FPA Comments On: “Mexico’s Drug War: Not Another Colombia”

This week COHA.org writer Natalia Cote-Munoz produced a great piece comparing and contrasting Mexico’s current drug war with Colombia’s historical drug conflict in order to differentiate between policies that should be applied to the two countries. Often parallels are depended upon in discussing the two countries and their internal drug conflicts, but with a lack of clear analysis on each individual case, solutions for Colombia are assumed to apply neatly to Mexico as well. This is done to such a great degree that policy is formed that treat Colombia’s past drug violence the same as Mexico’s current drug conflict. Natalia Cote-Munoz seeks to draw clear distinctions between the two conflicts in order to initiate a proper policy debate that can create effective solutions in Mexico, and maintain successes in the case of Colombia. I recommend everyone read the COHA piece Mexico’s Drug War: Not Another Colombia at the link here.

Parallels between Mexico’s and Colombia’s drug violence is often compared as it involves two simple elements, namely violence coming from the narcotic trade and extreme violence that affects society as a whole. The article argues that there are many differences between the two countries and the drug issues beyond extreme violence. She makes a very important point as an analysis of extreme violence could also link Mexico to Iraq or Afghanistan a few years ago as much as it could be linked to Colombia in the 80s and 90s. The article points out that the structural elements of corruption and a lack of justice in Mexico differs than that in Colombia, although it exists in each country and contributes to the drug trade. Poverty, while not the reason for a drug trade, enables the movement of many in society to take risks to gain immediate rewards. With a lack of confidence in the system and the government, it creates rationale actors in an environment where money and the narcotics market has a real impact on society as a whole.

Natalia points out correctly that the complex system making true O’Donnellian democracy difficult in Mexico even today was not as much of a challenge faced in Colombia. Historically Colombia was blessed with relatively functional institutions and a traditionally democratically motivated system to help manage drug violence that arose over thirty years ago. Whereas Mexico’s complex democracy and systemic difficulties contribute to the difficulties in forming and anti-narcotics strategy, Colombia’s drug violence was linked to past revolutionary movements that existed in a past era that were married to drug cartels in the 1970s. The way cartels were formed is also highlighted by Natalia, where Colombian cartels often were run by well know figureheads, Mexican cartels reflected our networked society, working off networks that often are not understood nor do officials know who exactly runs the drug gangs. While Colombia could target the FARC, and affect the drug cartels in the process, Mexican gangs are comprised of many smaller, unknown elements that can evade authorities by way of being covert. This allows Mexico’s smaller gangs to have the ability to cross borders, maintaining lucrative markets by establishing them from Vina del Mar to Vancouver or displacing defunct cartels that are stopped by authorities or eliminated by competitors. These broad networks also create access to weapons that can be easily obtained in the US for use against Mexican authorities in Mexico.

Suggestions by the author that the demand for narcotics in the US and weapons proliferation across the border is a main source for the cartel violence in Mexico is tied to the ease of access Mexico has to the US border. While she makes a solid point that a lot of the problems can be sourced in the US demand for narcotics, it is not likely that the US would legalise narcotics or even take Mexican cartels as serious as Iraq, even though they are a greater burden on American society than any country in the Middle East. President Obama for all the criticisms has made a lot of strides in US foreign policy, just not in Latin America yet, hopefully the COHA.org article will reach those policymakers in Obama’s Administration for positive policy development.