Beyond drug wars: Transforming factional conflict in Mexico

Beyond Drug Wars:Transforming Factional Conflict in Mexico

Ami C. Carpenter

Blurring the lines between criminal and civil war, factional conflict inMexico has escalated since 2006 and claimed more than eleven thou-sand lives. This article assesses the viability of Mexico’s military offen-sive against the nation’s drug cartels by analyzing the effects of thisstrategy on destructive conflict escalation. It is argued that the enforce-ment strategy of arresting key druglords has become a proximate factorin escalating Mexico’s violence by promoting intercartel competitionand intensifying leadership struggles. A set of viable third-party alter-natives to the “war on drugs” is explored.

Armed conflict in the twenty-first century blurs the lines between civilwar and crime. Its landscape is populated by nonstate combatants—

street gangs, terrorist cells, druglords, warlords, and criminal organizations.Though such actors are often viewed as criminals, the enforcement policiesused by state actors to deal with nonstate combatants seem poorly matchedto complex political realities, particularly in countries where resilient inter-dependencies exist between criminal and state structures. This article seeksto make sense of the violence in Mexico and explore viable third-party alter-natives to the “war on drugs” or the “war on cartels” currently being waged.The main empirical task is to assess the viability of Mexico’s military offen-sive against the nation’s drug cartels by analyzing the effects of this strategyon destructive conflict escalation. It is argued that the enforcement-and-suppression strategy of arresting key druglords has opened an intercartelpower vacuum that contributes to escalation of violence.

CONFLICT RESOLUTION QUARTERLY, vol. 27, no. 4, Summer 2010 © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 401and the Association for Conflict Resolution • DOI: 10.1002/crq.20004

Studying conflict escalation aids us in two ways. First, it helps explainwhy Mexico’s suppression-enforcement strategy, undertaken with theobjectives of weakening the cartels and reducing drug-related violence,coincides with the opposite effects of increasingly severe violence and climb-ing casualties. Second, because the death toll from this conflict topped tenthousand people in March 2009, studying conflict escalation reminds usthat the first duty of government is to protect the public from harm. Thevery questions posed by this article invite discussion of whether enforce-ment strategies (“drug wars”) are an appropriate primary strategy for deal-ing with druglords when they escalate the intensity, severity, and level ofviolence to which innocent civilians are subjected. Of particular impor-tance to this question are two issues: the extent to which cartels controlland, people, money, and armies; and the historical complicity between thecartels and the Mexican state.

The article begins by situating the violence in Mexico within the ana-lytical framework of factional conflict—a type of conflict that revolvesaround resource control—and providing a necessarily brief overview of themain factors involved. The analysis suggests that the current interventionstrategy is unlikely to succeed in overturning the cartels, and it poses gravehuman security threats to Mexican civilians in its execution. A variety ofalternative strategies, including the role of third-party insiders and out-siders, are explored.

Factional Conflict

Conflict analysts agree it is useful to loosely categorize types of conflict, toaid our understanding of conflict dynamics and intervention choices. Themost fundamental typology distinguishes between interstate and intrastateconflict, but conflict within states also falls into three general categoriesreflecting different end goals or motivations: ideological-revolutionaryconflict, identity-secessionist conflict, and factional-economic conflict(Miall, Ramsbotham, and Woodhouse, 2005). Ideological-revolutionaryconflict seeks to change the nature of the state (from secular to Islamic, forinstance) and identity-secession conflict seeks to alter the integrity of terri-torial composition of the state. The least understood type of conflict is factional-economic conflict (hereafter factional conflict) “in which thefighting is . . . solely about the competing interests or power-struggles ofpolitical or criminal factions” whose aim is to “usurp, seize or retain statepower merely to further particular interests” (2005, p. 30).

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CONFLICT RESOLUTION QUARTERLY • DOI: 10.1002/crq

These are loose, overlapping categories that may be best characterized asa continuum of motivations for conflict, more than one of which can bepresent in any given situation.1 However, they serve as a useful rough guideto differentiating (and analyzing) cases of conflict wherein leaders appearmotivated to use violence for purposes of economic gain rather than politicalgrievance. Factional conflict is deeply rooted in a dynamic where the eco-nomic motivation to pursue conflict becomes compelling (Collier and others, 2003). Herein lies an important distinction between pursuing resourcesin order to keep fighting for a particular goal versus pursuing resources fortheir own sake—a reinforcing rationale for economically motivated armedconflict. Profit over political power is a growing motivation for internal vio-lence, whether diamonds in Sierra Leone and Angola, timber in Liberia andCambodia, or narcotics in Columbia, Mexico, and Afghanistan (Keen,1998). In Mexico, the so-called drug war is better understood as a factionalconflict involving an illicit natural resource in which the goals and methodsof violent competition have shifted over time.

