State Capacity and Feral Enclaves

Proceso called Cd. Juárez a place “Where the Narco rules.” Essentially, we are seeing a war of “all against all.” Beheadings, mutilations, low-tech car bombings (consider the 15 July 2010 attack on the Policia Federal), drive-bys, and fire-bombings or assassinations of civil society actors punctuate the daily press. Indeed, the press is victim to the violence as the cartels seek to establish the agenda for public reportage.

Ciudad Juárez’s El Diario newspaper printed an editorial last year that asked Mexico’s drug cartels the question of what and what not is OK to publish? The editorial, published a day after the funeral of one its photographers who was murdered during his lunch break, essentially asked, “What can we publish?”  This implicitly acknowledged the agenda-setting and latent political power of the cartels in the battle for Mexican social space. 

The cartels are effectively engaged in a “power-counterpower” battle with the state. Call it subversion of information operations—the result is the same.  Cartels are a de facto challenge to state capacity—whether they seek to or not.  “Mexico’s criminal groups are fighting not only for the control of physical territory but also for control of information in many areas of the country,” according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Is Mexico a failed state? Many (especially those on the ground in contested colonias) would say yes, given the fact that several cartels like La Familia survived and grew by becoming a warped version of Robin Hood (acting as social bandits) to thousands of poor peasants who could not rely on the Mexican government for jobs and essential services. Members of La Familia provided food, shelter and yes—legitimate jobs to citizens when the government could not or would not. 

Even Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa cartel, the largest organized crime organization in Mexico, does it. He provides money and food to many residents of small towns in Sinaloa, not only guaranteeing loyalty but guaranteeing his safety as citizens serve as lookouts—knowing full well Guzman is their provider and they will give him a heads-up when Mexican law enforcement units show up.  More recently, we see examples of Los Zetas providing social goods in their “conquered“ areas.

The cartels may not seek a social or political agenda, but once they control turf and territory and effectively displace the state, they have no choice—they become “accidental insurgents.”

Societal disintegration or Urbicide?

Juárez is expected to end up with an estimated 8,500 orphaned children by the year 2012, according to a study by researchers at the Autonomous University of Juárez.  Added to the daunting specter of the cartels and war of all against all, endemic and expanding street gang violence, endemic femicides, and judicial impunity, this seems to be the recipe for societal disintegration.  Civil society is chilled, journalists are silenced, and criminals reign.  Police, paramedics and taxi drivers are killed; workers flee (becoming refugees or internally displaced persons)—even the mayor sleeps across the border in El Paso, Texas!  

Narco-culture (narcocultura) promises to overtake established culture as the marginalized seek a viable place in the social strata.  Consider the video game "Call of Juarez: The Cartel."  A graphic shoot-‘em up that uses feral Juárez and cross-border conflict as a backdrop, the game has been lambasted by US and Mexican officials, but the draw of mayhem continues.

If you don’t have a computer you can opt for the alternate “narco-saint” of your liking: Jesus Malverde, if aligned with the Sinaloa crew; or Santa Muerte if you feel affinity with the Zetas.  An alternate reality that challenges Western state sensibilities appears to be in the making.

Expanding Barbarization

Ciudad Juárez seems to be the tip of the iceberg, a dark spot on the map of Mexico, yet the conflict expands. After four years of dramatic military sweeps in Chihuahua (largely in Cd. Juárez itself) and neighboring Tamaulipas, the narcos are extending their control over large areas and the state governments seem powerless to stop them. 

Monterrey, Mexico’s “second city,” and Ciudad Victoria in Tamaulipas, not to mention Acapulco (increasingly known by the moniker “Narcopulco”), are also under the gun.

Barbarization is also apparently on the rise.  Earlier this month police found the severed head of a two-month-old baby dumped in the town of Delicias, in Chihuahua, in a cruel revenge attack.

The narcos have yet to successfully wage a major terror attack like their Colombian counterparts, who set off powerful car bombs in busy streets and killed 107 people in bombing a commercial airliner in 1989. But sicarios (hit men) have killed at least 14 mayors across Mexico over the past year….

Conclusion: Finding a solution

Cd. Juárez is effectively under siege from criminal elements.  Call it brigandage, “criminal insurgency” or what you may, but the siege must be broken—both symbolically and practically. 

Is there a solution? Many believe a new president may be able to negotiate with the cartels instead of declaring war on them like Felipe Calderón did.  No matter who is elected the problems will continue until a solution is found to the growing economic disparity between the haves and have-nots in Mexico.

Perhaps helping Latin American countries, nations in our own backyard, develop their economies instead of assisting other countries halfway across the globe could be one solution. If Latin American counties can provide legitimate employment and education to their own citizens they may not have to resort to other means to provide food and shelter for their loved ones.

Certainly security is a prerequisite to stability and vibrant civil society.  Reforming the police, enhancing civil society actors, judicial reform, and meaningful social and economic opportunity are essential.  Yet, the means to building security requires great effort.  As we write, state police in Mexico are seeking authorization from SEDENA (Mexico’s DOD) to arm themselves with grenades.  Certainly grenades are not the staple of civil police in normal times.  Mexico seems to be in a “state of exception.”

Militarization of the police is not the answer.  Acknowledging the depth of the threat, building new security structures (such as a gendarmerie or civil guard), bolstering the Federal Police, strengthening state and local police, and building counter-violence initiatives within civil society institutions would be a start.  So would an end to the legacy of impunity.