Santiago - 5-28-2010 at 07:04 AM
The following is an abstract from this week's New Yorker.
ABSTRACT: LETTER FROM MEXICO about La Familia Michoacana and the pervasive power of drug traffickers in the country. Writer visits the hill town of
Zitácuaro in the Mexican state of Michoacán.
On the morning before his arrival, the dismembered body of a young man was left in the middle of the main intersection. It was an instance of what
people call corpse messaging. Usually it involves a mutilated body and a handwritten sign. “Talked too much.” “You get what you deserve.” The corpse’s
message—terror—was clear enough and everybody knew who left it: La Familia Michoacana, a crime syndicate whose depredations pervade the life of the
region.
Mexico’s president, Felipe Calerón declared war—his metaphor—on the country’s drug traffickers when he took office, in December, 2006. It was a
popular move. Although large-scale trafficking had been around for decades, the violence associated with the drug trade had begun to spiral out of
control. More than twenty-three thousand people have died since Calderón’s declaration. La Inseguridad, as Mexicans call it, has become engulfing,
with drugs sliding far down the list of public concerns, below kidnapping, extortion, torture, unemployment, and simple fear of leaving the house.
The big crime syndicates still earn billions from drugs, but they have also diversified profitably. In Michoacán a recent estimate found eight-five
per cent of legitimate businesses involved in some way with La Familia. Among Mexico’s drug trafficking organizations, La Familia is the big new kid
on the block. It first gained national attention in September, 2006, when five severed heads rolled onto the dance floor at a night club in Uruapan,
Michoacán. A senior American official in Mexico City told the writer, “La Familia is looking more and more like an insurgency and less like a cartel.”
Mentions one of La Familia’s leaders, Nazario Moreno González, who is also known as El Chayo, or El Más Loco (the Craziest). Writer discusses La
Familia’s activities with a local politician and relates how the cartel has, in some places, filled the vacuum created by public distrust of the
police and the courts. The overwhelming growth of organized crime in Mexico in the past decade is often blamed on multiparty democracy. Until 2000,
the country was basically a one-party state for seventy-one years under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Drug trafficking flourished, but
its practitioners enjoyed stable relations with officialdom.
Describes how the election of Vicente Fox in 2000 changed the status quo between drug traffickers and government. Writer gives a survey of other
significant Mexican drug cartels, including the Sinaloa cartel, and the Zetas, who had previously occupied Michoacán. Tells about the rise of La
Familia in 2006 and its expansion into nearby states. Discusses U.S.-Mexico relations and the drug trade. Writer visits a drug-rehabilitation center
in Zamora. Describes acts of kidnapping and extortion perpetrated by La Familia.
In order to read the entire piece, first sign up for a free trial subscription at
http://archives.newyorker.com/skins/realview/tny/register.as...
and then go to link below:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/05/31/100531fa_fact_...
Well worth the hassle.
wessongroup - 5-28-2010 at 03:54 PM
It's there and has been for a very long time.. there are also many good folks there too... know one...
Bajahowodd - 5-28-2010 at 04:11 PM
Is it a veiled campaign ad for the PRI? Would Mexico fare better if La Familia governed the country? What is described is not that much different from
what has happened in other parts of the world where poverty and dictatorship abound. Think Hamas, for instance. Sometimes a free market economy does
not lift all boats. And when there exists massive amounts of poverty, telling folks that cutting taxes will support small businesses and thereby
create jobs, just doesn't cut it. This situation is probably one of the US' major blind spots. You cannot just impose democracy everywhere and expect
a positive result. Sure, representative democracy is the best way to go. But, to achieve it, in the end, there may need to be interim steps. Let's
just watch and "enjoy" the new Iraq. There's substantial evidence to indicate that despite the demonization of Saddam, Iraqi society had not yet
evolved to a point where there could be peaceful dialogue between the disparate factions. I'm of the mind that we could have worked with him to
gradually transform Iraqi society and institutions. Bush had his own agenda. And it frankly had nothing to do with bringing democracy to Iraq.
That said, Mexico face some of the same challenges. There is abject poverty in many areas. The poor will respond to those that feed them, clothe them,
house them. They are for the most part, lacking patience for the results of a social engineering project developed by Ivy League guys.