Gunmen stormed a crowded casino in northern Mexico on Thursday and ignited a fire that trapped patrons inside, killing at least 53 people in what the nation’s president called an “aberrant act of terror.” – LA Times
Just when you think things in Mexico couldn’t get any bloodier, you find out you’re wrong. The unwinding of the Mexican state is threatening to reach Somali proportions if the trajectory of violence continues.
What makes the chaos in Mexico likely to continue to intensify is the fact that the insurgent cartels, while every bit as violent as their African counterparts, have no interest in actually taking control of the state. Rather, as Max Manwaring points out in his recent regional overview of the area’s “Transnational Criminal Organizations” (TCOs) the “Central American Maras, Guatemalan Kaibiles, Mexican Zetas, and other enforcer gangs, Mexican drug cartels, and the Mexican Mafia” are merely trying to permanantly neuter the state by creating “a high level of violence and criminal anarchy throughout most of Mexico”.
In the article, published by the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College, Manwaring concludes:
As a result, democracy is questionable and the nation-state’s presence and authority (sovereignty) is at best questionable in over more than 980 “Zones of Impunity” (criminal free-states) that exist throughout large geographical portions of Mexico, and 17 of the 22 departments in Guatemala. This is a feudal environment defined by extreme violence, patronage, bribes, kickbacks, cronyism, impunity, ethnic exclusion, and personal whim. That environment of violence and criminal anarchy, in turn, has been known to define the state failure process and/or a narco-criminal state.
Obviously, should the Mexican process continue to develop along its current path, the implications for us are frightening, especially given the fact that we have a political elite – Democrat and Republican – with no commitment to controlling the border.
Note: The SSI web site has some very interesting material – all not only freely downloadable but also freely available in hardcopy. In particular, for those interested in following the Mexican crisis, there is a fascinating monograph La Familia Drug Cartel: Implications for U.S.-Mexican Security which profiles La Familia Michoacana, a major drug cartel which combines the usual ultra-violence with a mystical-populist rhetoric.
For an older post on Somaliazation, see here.
Filed under: 4GW, Gangs, Mexican drug wars, Mexico Tagged: | crime in mexico, juarez mexico, mexican drug war, mexican drug wars, mexican violence, Mexico, mexico drug gangs