Factional Conflict in Mexico

Economically motivated conflict tends to emerge in places characterized byweak government, a territory in which national forces have limited control,and inequitable economic development. Such “weak states” have a con-stituency: those actors (both state and nonstate) profiting from extortionand unlawful economic dealings who have a vested interest in stymieingprogressive and democratic development in order to further these particu-lar interests (Menkhaus and Prendergast, 1995).

In Mexico, both state and nonstate actors have historically profitedfrom the illicit drug industry. Mexican and U.S. intelligence (Merrill andMiró, 1996; Cook, 2008), academic social researchers (Astorga, 1996),and investigative journalists (Poppa, 1990; Lawson, 2008) have all demon-strated close linkage between high-ranking traffickers and high-rankingpoliticians. Until the 1980s, these politicians belonged to the InstitutionalRevolutionary Party (PRI), which emerged out of the Mexican Revolutionand controlled the Mexican government from 1929 to the mid-1980s. ThePRI essentially operated as a state party system, with the president and hissupporters controlling the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.According to Merrill and Miró (1996), political actors at all levels pursuedopportunities for personal enrichment through illegal landholdings,bribery, theft of public money, and nepotism—and there is evidence thatthe cartels were supported by the PRI as a wealth-generating enterprise.

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Corruption emanated from a top-down interest in generating wealth,with cartels serving as the primary mechanism. Mexican cartel specialistLuis Astorga (2008) argues that “drug traffickers do not give the impres-sion of having emerged as an early autonomous specialised social group,but rather as a new class of outlaws that depended closely on political andpolice protection” (p. 3). Terrence Poppa (1990) notes, “It is an error tothink of the involvement of the Mexican government in drug trafficking interms of corruption, to believe that drug traffickers possess the power tocorrupt. . . . All positions and all authority emanated from the PRI party”(p. 333). The resulting culture of impunity eroded distinctions betweenlegal and illegal actors, with law enforcement (particularly the MunicipalPolice and Mexico’s Federal Investigative Agency) involved in kidnapping,murder, and other criminal activity (Cook, 2008). Informants for drugcartels have been found within municipal and national police, the army, andeven high-level offices tasked with investigating organized crime (Sullivanand Bunker, 2002).

That the complicity of legal and judicial institutions in entrenchmentof criminal interests has played a key role in the rise to power of drug car-tels is a key point to which I will return when considering escalationdynamics. The remainder of this section takes a closer look at the structureand power of drug cartels.

Cartel Structure. Drug cartels are organizations, structured as enter-prises, whose intent is to control the market in which they operate. Mexi-can cartels oversee multiple aspects of the illicit drug sector, includingfinancing, exporting, and selling their product in global markets; they alsocontrol most of the drug distribution centers in the United States (U.S.Department of State, 2007). Like legitimate enterprises, cartels are charac-terized by specialization and division of labor. Mexican cartels employ con-tractors to manage different aspects of their business, including chemists,pilots, accountants, lawyers, architects, and assassins. Unlike legitimateenterprises, drug cartels seek exclusive control over their markets—a hall-mark of organized crime (Schelling, 1971). In seeking to control the mar-ket for illicit drugs, Mexican cartels are characterized by monopolisticbehavior and such behavioral correlates as ruthlessness, greed, andexploitation (Schelling).

Mexico’s drug cartels have generally cooperated strategically, preferringregional agreements on division of Mexico’s smuggling routes and alliancesbetween regionally close cartels, to help contain massive violent conflict

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between cartels. Four main regional organizations or cartels operate inMexico (see Figure 1). The Federation (or Sinaloa Cartel) is an alliance of drug trafficking organizations based in the Sinaloa state near the city ofCuliacan. The Federation has the most extensive geographic reach in Mex-ico, with each family controlling disparate areas along the U.S. border,“much as the Mafia once divided up the boroughs of New York City”(Lawson, 2008, p. 164). The Juarez Cartel is composed of the Vicente Carrillo-Fuentes Organization, run by Rafael Aguilar (a former Mexicanfederal police commander) and Amado Carrillo Fuentes. This syndicatehas historically controlled the middle area of the Mexican–United Statesborder, although a series of seizures and arrests have reduced its power andinfluence. The Gulf Cartel is composed of the Osiel Cárdenas-GuillénOrganization and is based in south Texas (Brownville and Laredo) andnortheastern Mexico in the state of Tamauilipas, controlling the gulfregion. It was the strongest of the border-based cartels until the arrest andconviction of its leader, Juan Garcia-Abrego, in 1996.2 The cartel hasregained much of its power by contracting Los Zetas, a paramilitary com-prising highly trained ex-law enforcement officers. The Tijuana Cartel iscomposed of the Arellano-Félix Organization, run by the four Felix-Arellano brothers and covering northwestern Mexico (U.S. Department ofJustice, 2008). Historically the Tijuana cartel has competed with the Juarezand Gulf cartels, though they allied briefly with the Gulf Cartel in 1998.

