A nation must think before it acts.
Even savvy Mexico-watchers argue that cartel violence will escalate in the run-up to the July 1 national contests in which voters will select a president, the 500-member Congress, the 128-seat Senate, Mexico City’s mayor, five governors, and thousands of local officials.[2]
No one can be certain whether the Michoacan-based Knights Templars will engage in decapitations and other repulsive acts around and during Sunday’s contests. After all, big shots in this quirky band believe they have been called to do the “Lord’s Work.”[3]
Equally unpredictable are Los Zetas, who have turned sadism from an art form into an exact science in the 21 states and several Central American countries in which they function.[4]
A harbinger of possible blood-letting are recent assaults on journalists in Veracruz state such as the June 14 slaying of Milenio’s crime-beat newsman Victor Manuel Baez Chino. Such incidents may be unrelated to the election and just a continuation of efforts by Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs) to intimidate and muzzle print- and electronic-media professionals. These DTOs have murdered some 40 members of the fourth estate since the beginning of 2008.[5]
Apart from organized savagery, every balloting finds several candidates or campaign assistants in the cross-hairs of political adversaries, especially in Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero, and other southern, remote impoverished states.[5]
If officials, especially at the state and local level, threaten to interfere with criminality, their days may be numbered. In general, though, drug-connected torture, hanging, and decapitations appear to follow a tit-for-tat (or tit-tit-for-tat-tat) rhythm that is distinct from the electoral calendar.
Ildefonso Ortiz, an intrepid crime reporter who follows the drug war for The Monitor (McAllen, Texas), says that “absolutely, revenge drives the carnage that takes place along the border.” Such is the danger that he has renewed taking shooting lessons with his registered weapon that he carries when investigating cases.[7]
Sometimes the targets of revenge are opposing criminal organizations. Other times they involve banks, public buildings, police headquarters, and innocent people whose demise enables brigands like the beastly Los Zetas to maintain credibility–“cartel cred”–as vicious actors in the Mexican underworld. Such a reputation enhances their success in accomplishing extortion, kidnappings, human smuggling, contraband sales, loan-sharking, and a more than a dozen other felonies.
Below are examples of the dynamics of executions that have taken place in 2011 and 2012.
Enrique Pena Nieto, candidate of the once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) holds a commanding lead in the presidential contest. A mid-June poll conducted by the respected Buendia & Laredo firm and published on June 19 in the respected El Universal newspaper found Pena Nieto (43.6 percent) well ahead of three other competitors–Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador who heads a leftist coalition (27.7 percent); Josefina Vazquez Mota (25.1 percent) of the center-right National Action Party (PAN); and Gabriel Quadri de la Torre (3.6 percent), nominee of National Alliance Party (PANAL), a creature of the corrupt SNTE teachers’ union.[15]
There is absolutely no evidence that Pena Nieto has ties to Mexico’s Mafiosi; however, he has emphasized that reducing bloodshed is a higher goal than capturing capos.[16] If the cartels act rationally–and that is a big “IF”–it would be counter-productive to disrupt elections in which the likely winner’s priorities would change the military-led, capture-the-capos strategy pursued by outgoing President Felipe Calderon.
In some ways it would be disadvantageous to disrupt the upcoming contests at any level–unless, of course, the criminals take down politicos who refuse to accept bribes because they have has cast their lots with rival DTOs.
University of Miami security expert Bruce M. Bagley has argued: “The Mexican traffickers need a degree of predictability to conduct their business too. They seek a permeable and permissive business environment for their illegal activities in their areas of operations.”[17]
There is concern in Michoacan, which is plagued by the Knights Templars that violence could erupt. PRD President Jesus Zambrano has warned that Los Zetas, the Knights Templars, and, possibly other criminal organizations will commit atrocities in the days before the election to demonstrate their muscular presence and intimidate candidates. He has emphasized that: “Political parties, candidates, society, and all of us together with the government, must take advantage of the campaigns to recover public spaces in the hands of these groups.” After all, Los Zetas killed the PRI’s gubernatorial candidate in Tamaulipas two years ago and approximately 30 mayors, many along drug-trafficking routes, have perished.
Most candidates have squads of bodyguards, and officials in Michoacan, many of whom wear bullet-proof vests, have advised of possible mayhem in Cheran, Tancitaro, Apatizgan, and 17 other municipalities plagued by the Knights Templars.[19]
Pena Nieto has pledged to curb the narco-barbarity that has snuffed out more than 44,000 lives since outgoing Calderon took office on December 1, 2006. Rumors abound in Mexico City that the putative “new face” of the PRI, will cut deals with kingpins— a prospect that he has continuously and vehemently denies. The traditional PRI forged “rules of the games” that required narco-barons to pay enormous mordidas to government officials in exchange for importing, storing, processing, and shipping drugs. Meanwhile, they refrained from harming civilians, acquiring high-powered weapons, treading on competitors’ turfs, running candidates for political posts, and showing disrespect to politicians.[20] In fact, through the early 1990s, it was not unusual for mayors, legislators, and governors to go to parties thrown by cartel bosses— and vice-versa. Former PRI governor of Nuevo Leon, Socrates Rizzo, admitted that his party’s administrations even allocated corridors to traffickers.[21]
The multiplication of DTOs and the unreliability of Los Zetas, the Knights Templars, and gangs like La Linea (linked to the Juarez Cartel) make it impossible to crystallize nationwide live-and-let-live “arrangements” as in the past. In addition, the next chief executive will be under too much scrutiny to take the risk, even if he wanted to. More likely governors, who have gained enormous power in the last decade, will continue to hammer out compromises— that is, informal pacts that either benefit state executives directly from drug commerce or ensure that they turn a blind eye to this nefarious business.