WTF is up with violence in Mexico?

Eddie Dane

Philosopher
Eddie Dane
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Aug 18, 2007
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Inspired by this thread. which I didn't want to derail with this question.

What's up with the epidemic of violence in Mexico? Or South America in general.

I know that the drug war plays a big part, but apart from that I have read many accounts of horrific violence and many women disappearing, only to turn up dead.

What the hell is causing people to commit such acts in such numbers?

Is it culture? A power vacuum? What?

Don't say it's poverty. I've been to desperately poor places and didn't feel threatened at all.
My wife's uncle does charity work in many of the world's hell-holes and the only places where he has feared for his life were in South America. Nobody chased him through the slums of Calcutta with a Machete, but in Venezuela he had to arm himself to keep somewhat safe.
 
NPR's The World has been covering this in some depth. For the last couple of days, they've had coverage of a major newspaper in Ciudad Juarez essentially seeking some sort of cease-fire after yet another of their journalists was gunned down.
They ran an op-ed to the effect of, "what do you want?" since the authorities seem unable to protect anyone.
They had another article about a police official who was promoted to a command position. Almost immediately, he was approached by the Cartel who sent two "representatives" with a bag of money and a cell phone. "Now, you work for us." They said.
The officer demanded to be reinstated to his old position... When the administration refused, the guy fled to the US for sanctuary.
We had the news story on the large massacre of immigrants that occurred recently; evidently they refused to work for the Cartel. Then, the chief investigator assigned to that case was abducted and murdered.
By most accounts, the big stories we hear of here are just the tip of the iceberg; evidently robberies, kidnappings, and random shootings are so common as to not make the news.
I recall many years ago reading a Playboy interview with the then CIA director. (can't recall which one...) They asked him which country gave him the most worry. It was Mexico.
 
US drug policy (amongst other influences of course) and its insatiable demand created this disaster. It won't change whilst the current policies exist.

I say this authoritatively from behind a keyboard on a completely different continent of course. But I would think it was self evident.
 
nvidiot said:
US drug policy (amongst other influences of course) and its insatiable demand created this disaster. It won't change whilst the current policies exist.

I say this authoritatively from behind a keyboard on a completely different continent of course. But I would think it was self evident.
Click to expand...

What is scary is evidence that the Drug Cartels in Mexico are following the lead of the Bootleggers in the early 30's and are starting to 'diversify" into non Drug areas of criminal activities.because they feel the Drug Bonanza will not last forever.
 
Mexico has no death penalty.

And the system in their prisons is based on an internal economy- send in cash to the inmates, they buy leniency. And continue to run their outside businesses.

And their judicial system is a joke too. Bribery and corruption is rampant, in a system with inherent flaws.

So basically, their is no penalty for being a drug dealer in Mexico.

Question is, how bad must it get before we actually do something?

A REAL border might help keep Mexico's problem in Mexico. Then, declare their government to be non-existent, and send in our army to stabilize the place with martial law. No navy, no air force in Mexico, and I think there would be much support from the people. I think it could be nearly bloodless, just a show of actual force to initiate an actually functional, bribery proof government.

They need some constitutional amendments Start with a death penalty for government officials that accept bribes, countering the drug dealer 'offer that can't be refused' with the fact that refusing it is no worse than accepting it. . Add a death penalty for kidnapping, another major source of problems. Install a system of 'precedents' into their judicial system, including mandatory sentencing .

Oh well, just the ramblings of a retired laborer.
 
If you want to get the inside scoop visit that "narco blog" site. It's in Spanish. Just a heads up, there are some EXTREMELY graphic images and videos there so it's not for the squeamish.

And as far as blaming the US for this (*sigh*), I think some blame can be unleashed towards the drug lords of the Mexican and Colombian cartels. Not everything bad that happens on planet earth is the United States' fault...
 
There's no violence in mexico, its all just made up by evil Arizonans who don't want to see criminals rewarded for their crimes. Ask Calderon, he'll tell you, and Obama will back him on it
 
It isn't poverty, IMO it is the unequal distribution of wealth, mixed with the huge potential for profits provided by the "War on Drugs" which we've been winning for the past 20 years... That unequal distribution of wealth makes it easy to buy violence and sell lives cheap.

It just happens to be drugs in this case, but I'm sure you could substitute Diamonds or gold or any other commodity...

Humans have been doing this to each other since the dawn of time, and in spite of all our accumulated knowledge and wonderful technology, we still haven't figured out how to tame the greed & violence...

I suppose another big difference is that back in the day we wouldn't have had all the details, the media makes it easy to be informed and shocked about things which aren't really new or different...

[/pessimism]
 
I have read somewhere or other that lots of Mexican border towns were supplying cheap manufacturing to the US, but when trade with China started to take off in the nineties that these places often went belly-up. So a bunch of people got unemployed, and apparently this contributes to the criminality problem.

