A quieter drug war in Mexico, but no less deadly

The Washington Post
By Nick Miroff, Published: February 1

MEXICO CITY — As a tactical matter, the gangsters and government security forces fighting Mexico’s drug war have typically opted for the spectacular over the subtle.

Massacres, beheadings and other unspeakable cruelties became cartels’ preferred form of violence. In response, the government sent masked troops with machine guns to patrol Mexico’s streets and paraded its captured drug suspects on television like hunting trophies.


But in the past few months, that has changed. Mexico’s drug war has gone quiet.

Not less lethal. Just less loud.

The country’s drug-related homicide numbers remain essentially undiminished. More than 12,000 people were murdered last year in gangland violence, according to the latest Mexican media tallies, roughly the same number that were slain in 2010 and 2011.  Read more.

Mexico, before and after Calderon's drug war

Los Angeles Times: Christopher Reynolds. 

We all know that Mexico’s drug war has taken a horrific toll – an estimated 50,000 deaths since President Felipe Calderón launched the effort in late 2006. But how much did Calderón’s declaration change the crime rate? And now that president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto is set to take over in December, how much is likely to change?

Travelers might want to dip into “Drug Violence in Mexico,” a recent report by The Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego. Though good statistics are often hard to come by in Mexico, authors Cory Molzahn, Viridiana Ríos and David A. Shirk have gathered a boatload of numbers, and they raise the idea that drug-related killings accelerated before Calderón declared war.

As the report notes, the Mexican government counted 12,903 drug-war killings (a.k.a. organized-crime homicides) in the first nine months of 2011, which brought the official total to 47,515 since Dec. 1, 2006. Read more. 

Amid drug war, Mexico homicide rate up for fourth straight year

LA Times Blogs: Richard Fausset. MEXICO CITY -- A study has found that Mexico’s homicide rate rose for the fourth year in a row in 2011, this time by 5.6% compared with the previous year -- a fact that will come as little surprise to Mexicans who continue to be bombarded each morning with the latest stomach-turning details of the country’s drug war.

What is less clear, however, is what the new numbers say about outgoing President Felipe Calderon’s controversial and nearly 6-year-old decision to deploy the military to battle the country’s entrenched drug-trafficking gangs.

Is this the short-term pain that Mexico must endure in order to achieve a long-term peace? Or are the increased slayings the inevitable -- and ineluctable -- result of a strategy that Calderon’s successor, Enrique Peña Nieto, has essentially promised to continue, with a few alterations?

The new data, released this week by Mexico’s statistics and geography institute, show that 27,199 people were killed in Mexico last year -- or 24 homicides per 100,000 people. The rate in 2007 was 8 per 100,000. Last year it was 23 per 100,000. Read more.

In Mexico’s murder city, the war appears over

Washington Post: By William Booth. CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — When this city was among the most murderous in the world, the morgue ran out of room, the corpses stacked to the ceiling in the wheezing walk-in freezers.

Medical examiners, in plastic boots, performed a dozen autopsies a day as families of victims waited outside in numbers sufficient to require a line.

For all this, Mexico has not made much sense of one of the most sensational killing sprees in recent history, which has left 10,500 dead in the streets of Juarez as two powerful drug and crime mafias went to war. In 2010, the peak, there were at least 3,115 aggravated homicides, with many months posting more than 300 deaths, according to the newspaper El Diario. Read more.

Mexico Ranks at Bottom of Global Peace index

Mexico came out at the bottom of the pack on the 2012 Global Peace Index (GPI), released yesterday, garnering slot 135 out of a group of 158 countries. The GPI ranks nations on a scale of 1-5 based on 23 indicators associated with the absence of violence, with 5 being the least peaceful. Mexico garnered fives in "violent crime" and "deaths from internal conflict". Other critical areas include fours in "political terror", "homicides", "access to weapons" and "perception of criminality".

The world, and Latin America in particular, rose overall in peacefulness during the last year. Mexico is the notable exception, dropping from 105 out of 148 in 2010.

Mexico´s ranking comes as no surprise to people here. Most of the other countries in the lowest 15% are experiencing open conflict, with Somalia as the most violent country, followed by Afghanistan and Sudan. Mexico's ranking reflects the degree to which its internal conflict cause by the war on drugs has risen in impact. 

The report concludes with this statement on the economic cost of violence:

If the world was completely peaceful in 2011, the additional economic impact would have been an estimated US$9 trillion (equal to the size of the German and Japanese economies combined). While a total elimination of violence may not be possible an achievable 25% reduction in violence could reap a peace dividend of at least US$2.25 trillion. This amount would easily cover the European Financial Stability Facility’s $1 trillion allocation to deal with the European sovereign debt crisis while also covering the yearly cost of achieving the Millennium Development Goals.