Mexico’s Drug War: No Way Out But to Fight On: La Tercera of Chile

Continuing with the series of articles WORLDMEETS.US is working on in regard to the Mexican drug crisis, we offer this item from Chile’s La Tercera.

For Americans busy scratching their heads about why the last few months the Mexican drug war suddenly erupted into a major challenge to Mexico’s government and the United States, this article La Tercera’s Jorge Chabat offers a history of events – and an analysis of why our neighbor to the south has no choice but to bite the bullet and keep on fighting.

Chabat writes in part:

“Drug trafficking in Mexico has existed for decades, but it didn’t seriously affect the stability of the country or provoke conflicts with the United States until the mid-1980s, when Colombian cocaine began to cross in great quantities from Mexico to their neighbor up north. … The dismantling of the Medellin and Cali cartels in Colombia during the 1990s created a vacuum that was filled by the Mexican cartels, but the level of drug-related violence in Mexico remained relatively low. This ‘peace of the traffickers’ can be understood by the policy of tolerance of the Mexican government, which sought a degree of balance between the drug cartels and the state, in terms of the routes and the territories infiltrated by those groups.”

So what happened to change the ‘balance? Chabat goes on:

“That continued into this century, when President Vicente Fox ordered an energetic crackdown on drug trafficking. But to the extent that the drug lords were being arrested, the balance of power between the cartels was destroyed, stetting the stage for a war between the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels – the two largest – which has generated an enormous level of violence as well as sour protests from the United States.”

By Jorge Chabat

Translated By Paula van de Werken

March 13, 2009

Chile – La Tercera – Original Article (Spanish)

Drug trafficking in Mexico has existed for decades, but it didn’t seriously affect the stability of the country or provoke conflicts with the United States until the mid-1980s, when Colombian cocaine began to cross in great quantities from Mexico to their neighbor up north. By then, Mexican police institutions were in a state of decomposition, making them fertile ground for the corrupting activities of the narcos.

The dismantling of the Medellin and Cali cartels in Colombia during the 1990s created a vacuum that was filled by the Mexican cartels, but the level of drug-related violence in Mexico remained relatively low. This “peace of the traffickers” can be understood by the policy of tolerance of the Mexican government, which sought a degree of balance between the drug cartels and the state, in terms of the routes and the territories infiltrated by those groups.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.