Pages from the Mexico Blog: Drug Cartels and Espionage in the Senate

Update: ISN writer Sam Logan publishes his piece on Mexico called Mexico infiltrated where he discusses the slow infiltration of the cartels into Mexico's government institutions and the eventual failure and disappearance of the government in the process. A must read and powerful complement to these FPA posting on Mexico. 

Fellow FPA blogger Alejandro Quiros Flores has done another magnificent job these past few weeks discussing the involvement of Drug Cartels running many of Mexico's towns and evidence that the Mexican Center for Research and National Security (CISEN) has been using third parties to spy on many member of Mexico's Senate. His postings can be found here at FPA's Mexico Blog.

In Alejandro's post on July 16th, he discusses a report by Mexico's Attorney General's Office which claims that more than 80 of 2,500 of Mexico's municipalities are currently being controlled by Drug Cartels. In the report, many of the Cartels are seen as operating as a type of de facto government in many of those municipalities, providing some services, but mostly concerned with running the drug trade and prostitution in many of these communities. While 80 municipalities are still a small number, the rise of the Drug Cartels in recent months and the killing of many Government officials and gun battles in many of Mexico's municipalities does not help Calderon and Mexico's government, police and army claim any real victories in its recent internal conflict. With successes in Colombia by Uribe's government and the world media focusing on the terror from FARC guerillas, years of internal conflict inside Colombia may mirror the future of Mexico in its fight against well established drug cartels. The FARC, who for many exist solely for the expansion of the narcotics trade, still govern many parts of Colombia itself, including many smaller municipalities. With forty years of the FARC and at least thirty years of the narcotics trade in Colombia, Mexico might do well by working with Colombia to win back its towns and avoid a second FARC style government in Mexico.

In Alejandro's July 12th posting, an interesting turn of events has placed many of Mexico's Senators in conflict with the Mexican Center of Research and National Security (CISEN) for spying on many members of the Senate, without knowledge by the Senators and by using a third party to gather the personal information. The realization of the activities has placed the ruling PAN party at fault, as the director of the organization that was commissioned to collect the information is closely tied to the PAN itself. Calls from many Senators for the resignation of the head of CISEN, Guillermo Valdés Castellanos will no doubt give the opposition in the Senate a lot of ammunition in attacking President Felipe Calderon and his PAN party. The Mexican Senate has always been a source of stress for PAN party leaders, especially for Fox and Calderon who campaigned on their wish to tackle corruption in Mexican politics, but now have been tainted by scandal themselves. With the conflicts over narcotics and political pressures in the Senate, Calderon is likely wishing to return to the days where he was a brand new President, with only Lopez Obrador to contend with on occasion.

Much thanks to Alejandro Quiroz Flores and Mike Coe for their work on the Mexico Blog. Cheers Amigos!!