Violence and Safety in Northern Mexico

Mexico needs help.  While living or travelling in resort areas remains safe for foreigners, for expatriates or travellers in the border states you should be careful.  Very careful.  I have travelled to every state in Mexico (a two-year journey) and have lived in Chihuahua for 8 years.  I have never been afraid for my safety or the safety of my family -- even during President Calderon's initial crackdown on drug cartels -- until recently.

I live in a gated neighborhood and drive only during daylight hours.  My travel is basically limited to work, the grocery store, friends' homes, and occasional weekend excursions with the kids.  We never go the restaurants or the movie theaters at night (thank God for cable).  Despite these limited activities, in the past year I have personally witnessed acts of brutal violence and chaos.  Below are some examples.

While waiting at a traffic light at 6:00 p.m. on some idle Thursday night some months ago, a saw two men gunned down in their car directly in front of me.  A masked gunman pulled up beside them, casually looked around and unloaded 2 clips from an AK-47 into the car, then simply drove away.  I was at a local convenience store one evening when a gun battle between rival cartels erupted in the parking lot.  I've seen bodies in the streets so freshly-killed that the police had not arrived.  If you ask anyone living in Chihuahua if they know someone who has been a victim of a violent crime, you will get a 100% affirmative response.  (With over 40,000 murders since 2006 this shouldn't be much of a surprise.)  I've had several former students killed or kidnapped.  It is not uncommon for some my students to wear GPS tracking bracelets on their ankes in case they are kidnapped.  Recently my wife's cousin was kidnapped for ransom, tortured, and shot.  More people have been killed in Mexico in the last 5 years than the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.

To be sure, crime has always been a problem in Mexico.  But now it is completely out of control.  Not just drug cartel crime, but carjackings, kidnappings, rampant extortion, home invasions, as well as an increase in property crimes.  Everyone is afraid: The poor, the growing middle class, and the rich alike.  You can see it in their faces and read it in their activites.  Thousands of businesses have closed because of extortion, and others have closed voluntarily (like restaurants) because their customer base  is too afraid to go out.  I do not exaggerate when I say that it feels like living in a war zone.  And I know because I've lived in some.

All of this begs the question: What is the answer to violence and insecurity in Northerm Mexico?  I'll admit that I do not know.  But what I do know is that Calderon's war has made things worse, not better, for the average person living here.  Ex-president Fox basically ignored the cartels -- other than the obligatory arrests of top members from time-to-time -- and there was peace.  The problem with aggressivley pursuing the cartels with all of the assets of the military and law enforcement is that the challenge can not solved with physical force.  The drug trafficking industry takes in billions of dollars every year, allowing the cartels to utilize sophisticated communication networks, intelligence networks, and even rudimentary levels of PR.  In a poor country where an average police officer makes a thousand dollars a month, they are experts at infiltrating local law enforcement.  In a country were 47% of the population lives below the poverty line and 18.2% live in abject poverty, it is not difficult to co-opt young people to work for you.  If you are a young person living in the all-too-familiar neighborhoods of Northern Mexican cities, with poor plumbing, dirt streets, and what is more, with no hope of a better future, getting paid well for simply watching for a certain car to pass by then inform your contact, is almost impossible to resist.  What is more, the opportunity for promotion is almost unlimitted.  The fact that the government is becoming adept at capturing and killing major cartel players is basically irrelevant.  There are ample people willing to take the next promotion.

The status quo of this cat and mouse game, given the vast amounts of money involved, unfortunately, can go on for the foreseeable future.  Most drug enforcement experts agree that the War on Drugs in the U.S. has been lost.  Many drugs are more available, more widely used, cheaper, and of higher quality than at any other time in history.  The supply will simply follow the demand.

All of this makes me sad because Mexico is such a fascinating country to live and work in, and the friendliest, hardest-working people in the world who have had to suffer so much poverty and bad governments, don't deserve this.  Perhaps one day things will be better.  I am not hopeful.

If you are travelling, working, or planning on visiting Northern Mexico, please be very careful.  Head the State Department's travel warnings.