
The cartels ramped up their arms smuggling networks. They diversified into legitimate businesses to launder their profits. They recruited special forces soldiers to be their muscle.
Then the PRI lost the presidency in 2000 to Vicente Fox and his National Action Party, or PAN, and Mexico was left with a monster it couldn’t control.
[…]
Poppa says that if the United States were to decriminalize drugs it would help eliminate the huge profits garnered by the brutal cartels.
“In my view, the best reason for ending drug prohibition is to save Mexico, to save the democracy of Mexico that the Mexican people have struggled so hard to gain,” he says.
[…]
Good read (or listen at the link). This is part 5 of 5. There are links to the other parts at the link.