I heard an interview with some guy on the CBC. He wrote a book about the Mexican cartels or something. His voice was all digitally masked cause he was scared of the cartels killing him. Anyways, he was all like "Drugs are cheap. Drugs are garbage. They cost pennies to produce. If drugs were legal there wouldn't be any kind of problem with the drug cartels."

Me, I think legal drugs is a decent idea.

Re. a US intervention:
I think something like this might be necessary eventually. I don't know how supportive the locals would be of such a measure, though. Maybe the OAS or the UN or something could lead the way?
 
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Arkayik said:
It isn't poverty, IMO it is the unequal distribution of wealth, mixed with the huge potential for profits provided by the "War on Drugs" which we've been winning for the past 20 years... That unequal distribution of wealth makes it easy to buy violence and sell lives cheap.

It just happens to be drugs in this case, but I'm sure you could substitute Diamonds or gold or any other commodity...

Humans have been doing this to each other since the dawn of time, and in spite of all our accumulated knowledge and wonderful technology, we still haven't figured out how to tame the greed & violence...

I suppose another big difference is that back in the day we wouldn't have had all the details, the media makes it easy to be informed and shocked about things which aren't really new or different...

[/pessimism]
Click to expand...

I think you ust hit the nail

THIS, I'm Mexican, but I'm admitedly working my way out of here to do research at Spain (hopefully forever...), and I ever noticed this was the main issue.

During the whole period of history Mexico has existed there's always been a HUGE inequality of wealth, there's practically no middle class (numerically speaking compared with the whole population), and the main channels of expression and communication are all owned, censored and regulated by the priviledged people. I do hate sounding like a classic Left Wing socialist activist, but leaving aside ideologies, this is particularly true in Mexico.

There's been a vast amount of wealth for a dozen of important families, who'd been playing in distracting everyone else from what was really happening, even the government is devoted to bring them the most of profit they can make (see "Ley Televisa" or the privatization of Phone Services in the 90's)

Turns out that this mix of disregarding REAL development in the country (like for instance, setting fair competitive standards in communications just to name one thing) and letting a whole bunch of people in poverty is blowing on their face with Drug Lords filling the void of power themselves created (willingly or not).
 
I think there is no single cause to the violence in South America. It's a complex issue, culture certainly plays a major part in some states, like in Venezuela and, seeing the recent crisis, probably Mexico as well. I'm not sure it is as important in other states.
Another vital issue is endemic corruption, which goes hand in hand with poverty and unequal distribution of wealth.
Corruption also results in an increasingly ineffective police force, which eventually grows into a separate and very important issue.

Drugs also play a part, as they provide the criminal organizations with means of lucrative income, but I would have to say they're less important than the above points.

Another possibly important issue is that the entire continent seems to be in the grip of organized crime. There are many places where important figures can hide and not look out of place. Connections can be made across borders and it is difficult to catch the criminals in a continent as fragmented as South America. Colombian actions against FARC in Ecuador and Venezuela are two such examples, and the reactions of their respective governments speak volumes as to how prepared they are to help each other out in this regard (approx. not at all). This is mostly speculation on my part, but it seems plausible enough to mention.

There are probably other issues, which also play a part, but I believe I covered the main ones.

The problem here is that if you eliminate any of the above issues, or even any of the two above issues, the rest are plentiful enough to still cause a major headache. Eliminating any of the above issues in a short term is, unfortunately, impossible.

McHrozni
 
Captain.Sassy said:
Re. a US intervention:
I think something like this might be necessary eventually. I don't know how supportive the locals would be of such a measure, though. Maybe the OAS or the UN or something could lead the way?
Click to expand...

I for starters, would be OK with UN or even US intervention, but the hard part is to assure that the main problems are adressed.

In every past war Mexico fought, the only thing that changed was the name of the rulers and the methods for oppresion, being the Spanish, the French, the dictator in turn, or the Tyranical Pollitical Party (PRI). Now all of these is a shift of power and anarchy emerging from the fact that the monopoly of violence is no more, and criminal activities are in no way punished and pay way better.

In the end, think for a minute, you are a Mexican in a slumdog, you can make your choice of working your ass 10 hours per day in a sh1tt4 job without any social benefits, hearing everyday the major political leaders go case after case of corruption stealing millions without any penalty whatsoever; you also look browner than those pretty people you see on TV so you can be damn sure you'd have a hard time getting into a more important job in an enterprise (because although we do not want to admit it there is a serious problem of racism in Mexico, more subtle but not absent) or a white collar work.

Or you can just sell some d4mn plant, drug or substance and the local dealer will give you a machine gun, and have some money to spare to do fun stuff, right, it has a lot of dangers added, such as getting killed... but hey.. what a life are you looking forward anyway?

When these choices are nothing but hypotetical, the criminal activities will cease.. it is simple, but not easy to accomplish
 
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