Obama set to duck challenge of a close, premature engagement with Mexico. Is Mexican crime and violence merely structural, or is it systemic?

The most middling of ties are scheduled to develop in the early stages of the relationship between the incoming U.S. president and his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa: Luke warm ties with Washington not scheduled to grow under a Barack Obama relationship.

• A long-troubled relationship in the fields of trade, immigration and drug policy in regards to Mexico will not be galvanized by a few choice words and warmed by a firm handshake.
• Mexico not likely to be a priority issue, but will be framed as a second-tier matter.
• Rising crime rate a peril to Mexican and Central American tourism.

President Calderon’s current trip to Washington to meet with Barack Obama is not destined to reveal great results; this follows in the tradition of episodic and photo-op symbolic scenarios involving the U.S. and Mexico, which inevitably do nothing better than sputter in their results. This was the fate of U.S. policy under George Bush toward Vicente Fox, which eventually ended in near-total failure. According to local boosters in both countries, the equivalent of the new world relationship between the U.S. and Mexico would emulate the bilateral ties between Washington and London yielding yet another special relationship. But what came almost naturally between the two self-perceiving Anglo-Saxon nations never quite came off between the Rio Bravo partners. Just days before Barack Obama was to be inaugurated in Washington, Calderon came to town to wish him well and claim the right of primacy in Mexico’s connection to Washington. It will most likely be a lost cause.

A brutal war on the streets
When Felipe Calderon was chosen as president in 2006 in one of Mexico’s most controversial recent elections, one of his vows was to make Mexico more secure. Since then he has mobilized an unprecedented 45,000 troops and 5,000 federal police personnel to confront the felonious conflicts occurring throughout the country. The troops and the federal police were sent to serve as back-up and support for the under equipped and chronically corrupted security forces. The mission of Calderon’s offensive was to apprehend the various leaders of the money-laundering and drug trafficking groups, as well as to dismantle the delivery networks the cartels were increasingly using with expert skill. Parallel to the anti-drug war, the increasingly explosive battle over control of strained smuggling franchises have pitted Mexico’s largest cartels against one another, namely the Arellano-Felix, the Juarez, and the Sinaloa cartels as well as the Gulf cartel and its increasingly independent paramilitary wing, Los Zetas. But the bottom line here is that Calderon’s anti-drug strategy did not work as is evident by the drug wave continuing to flow to the U.S. without abatement.

Meanwhile, the long agenda and brief amount of time will not allow for anything approaching extended dialogue. Immigration will not be advanced as an issue due to its situation and complexity, as well as the harsh prevailing economic conditions existing in the U.S. Nor will much be said about revising NAFTA over how consideration since Mexico City looks upon the issues as a veritable red zone. At most, the meeting will reflect Obama’s wish not to offend Mexico’s important and highly vocal community, as well as U.S. Latinos—issues will be sent on sabbaticals and not rejected.

Death for Sale
Drug-related violent deaths peaked in Mexico at a distressing rate of 5,500 in 2008, more than double last year’s total tally of 2,700 and nearly four times more than in 2006. The two separate fronts of the larger conflict, the turf war and the anti-narcotics operations, continue to produce grisly episodes of violence. The cartels employ nightmarish displays of violence as a means to send a message to those who would dare interfere. To those serving the interests of the state or a rival cartel, the message is clear: a brutal death will be the likely reward. The drug forces have sadistically tortured, brutally executed and displayed in public areas the grisly remains of cartel enemies. Journalists, political officials, police officers and soldiers have been specifically targeted. Mexican and U.S. officials have taken to dubbing the traffickers’ activities as episodes of unabashed “narco-terrorism”

Adding to the script guiding the complexity of Mexico’s violent crime and drug upheaval is the question of state corruption that infects all levels of the government. The municipal police have been mostly excluded from the loop of drug-related investigations due to suspicion of their engagement in bribery or directly colluding with the cartels. The federal police and the 40,000 troops Calderon has mobilized since he took office in 2006, have often turned out to be the uncertain keepers of the peace, who frequently become immured in the very war on corruption they are supposed to suppress. The poorly equipped local police, more often than not, are faced with the bleak prospects of either being made to accept a bribe, acquiescing to cartel pressure, or of being bushwhacked for refusing to cooperate. This act of intimidation is colloquially known as plata o plomo, or silver or lead. Even some of those closest to President Calderon have been corrupted by the cartel’s seemingly endless resources and skewed personnel.

Profiles of Violence
Army Major Arturo Gonzalez, a member of Felipe Calderon’s presidential guard, was purportedly put on the pad for $100,000 a month to report the President’s movements to a splinter group made up of former Sinaloa cartel leaders, the Beltran-Leyva brothers. The intelligence community also has been compromised; Noe Ramirez Mandujano, head of the country’s anti-organized crime task force (SIEDO), was caught receiving $450,000 a month in bribe money from the Beltran-Leyva brothers in exchange for classified information that could threaten the core of the cartel’s operation. Ricardo Gutierrez, director of Mexico’s Interpol branch, also has been accused of colluding with the Beltran-Leyva organization in providing sensitive information in exchange for large sums of money. This revelation was hugely embarrassing to the Mexican authorities

The growth of insecurity in Mexico has begun to bulge out the country’s borders and into the region, particularly those to countries found lying between Colombia, where most of the cocaine is produced, Mexico, the main distributor and second largest producer of illicit drugs, and the United States, the prime consumer for all of them. Central America’s unique geographic position, caught between a producer and distributor functions, and its vulnerability and flawed civic virtues have allowed for high levels of corruption and crime, making it an ideal smuggling corridor that eventually will replace the traditional maritime routes which have become very costly to operate and gravely dangerous to use. By escaping Calderon’s periodic crackdown and extending their tentacles into Central America, the Mexican cartels have begun to tap into the networks of feral criminal youth gangs, known as maras, in order to carry out their non-drug related activities, such as extortion, assassination and kidnapping. The invasion of Mexican syndicates into surrounding countries and locales could further degrade regional stability and security; something that already has been burgeoning forth in the Guatemalan drug scene.

One consideration cannot be exaggerated: violence and rising crime rates can have an immensely injurious impact on Mexico’s tourism industry, which is one of the nation’s prime dollar earners. There are few factors that Calderon fears more than permanent damage being done to the sector by the reality or perception of unremitting crime.

Part II will follow tomorrow
In this section, COHA will dwell on implementing drug enforcement strategy, weeding out corruption and restoring security in contemporary Mexico. What will the regional consequences of an expanded drug war in 2009 be? Can common ground be found in generating a harmonious understanding in relation to trade, crime, immigration and drug policies? Is drug legislation a way out for both producing and consuming nations?