Cartel Power: Land, People, Armies. The cartels in Mexico control sig-nificant territory, not from political ideology or claims to legitimategovernance but from control of smuggling routes, sources, markets,and alliances. Either the cartels bribe and coerce local governments tocontrol production and distribution of narcotic drugs in and through aparticular area, or local governments extract fees from the cartels to pro-tect their activities, depending on the account. The former story is told by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, which comments that “President Felipe Calderon may be the constitutionally-elected leaderof the nation, but in reality, drug cartels and warlords exercise de factoauthority over much of the area . . . ruling over whole sections of theMexican countryside like sectoral feudal lords” (Birns and Sanchez,2007, p. 1). The latter story is told by Sullivan and Bunker, whodescribe the state of Quintana Roo, in which the police protect drugshipments and state and local governments collude in drug trafficking(2002).



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Either way, the relationship renders certain areas in Mexico nonstate-governed. The Federation’s influence in Sinaloa is so pervasive that theMexican government seldom ventures into the interior of the state forcounternarcotics operations (U.S. GAO, 2007). In the city of Culiacan, thefocal point for drug trade in the state of Sinaloa, every business is con-nected either directly or indirectly with the illegal drug trade, whetherrestaurants, nightclubs, retail stores, or auto garages. Likewise, El Diaro enLinea in Chihuahua has reported that the large gang La Familia operates inmore than half of the municipalities in the state of Michoacán.

The drug trade in Mexico brings in $23 billion in revenue annually, or20 percent of Mexico’s GDP (U.S. GAO, 2007), produces revenues for morethan two hundred thousand farmers, and indirectly generates jobs in thetransportation, security, banking, and communications sectors (Andreas,1998). Economic incentives, coinciding with patronage systems that pro-vide protective and other services, have resulted in a certain degree of loy-alty, particularly in parts of Mexico where the government is absent(Edberg, 2001).

This relatively recent consolidation of profit and power began duringthe 1980s as campaigns against Medellin and Cali cartels in Colombiaeffectively closed off traditional smuggling routes through the Caribbeanand southern Florida. Colombian traffickers rerouted drug shipmentsthrough Mexico, taking advantage of preexisting smuggling routes formarijuana trafficking. In 1997 the Mexican cartels began to set up theirown supply networks by going directly to Bolivian and Peruvian suppliers,increasing their direct profit and control over trafficking. The role ofColombian groups in cocaine and heroin smuggling and distributiondecreased as the role of the Mexican cartels increased, and by 2005 Mexicancartels had developed into highly sophisticated, vertical enterprises con-trolling revenue of $142 billion a year in cocaine, heroin, marijuana, andmethamphetamine trafficking.

The cartels’ control over armies, like control over land and people, isnot aimed at directly controlling the state but preserving the illicit powerstructure set up alongside the state. In this alternate universe, the cartelscontrol paramilitaries and well-organized street gangs who work the oper-ational end of turf wars and drug trafficking—drug running, highway rob-bery, assassinations, and kidnapping—with these armed groups exertingconsiderable control over urban communities in many parts of Mexico. Asthe power of Mexican cartels has grown, Mexican street gangs also evolveto participate more and more in organized criminal activity. Sullivan and



Bunker (2002) have differentiated between first-generation street gangswho operate locally (by neighborhood or by block) and focus on turf pro-tection and gang loyalty, and second-generation gangs who are entrepre-neurial, drug-centered, and political and who operate within a largergeographic area. Today, many Mexican street gangs resemble the latter:contract killers (sicarios) hired by the cartels to defend territory or competefor new territory. As a former gang member reported to an assessment teamfrom the U.S. Agency for International Development (2006, p. 8 ): “Thereare no more gangs here. What exists now is more dangerous than gangs.The gang member obeys orders from drug cartels. The gangs used to fightfor territory, culture, and identity. Now the cartels recruiting them just fight for power and money” (emphasis added).

The most highly organized, best armed, and most tactically trained ofthe armed paramilitary groups operating in Mexico is Los Zetas, compris-ing primarily disaffected military, federal, state, and local law enforcementpersonnel. Another paramilitary unit, Los Negros (or Beltran Group), wasformed by the Sinaloa Cartel to counter Los Zetas. That President Calderonhas carried out the anticartel war as a counterinsurgency operation byinvolving increasing numbers of military is a testament to their armamentand sophistication.

