Outside View: Mexico's Criminal Insurgency - John P. Sullivan, United Press International (Middle East Times)
Behind the headlines about kidnappings, assassinations and shootouts, the escalating conflict in Mexico between drug cartels, gangs and the police is evolving into a kind of criminal insurgency.
Vying for domination of the lucrative drug trade, the cartels are seeking both market control and freedom from government interference. Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez and other border towns are racked with violence. Mexico City itself is not immune. Corruption joins the extreme violence and helps fuel Mexico's downward spiral.
Drug murders in Mexico have more than doubled this year to nearly 5,400, with 943 occurring in November alone. On Nov. 30 nine decapitated victims of the drug wars were discovered in Tijuana. Within the past few weeks, Mexican "drug czar" Noe Ramirez Mandujano was accused of taking $450,000 in bribes from Sinaloa's Pacific cartel. Five hundred municipal police in Tijuana were replaced because of fears that they were corrupt. Mexico's liaison to Interpol, Ricardo Gutierrez Vargas, was arrested under suspicion of leaking information from criminal intelligence databases to the cartels. A newspaper office in Culiacan, Sinaloa's capital, was also attacked with grenades...
More at The Middle East Times.
Comments (2)
My questions/comments for the SWJ crew:
Is there a coorelation between the Mexican narco-cartels and the various ethnic groups in Mexico?
Are we applying what we have learned (the hard way!) about "human terrain" to our #2 supplier of oil? Is anybody working on this in the open source world?
Mexico is not a monolithic culture any more than we are, but I'm not sure we're thinking about the impact of self-identifying groups on the level of violence in Mexico.
In the same vein: if you have a chance to read some of what President Calderon has said to the Mexican people it is eye opening. Direct, blunt, & honest. He has told the Mexican people that they are in a war and a lot of innocent people will die. (Link to presidential speaches: http://www.presidencia.gob.mx/en/press/speeches/?pagina=1)
Last: The language maps are interesting http://www.ethnologue.com/show_map.asp?name=MX. Approximately 8%+/- of the population of Mexico (out of a total pop over 110mil) speaks one of the languages listed on the map. Please note that the Chiapas rebellion took place primarily in the Mayan minority linguistic areas in the SE, and most of the oil comes from the Mayan language areas along the Gulf Coast/Caribbean basin.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Posted by MAJ Dave Feeley![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
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December 19, 2008 9:12 AM
MAJ Freeley,
You may be interested in this study which was published last week by two economics professors from Brown entitled: "Post-Columbian Population Movements and the Roots of World Inequality."
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/2688
Posted by Goyo & Juanita![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
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December 19, 2008 10:00 PM