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A Decline and then Spike in Violence
While much of the past week saw a slight decline in violence, the 28 drug-related homicides across Mexico on Aug. 9 served as an ugly reminder of the brutal nature of the country’s cartel war. In one case in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, gunmen shot four members of a family dead after the family had received a death threat the previous evening. The rest of the killings — which took place in Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Mexico, Michoacan, Tamaulipas, and Baja California states — offer a snapshot of the current hot spots for violence. Sinaloa and Chihuahua continue to top the list of deadliest states, despite the presence of a few thousand federal police and military forces. In Juarez in particular the majority of the violence appears associated with fractures among previous cartel alliances, according to U.S. counternarcotics sources. While we have observed several noteworthy successes against criminal groups during those operations, authorities have yet to make any significant progress in curbing the intercartel violence that continues to rage.
Chihuahua and Sinaloa states are far from being the only places requiring federal attention. In Michoacan state, for example, federal law enforcement officials announced this past week that additional federal agents will soon be deployed to the state. Reports later emerged of overflights by Mexican military airplanes and helicopters around the state capital, possibly associated with the arrival of reinforcements to the area. Despite being the first state to which President Felipe Calderon deployed military forces upon taking office in 2006, Michoacan’s dense forests, long coastline and remote areas continue to be havens for drug cartels involved in trafficking, marijuana cultivation, and synthetic drug production. As the government continues to shift soldiers and police from one hot spot to another, the Michoacan situation offers a glimpse of the long-term consequences of continuing to field too few troops in cartel strongholds.
The Federal Response
Well aware of these concerns, the Calderon administration been keen to publicize that it is in this fight for the long haul. Indeed, the administration’s approach has been noticeably comprehensive, and included not only troop deployments, but also approving an unprecedented number of extradition requests for drug traffickers as well as pursuing broad policy changes. The removal from office last week of key anti-drug official Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos reportedly came as part of Calderon’s most recent move to restructure the country’s counternarcotics authorities. Indeed, a Stratfor source in the Mexican government confirmed this past week that Vasconcelos is being considered as a candidate for drug czar, which would be a new position in the Mexican government presumably similar to the White House’s director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
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