Conflict Escalation

Conflict refers to “the pursuit of incompatible goals by different groups”(Miall, Ramsbotham, and Woodhouse, 2005, p. 30). Following Galtung’sinfluential model (1996), any situation of conflict is characterized by thetriadic influence of behavior (coercion or cooperation), attitudes (percep-tions, beliefs, and emotions), and underlying structure (competing mate-rial interests; relational structure). As Peter Wallensteen (2002, p. 34)points out:

A classic understanding of conflict sees it as a dynamic phenomenon:one actor is reacting to what another actor is doing, which leads to fur-ther action. Quickly, the stakes in the conflict escalate. . . . The conflicttakes on a life of its own, engulfing the actors and, seemingly irre-sistibly, pushing them into an ever-increasing conflict.

Escalation refers to an increase in the intensity of conflict and severity intactics used (Kriesberg, 1998). It is accompanied by a series of transformations

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in the triad of conflict just mentioned; the number of issues in contentionincreases, each party becomes more absorbed in and committed to the strug-gle, specific issues turn into grandiose positions, and motivation shifts fromwanting to meet goals to wanting to win over the other, and finally to a gen-eralized desire to inflict pain (Pruitt and Kim, 2004). Conflicts involving vio-lence are highly prone to greater use and severity of violent tactics “because aninteractive process of attack and retaliation leads to a self-perpetuating cycle”(Lund, 1996, p. 134). Exposure to violence, potential or actual, triggerssociopsychological responses that include arousal of destructive emotions(fear, anger, shame, humiliation), leading to exaggerated emotional responses,influencing leaders’ decision-making process by influencing cost-benefit cal-culations (Loewenstein, 1996). Heightened polarization between groups andthe greater preference for dehumanizing attitudes and behavior toward theadversary are just a few results (Kriesberg, 1998; Pruitt & Kim, 2004).

Conflict escalation in Mexico is attributable to the military and law-enforcement approach of arresting and extraditing cartel leaders, which hasled to a shift in the cartel’s preference for public and symbolic violence. Mex-ican cartels have generally refrained from targeting civilians in Mexico, per-haps (as with al-Quaeda in Iraq) because local support is crucial whentraffickers need to hide in their midst (Burton and Stewart, 2009), or per-haps because of the “gang ethic,” an informal norm confining drug-relatedviolence to individuals within the drug trade (this is not an altruistic norm;a public that feels safe exerts less pressure on lawmakers to crack down oncrime).3 Regardless of the explanation, a shift in behavior on the part of theMexican government—arresting key druglords—has created a space forcontenders who compete to fill the leadership vacuum, such that previ-ously stable relationships have fractured into competition for power andterritory. For example, the arrest of Joaquín Guzmán-Loera (El Chapo)triggered attacks by the Gulf cartels and their paramilitary to take overSinaloan supply routes. The resulting violence broke apart two Sinaloancartels that had been allied for decades (Beltrán-Leyva and Guzman-Loera).In another example, Gulf and Tijuana cartel leaders (Osiel Cardenas andBenjamin Arellano Felix) escalated the turf wars by negotiating an alliancefrom prison (after their dual arrests) against the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels.More recently, the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels have ended their alliance, andthe Tijuana Cartel has splintered.

The phenomenon of splintering or “fractionalization” has encourageduse of harsher and harsher tactics to project overwhelming strength anddeter would-be challengers (Kriesberg, 1998). Leaders who fear they will



be replaced by challengers and do not want to be perceived as weak or sub-missive tend to grow more militant, developing strong negative attitudesand using extreme tactics. The emergence of paramilitaries such as LosZetas—a particularly ruthless and violent group of highly trained and dis-affected military and law enforcement personnel—exemplifies the surfac-ing of leaders whose livelihood depends on the conflict and who display alack of interest in its resolution.

Alongside heightened competition and the emergence of more militantleadership willing to use extreme tactics, the traditional norms governinguse of violence4 have eased (Rubin, Pruitt, and Kim, 1994). Daylightkilling along with public display of victims has become commonplace(Birns and Sanchez, 2007); beheadings and mutilations signify an escala-tion of symbolic killing from the act itself to its performance. The weaponsused have also changed, from revolvers to machine guns, grenades, andbarrels of acid. Men, women, and children have been killed in gunfights orby kidnappers; doctors treating the wounded have been killed and theirpatients executed. Prominent journalists have also been targeted, thoughthis is not a new dynamic; the editors of El Mañana in Nuevo Laredo andZeta in Tijuana were both murdered after printing stories about cartel lead-ers. According to Javier Valdez, one of the few journalists who continuewriting about the drug trade, “The old kind of narco was generous. . . . Hehelped people. Before, they didn’t kill women or kids. Now they sell fear”(Lawson, 2008, p. 47). In other words, the “old kind of narco” sought toavoid direct confrontation with law enforcement, trading a modicum ofsocial order (avoidance of wide-scale public violence) for relative impunityto operate.

