Pages from the Mexico Blog: Mexico and Drugs

In the FPA's Mexico Blog, fellow bloggers Alejandro Quiroz Flores and Mike Coe have written a few intelligent and interesting posts on Mexico's recent Drug violence and how the US and Mexico have addressed the issues in a positive and negative manner.

In a May 19th posting by Mike Coe, the role of the US in addressing Mexico's drug violence is criticized. Beyond the US being the end market and focus for much of the drugs coming from Mexico, the illegal gun trade coming from the US plays a large part for arming many of the drug gangs in Mexico along with over $10 billion USD going to arm drug cartels and train new recruits from the US into Mexico according to the blogpost.

In a May 14th posting, Blogger Alejandro Quiroz Flores discusses the role of the Mexican military in combating Mexico's drug problems. In a move to avoid problems with Mexico's often corrupt and under-equipped local police forces, the Mexican Army is often the security force which patrols towns and maintains security against drug trafficking. Problems discussed by Alejandro include a problem of desertion in the Army due to poor condition and lack of pay. A contributing factor as well is the historic human right violation during the Dirty War in the 60's and 70's which contributed to 1,500 disaparecidos in the past. Despite the Army's separation from political forces and its good reputation as compared with the local police, they are still Mexico's strongest security force against the Drug cartels in Mexico and have greatly improved their human rights record since the 1970s. For Alejandro's piece on the attack on FARC leaders in Ecuador and consequences in Mexico and Ecuador, read here.

On May 13th, Mike Coe wrote a piece on where drugs in Mexico originate. Mike discusses how the killing of Mexican official Edgar Millan Gomez was done through a drug cartel from Sinaloa in response to Millan's arrest of a number of their members were arrested by Millan's agency. Mike has placed detailed maps of the regions which grow much of the Heroine and Marijuana grown and exported in Mexico. Please see the posting here. As well, please see his posting on the killing of Millan here.