Monday, December 28, 2009
Mexican Drug War Success hangs on Targeting Overlords
By Patrick Corcoran
On Dec. 16, Arturo Beltrán Leyva was killed in a shootout
with Mexican marines in Cuernavaca, Mexico, a mid-sized southern city best known as a weekend getaway for wealthy Mexico City
denizens. Beltrán Leyva is the first top-level drug trafficker to be killed or captured in Mexico since 2003, when Osiel Cárdenas
was arrested by Mexican police.
Insofar as an alleged criminal, largely responsible for
the violence plaguing the nation over the past three years, is no longer out and about, Beltrán Leyva's elimination is good
news for Mexico and President Felipe Calderón.
But beyond its value as a public relations score –
Mexicans finishing up their evening soap operas were alerted to the news within a couple hours of its occurrence, with TV
networks running vivid footage of the firefight, Beltrán Leyva’s death is cause for worry, not celebration. Beltrán
Leyva was just one of a constellation of capos operating in Mexico, and his death is unlikely to lessen the threat posed by
organized crime. As ever, a dozen would-be kingpins are eager to take Beltrán Leyva's place, and his death will have no measurable
impact on the flow of cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamine northward to the United States.
Furthermore, as much as Mexican society cheered a killer’s
comeuppance, if history provides any guide, Beltrán Leyva’s death will only spark more violence. His underlings and
competitors are going to be gunning for his market share, while his comrades will be looking for vengeance. Such was the case
in Tamaulipas after Cárdenas’s arrest; Juárez following the death of Amado Carrillo; Tijuana thanks to the disintegration
of the Arellano Félix leadership; and on and on goes the list.
That longtime pattern of retribution tragically reemerged
on Dec. 20, when the family of Melquisedet Angulo, the lone marine killed in the Cuernavaca operation, became a target; hours
after laying Angulo to rest, his mother and three other family members were murdered while inside of their home in the east
coast state of Tabasco.
The same day, gunmen fired upon a handful of
municipal and state officials meeting in a restaurant in Piedras Negras, Coahuila (including the mayor of Eagle Pass, Texas,
which is right across the border), though no one was hurt. Elsewhere, the Secretary of Tourism in Beltrán Leyva's home state
of Sinaloa was murdered along with his driver while riding around the state’s capital. It's not clear if the latter
two attacks had anything to do with Beltrán Leyva's death, but at the very least they are a reminder that the worst symptoms
of the drug trade go well beyond the existence of one bad guy.
Whether or not there is a broader silver lining to the
wave of violence that seems to be in the offing depends a great deal on what happens next. If Calderón and company want this
event to be remembered as an important step toward a safer Mexico, rather than the detonator of a new descent into dystopia,
they must replicate the successes of the operation.
People often talk about the need for a pact between Mexico’s
government and drug-traffickers, such as the one that supposedly held for most of the 1980s and the 90s. Only under such conditions,
it is argued, will there be any peace in Mexico's drug trade. Unfortunately, if such an explicit pact ever did exist, it seems
impossible to recover today as the industry is far more fragmented than it was two decades ago.
Instead, Calderón (and his successors) needs to aim for
a tacit understanding with drug traffickers: arresting those who attack the state and lead multinational operations will be
the first priority for the government. Those who keep their operations smaller and less violent have a better chance of avoiding
attention and capture.
Such an understanding is impossible as long as people
like Beltrán Leyva are caught only once every five years or so. But if Calderón can take down Beltrán Leyva’s counterparts
in other organizations, if he can assert Mexico’s ability to dismantle whichever organization poses the biggest threat
at any given time, then he encourages Beltrán Leyva’s heirs to adopt a more cautious, defensive modus operandi.
Eliminating another bunch of kingpins would surely cause
more bloodshed in the near term (especially if no effort is made to attack their underlying logistical and financial networks
at the same time), but as long as the most famous capos operate with utter impunity, organized crime will remain a grave problem
in Mexico.
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Patrick Corcoran (corcoran25@hotmail.com) is a writer who resides in Torreón, Coahuila. He blogs at Gancho (http://www.ganchoblog.blogspot.com/).