As the “adversary” has expanded rival cartels to include governmentand civilian stakeholders, so has the goal of waging conflict, from “doingwell” (intercartel rivalries over routes and resources) to “winning” (the rightto return to trafficking) to “hurting the other.” The goal of doing wellaccounts for intercartel rivalries over routes and resources; this type of con-flict escalated in the late 1980s when the PRI lost political power, effec-tively dissolving the interpersonal relationships upon which state-cartelalliances had been based. The resulting uncertainty about the future andmistrust led to an increasingly competitive climate that destabilized previ-ous regional agreements and alliances between cartels, escalating violencebetween them.

The goal of winning then emerged over time alongside the enforce-ment strategy, directed not at outright control of the state but at preserving

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control over territory (locations, cities, routes) and the illegal power struc-ture set up alongside or below the level of government. The nature of con-flict has shifted from economically motivated violence to emergence of adirect confrontation with the Mexican government for political legitimacyand influence over population centers. In a grisly public relations battle,organizations blame and accuse one another for anticivilian tactics (LosZetas and La Familia hang huge banners throughout respective cities, eachblaming the other for killing “innocent civilians”), and some have evendemanded that journalists and media outlets give public attention to theactivities of corrupt officials, not just criminal organizations (Booth,2008). By contrast, violent tactics designed to “shock and awe” along withtheir dissemination via the Internet and traditional media are designed tosap public confidence in the government. Jorge Chabat (2002) believesthat civilian attacks represent direct confrontation to destabilize thenational government, signifying a shift from the goal of winning to hurt-ing the other.

Conflict analysts view this goal as a largely “irrational” type of conflict,driven primarily by emotions of anger, betrayal, humiliation, dishonor, orshame accompanying perceived injustice and rule violation (Gilligan,2001; O’Neill, 1999). These psychosocial explanations shed light on cartelleadership’s seemingly irrational motivation to confront the Mexican gov-ernment directly. Specifically, the enforcement offensive contradicts a longhistory of collusion on the part of government officials in the drug trade,and it might represent a significant “rule violation” capable of triggeringstrong negative attitudes and behaviors. Research on conflict escalation hasfound that sudden, rapid, and seemingly irreversible changes in the rela-tionship between two parties lead to increasingly severe tactics and negativeattitudes. Is the severed relationship between cartel and government lead-ership responsible for the escalation in intensity of conflict and the severityof tactics used in its pursuit?

Answers to this question are hypothetical only. Arrests of high-rankinggovernment officials for their links to the cartels, including the command-ing officer of Mexico’s police force and the head of the government’s Spe-cial Unit Against Organized Crime Investigation, seem to indicate aserious shift in the political norm. However, at least one piece of evidenceseems to contradict the claim that the old ties between state and criminalactors have been completely severed. Transparencia Mexico reports thatMexicans spent 2.6 billion U.S. dollars in bribes in 2007—an increase of42 percent from 2005.



Failing State or Failing Policies?

Alternative Ideas for Transforming Factional Conflict

The first duty of government is to protect the public from harm. Ostensi-bly undertaken with this goal in mind, the enforcement strategy—the“drug war” in Mexico—has instead escalated the level, intensity, and sever-ity of violence. So how should the Mexican government weigh its duty toprotect between the harm caused by criminal activity on the one hand, andthe harm caused by civilian casualties as a result of responding withenforcement strategies on the other? Although the dialogue around thisquestion ought to be seriously undertaken, the purpose of this article ismore modest. The simple argument of this final section is that there arefeasible alternatives to the current military approach.

Earlier, it was noted that economically motivated conflict emerges inweak states wherein there already exists a constituency of state and nonstateactors who profit from the status quo. The phrase estamos todos enradados(“we are all entangled”) expresses the Central American understanding ofconflict as a tangle of contradictory views, or “a knot of problematic relation-ships, conflicting interests and differing worldviews” (Miall, Ramsbotham,and Woodhouse, 2005 p. 164). The deep roots of such conflicts are lack ofhuman development and weak democratic institutions, but a militaryapproach can neither directly influence these structural variables noruntangle the resulting problematic relationships. Moreover, the enforce-ment strategy has itself become a proximate factor in escalating Mexico’sviolence by promoting intercartel competition and intensifying leadershipstruggles. There is a role for an enforcement strategy, but only nestedwithin a broader strategy of conflict resolution.

Conflict resolution is a concept with operational and structural dimen-sions. Operational refers to strategies (often third party in nature) that endviolence, and structural seeks to address underlying, root causes (repressiveinstitutions, unequal distribution of social goods) of conflict. This distinc-tion has been called negative and positive peace (Galtung, 1996), light and deep prevention (Miall, Ramsbotham, and Woodhouse, 2005), andrestrictive or inclusive conflict resolution (Avruch, 1998). Given thetremendous economic and paramilitary resources of Mexican cartels andthe intransigence (so far) of the international community to undercut theprofitability of the industry through legalization, a combination of strate-gies must be used to address the complex motivations, pathologies, inter-ests, and levels of actors involved, and to erode (over time) the resilient

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interdependencies between criminal and state structures. These strategiescould include short-term (operational) strategies to arrest violence and pro-tect civilians in Mexico and long-term (structural) strategies to reduce thepower of cartels over time and address the underlying conditions of theiremergence and consolidation.

Operational Strategies. According to the Crime Indicator Database forthe Justice in Mexico Project at the University of San Diego’s Trans-BorderInstitute, the primary conflict zones in Mexico are seven states accountingfor 81 percent of the casualties and where fighting among the cartels is thehighest: Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Baja California, Edomex, Guerrero, Durango,and Michoacán. The first set of strategies would aim to arrest further esca-lation of violence starting in these states, and it would target irregular lead-ers (druglords and ganglords) with a hand-in-hand approach of ceasefirenegotiations and targeted strikes.

Like the negotiations under way between the Afghanistan governmentand Taliban moderates, negotiation with irregular or nonstate actorsbecomes more plausible when evidence of a hurting stalemate mounts(Zartman, 2000). On the basis of the social organization and military-economic strength of the cartels alone, there is a statistically lower likeli-hood of settling this conflict through military victory than through somesort of negotiated agreement (Humphreys, 2005). Negotiations in thiscontext would not aim at halting the drug trade but at bringing a halt todaily kidnappings and gunfights by seeking out and concentrating effortson influential druglords and ganglords, perhaps beginning with those whoshare a political interest in reducing civilian violence. The street gang LaFamilia in Michoacán has spoken out publicly against anticivilian violence(Lacey, 2008) and Sanchez Arellano of the Tijuana Cartel demanded a cut-back in kidnappings because of the negative publicity they generated, split-ting with an old ally over the issue. In Killing Civilians, Slim (2008) arguesthat efforts to achieve pro-civilian impact in an armed group must seek outand concentrate on its influential leaders, suggesting that “investment inthe right 20 percent of an anti-civilian target group could produce 80 per-cent of any pro-civilian results” (p. 288). Where similar strategies of polit-ical engagement have been used in Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Somalia, andTajikistan, Lezhnev reports (2005), some success in arresting mass violenceand working out gradual disbanding of criminal warlord organizationswhose leaders, like in Mexico’s cartels, have close ties to state and military offi-cials, control subnational areas through military or paramilitary forces loyal



to the individual leader, and are motivated largely by personal interest asopposed to public good.

If undertaken, such a strategy would be carried out under the radar as“second track” or unofficial talks, saving face and avoiding embarrassmentfor all sides (Rupesinghe, 1998). They could involve cartel leaders and for-mer government officials who have previous relationships with certain car-tels but no longer officially represent the Mexican government. However,the window of opportunity may be closing to acknowledge the stalemateand look for alternative options; as the cartels splinter, previous relation-ships and lines of communication between government officials and cartelleaders will be lost and organized criminal organizations may begin toresemble terrorist cells, loosely and horizontally structured and with noclear leadership.

If some cartels appear to be minimally responsive to civilian casualties,other armed groups such as the paramilitary Los Zetas have cultivated anidentity around nihilistic violence. Here is where an enforcement strategyis crucial, and particularly one that uses overwhelming and impressiveshows of force. Strong displays of military power have an important psy-chological effect in that they communicate a strong political will not to tol-erate anti-civilian tactics and can contribute to the perception of stalemate(Lezhnev, 2005). Importantly, a targeted enforcement strategy also rewardsgroups that project some degree of pro-sociality and who may serve aspotential allies in reestablishing rules of the game—a precedent that mayalready exist. A senior law enforcement officer in Mexico reported thatJoaquín Guzmán-Loera (of the Federation) was at one time released fromprison to fight Los Zetas, but on the condition that he refrain from kid-napping, robbery, and killing civilians (Lawson, 2008). More recently, in January 2009 Social Democratic Party member Jorge Carlos Diaz Cuervo andSecretary General Luciano Pascoe also spoke out in favor of legalizing and for-mally regulating cartels; these are statements suggesting a belief that somecriminal leaders are willing to negotiate (and then conform to) a modicumof pro-civilian norms and practices.

The second set of strategies aims to protect civilians from further violence.One of the greatest current threats to civilians is kidnapping; however mostoccurrences go unreported because of lacking citizen confidence in the cor-rupt police system, resulting in a high level of impunity for kidnappers.Arrests and prosecutions are minimal, and in an article on police corruptionMarla Dickerson and Cecilia Sanchez (2008) report that both ex-police offi-cers and current officers have been involved in kidnapping cases. Reasonable

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alternatives for protecting human security include security contractors,deployed under the authority of the Mexican government; a regionally basednetwork of human rights experts to help with on-the-ground monitoring; anddeployment of United Nations police to the areas most affected by violence.

In addition, targeted sanctions in the form of arms embargoes can beused to control the flow of arms to Mexico from the United States. TheMexican government reports that 97 percent of the arms used by Mexicancartels are purchased in the United States and smuggled south, and theMerida Initiative has been criticized for its lack of attention to this fact.Sanctions of financial accounts can go hand in hand.

Demobilization and amnesty options for street gangs and paramili-taries are also appropriate strategies for disarming former “combatants.”Such options could be negotiated only in the context of a larger settlementwith cartels, for whom exit options could also be offered. The UnitedNations could oversee a version of the Disarmament, Demobilization, andReintegration Program used in other postconflict societies (Nilson, 2007)to demobilize gang foot-soldiers and provide education and job training.The root causes of gang formation are social and economic: poor access toeducation and employment opportunities, overcrowded and stressful liv-ing conditions, and feelings of social exclusion. Many gang membersreport similar motivations for membership: identity, security, and income(U.S. Agency for International Development, 2006). The strong economicincentives should not be underemphasized; the opportunities to makemoney by trafficking drugs, weapons, and humans across the border aresalient and attractive. Still, barring transformation of these illicit trades,mediated talks aimed at ceasefire agreements between leaders and membersof rival gangs (like those successfully brokered in 1992 between the Bloodsand Crips in Los Angeles, and still upheld) could immediately reduce com-munity violence.

Structural Strategies. Root causes of violence in Mexico include perva-sive rural and urban poverty, entrenched corruption in existing govern-mental structures, and the cultural association of druglords withmodernity and progress. It will take more than a military campaign to address the weak political environment that has allowed druglordism totake root. A peacebuilding approach is required that builds the capacity forprevention of violence by addressing key issues of relationship in terms ofboth political and economic governance (Reychler, 2001). First, interna-tional investment in good governance takes the form of a long-term (ten to



fifteen year) aid package including benchmarked commitments to com-bating corruption, improving local governance, training the military andpolice, increasing their salaries, and improving accountability. This aidpackage could be applied with assistance from the United Nations Officeon Drugs and Crime (UNODC), whose expertise in running similar proj-ects includes sponsoring police training, furnishing contracted securityforces in towns and neighborhoods, and holding accountable civilian institutions—the police, prosecutors, and the judicial system. UNODCalso encourages a community-based approach that helps to counter clien-telism by helping to develop social institutions for conflict resolution.Patron-client networks can erode over time, with alternative models formanaging resources and working out social compromises.

Second, international investment in community development and pre-vention programs is needed to improve socioeconomic conditions on theground. Sympathy for druglords and participation in trafficking is ulti-mately driven by lack of alternatives for economic or political status. Inaddition, prevention programs that address domestic violence, schoolattendance, and intervention programs for at-risk and criminallyinvolved youth are necessary. A USAID assessment of gang formationand activity in Central America and Mexico (2006, p. 32) reports thatthe root causes of gang activity in Mexico are “marginalized urban areaswith minimal access to basic services, high levels of youth unemploymentcompounded by insufficient access to educational opportunities, over-whelmed and ineffective justice systems, easy access to arms and an illiciteconomy, dysfunctional families, and high levels of intra-familial vio-lence.” In this regard, a domestic program launched by the U.S. Depart-ment of Justice serves as a good model for tackling gang violence inAmerican communities; the Office of Justice Programs offers blockgrants to communities to put in place comprehensive programs to pre-vent, intervene in, and suppress youth gang violence. Initiatives are com-munity-based, decentralized, and accountable to the community’s ownbenchmarks for success.

Such programs also fit with the recommendations of the UnitedNations Study on Violence Against Children and a national report by theMexican Ministry of Health in 2007. Finding (among other things) thatmurder is the second most common cause of death for young people aftercar accidents, and that a majority of women and 32 percent of childrenreported experiencing violence in the home and in school, recommenda-tions include improving coverage and quality of services for children who

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have been victims of violence, and engaging national institutions in pass-ing and enforcing legislation to prevent all forms of violence.

Finally, scaling up regional cooperation between governments and lawenforcement agencies can interrupt the financial networks that supportdrug (and human) smuggling. Already, Arizona and Sonora work acrossthe border to intercept wire transfers suspected of being used to pay smug-glers in their state, and to improve radio communication among local,state, and federal law enforcement agencies. Cooperation at the interna-tional level is less effective, and regional partnerships (such as the MeridaInitiative) focus primarily on enforcement policies. Regional cooperationshould encompass Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, andNicaragua (all of which share the burden of transborder organized crimenetworks) and should include enforcement along with a serious investmentin prevention, intervention, and enforcement programs. Building trust,crafting a common agenda, and establishing information-sharing mecha-nisms can strengthen current efforts.

Conclusion

The conventional understanding of Mexico’s violence as a “drug war”—aviolent conflict between law enforcement and actors in the illegal drugtrade wherein ordinary people are relatively unaffected—suggests policingand suppression are appropriate strategies. Yet these strategies have to dateproved ineffective both in protecting civilians and in undermining thepower and influence of the cartels. The drug trade is global. Military offen-sives in one country simply push distribution networks across borders,from Colombia to Mexico and now from Mexico into Guatemala’s high-lands. The same unregulated growing that led to deforestation in Mexico’sSierra Madres and exploitation of local people such as the TarahumaraIndians (Shoumatoff, 1995) has now resulted in land appropriation inGuatamala’s Peten province and expulsion of resident Mayan communi-ties. Ultimately, state governments will need to absorb and regulate, tovarying degrees, the extraction, production, and distribution of resources,whether poppy cultivation in Afghanistan (Goodhand, 2008); oil, dia-mond, and mineral deposits in Congo, Sudan, and Somalia (Humphreys,2005); or marijuana and cocaine in Mexico.

Treating Mexico’s factional conflict as a struggle between “criminals”and “government” also overlooks the fact that governmental actors have

been complicit for decades in the extent to which Mexican drug cartelsamassed considerable economic and political power. If Mexico and otherstates continue to reject legalization as a viable alternative, then returning toa level of political engagement with powerful druglords, as with warlords inAfghanistan, Sierra Leone, and Tajikistan, will be necessary to prevent massviolence, not only to save lives but to encourage an environment where atthe least development of legitimate businesses can thrive alongside criminalenterprises. In other words, national laws and policies need to be adapted tothe political realities of contemporary armed conflict. We are more than adecade beyond original assertions that armed conflict in the twenty-firstcentury would blur the lines between civil war and crime, but public policylags behind this complexity. For the sake of human security, the political willfor a broader approach is best initiated sooner rather than later.

Notes

1. Trade in illicit resources often funds ideological or identity-basedmovements, and economic motivations often spur involvement in armedpolitical struggle. For example, during the South African civil war, the AfricanNational Congress (ANC) financed military operations through criminalactivities. Moreover, many black South Africans involved in the armed strugglewere motivated by extreme poverty, and desire for better government services asopposed to identity-based aspirations like racial equality. Today, the Talibaninsurgency in Afghanistan (an ideological conflict) is funded in large part bythe opium trade, as are local farmers.2. At the time of his arrest, Abrego owned hotels, real estate, and an air taxiservice in Texas, and even more extensive holdings in Mexico includingnewspapers, hotels, construction firms, lumber companies, moving businesses,ranches, and real estate (Elkridge, 2001). He was also tied to Raul Salinas, thebrother of former Mexican President Carlos Salinas (president from 1988 to1994); Elkridge (2001).3. For the same reason perhaps, cartels have generally refrained from targetinggovernmental officials. Stable systemic cooperation depended on across-the-board protection for government officials regardless of their loyalty to aparticular cartel; thus state actors were off-limits in intercartel rivalries.4. Needs assessments conducted in California in 2008 generated interview datawith residents and service providers that noted that incarceration of older gangmembers created opportunities for younger, more inexperienced members totake control of gangs, leading to disorganization. Respondents attributedincreasingly violent gang behavior to the actions of younger members seekingto impress the gang veterans with more brazen acts of violence. Otherinformants discussed the parole of older gang members who were incarceratedin the 1990s in creating power struggles and rearrangement of territories.

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Ami C. Carpenter is an assistant professor at University of San Diego, spe-cializing in violence prevention and mitigation strategies in factional conflictscharacterized by armed non-state actors.



Beyond drug wars: Transforming factional conflict in Mexico

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