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US War Against Mexican Cartels Threatens the Most Vulnerable

Harry November 21, 2024

20 November 2024

on the eve of august International Day of the MissingMaría del Carmen Martínez lives alone in the house her daughter Ofelia bought with the money she earned working as an undocumented immigrant at a restaurant in Houston. He carries a tarp with his daughter’s face on it, which he will carry for hours tomorrow as he defends the rights of his daughter and others who disappeared during the Day of the Disappeared march.

Ofelia, then 25, had just moved into her new home in the northern Mexican town of San Pedro de las Colonias when she disappeared in 2007. That night, there was a shootout between law enforcement and the Los Zetas drug cartel, but no one knows what happened. To Ofelia. Even though 17 years have passed, Martínez dared to protest her daughter’s disappearance for the first time. “I waited two years to report this,” Martínez says. “People were being killed every day in San Pedro. “If you dare to make a report, you risk being shot.”

At around 9 a.m. the next morning, a group of about 40 mothers began marching through San Pedro de las Colonias, chanting “You took them alive! We want them alive!”

Since then Mexican government declares war on drug cartels Widespread violence ensued with the deployment of thousands of soldiers in December 2006, leading to an increase in murders, extortions, forced displacements, femicide, and disappearances. has been around since 2006 More than 470,000 murders And More than 116,000 missing in Mexico. Men between the ages of 20 and 35 are disproportionately more likely to disappear, but there are regions where this occurs. A significant number of women disappeared.

San Pedro de las Colonias, a farming town in the Coahuila desert, officially recorded 106 people missing between 2007 and 2013 during the conflict between Los Zetas and the Sinaloa cartels for control of the La Laguna region, a key part of the drug and arms trade. Smuggling route between Mexico and the United States. However, the actual number of missing persons is unknown.

Relatives of these thousands of victims, especially their missing mothers, often madres buscadorasor mothers, have led a movement advocating for strategies, laws, and actions to locate their loved ones, seek justice, and prevent future disappearances.

Although levels of violence have decreased significantly thanks to the joint efforts of local government, civil society and business people, families continue to fear reporting disappearances due to threats and persecution. In many cases, they have to accept the loss of their loved ones.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the idea of attacking Mexico to combat drug cartels gained popularity, especially among Republican elites. Although Donald Trump has repeatedly denied supporting Project 2025, this 900-page policy encourages the next US administration to take a “creative and aggressive approach” to combating drug cartels along the US-Mexico border. Trump promises to send “kill teams” to Mexico assassinating drug lords.

But such intervention could lead to an ongoing fight against Mexico’s most vulnerable, without ensuring a significant impact on organized crime syndicates or drug trafficking.

The Legacy of US-Financed Militarization in Mexico

When then-Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on organized crime, US military aid totals more than $1.5 billion Through the Mérida Initiative. During Calderón’s six-year tenure, Mexican military arrested or killed with U.S. assistance 25 of Mexico’s 37 top drug lords.

While Mexican officials have declared the “ringleader strategy” mostly successful, they have also fueled it. intra-cartel violenceled to the disintegration of the cartels. At least according to the International Crisis Group 543 armed groups operate in Mexico Between mid-2009 and late 2020. Fragmentation has also increased local violence and put citizens, journalists and human rights defenders at risk as criminal groups diversify their illicit activities, including human trafficking, poaching, extortion, illegal logging and more.

Even searching for the missing is a dangerous job: 21 people have lost their lives while searching for their relatives since 2010. A mother named Lorenza Cano has been missing since January 15, 2024. But despite the danger, these families are still in the best position to understand the operations of criminal groups and facilitate the search for their loved ones, says Martin Villalobos, spokesman for Movimiento por Nuestros Desaparecidos en México, a movement that has brought together more than 60 families of the missing.

“We tell families all over the country that we know the area,” Villalobos says. “How does organized crime work? It is based on our own experiences, not the outcome of a police investigation. This knowledge cost some of us comrades their lives.”

Despite the risks, these families are often subject to varying degrees of collusion between government officials and organized crime, making their work even more dangerous. General Salvador Cienfuegos, who led the Mexican army from 2012 to 2018 and was once the country’s minister of national defense, was appointed to the post in 2020. Arrested by US authorities in Los Angeles on charges of participating in an international drug trafficking and money laundering network. After pressure from Mexican authorities, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration dropped the charges and released Cienfuegos, who was given an honorary military decoration in 2023.

This level of collusion puts the madres buscadoras in greater danger. As drug cartels continue to infiltrate the Mexican state, from local officials to senior government, “zones of silence” emerge where it becomes too dangerous to report human rights abuses and seek justice.

Despite the difficult conditions faced by missing families, hundreds of collectives continue to lead search efforts across the country. In Culiacán, Sinaloa, Sabuesos Guerreras, a group of nearly 2,000 missing relatives, found more than 650 bodies in secret graves. “We found more than 18,950 charred pieces in water wells and rivers,” adds María Isabel Cruz Bernal, founder of the society.

Cruz is the mother of police officer Yosimar García Cruz, who disappeared in Culiacán in 2017. He believes that all the authorities are doing is “betting on our death” to end the search for the missing. As a result of his investigations, Sabuesos Guerreras found that high-level officials were colluding with criminal groups. They called on the government to purge corrupt institutions and officials as a first step to increasing trust and transparency, but their demands were ignored. “There is no security strategy that protects us,” he adds.

A Path Forward Led by Civilians

In September, the Mexican House of Representatives approved constitutional reform initiative This would put the civilian-led National Guard under the control of the armed forces. Fundar, a center for analysis and research on issues related to democracy, argues that the concentration of power in the state and the armed forces led to serious human rights violations “It disproportionately affects marginalized groups, increases their precariousness, and intersects with gender and ethnic sensitivities.”

Although it is difficult to establish a direct link between the increase in disappearances and the militarization of the country, Fundar researcher Alejandra Ramírez said it was worrying that public security was entrusted to military forces that often operated with impunity. “Instead of continuing to bet on the much-emphasized strengthening of state and municipal police forces, prosecutors’ offices and other institutions, these institutions (the military) seem to be given primary responsibility,” says Ramírez. “History shows that they have a history of committing crimes that go unpunished and go unsolved.”

For example, videos obtained by an influential daily newspaper in Culiacán to reform It shows military and National Guard forces shooting and detaining a man on October 7. The footage shows the men planning to kill him but gave up the attempt when they realized they were being filmed.

In early October, Mexico’s new government announced its strategy to combat violence and crime. Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said Mexico will not engage in a new war against powerful drug cartels. “The war on drugs will not return,” he said after taking office. “We are not looking for extrajudicial killings as before. What will we use? Prevention, attention to causes, intelligence and presence (of authorities).”

Instead of assigning hit squads to catch drug lords (As Trump suggested), the Mexican government wants to strengthen the National Guard and improve intelligence gathering, similar to the work the families have been doing for years.

As both countries continue to rely on military efforts to strike against drug cartels, families are requesting technical and financial assistance to speed up searches for the missing and the identification of more than 70,000 bodies backlogged in forensics. As a first step, they aim to initiate a national dialogue, with the support of the international community, to assert their demands against the Mexican government and increase the urgency of their struggle.

Meanwhile, they continue to call their loved ones, collect information about criminal conduct, demand preventive measures and call for the implementation of real actions. Dozens of families broke a decade-long silence by marching through the quiet streets of San Pedro de las Colonias during a march commemorating the International Day of the Missing. Many spectators watched the parade in stunned disbelief.

Martínez was walking in the middle, holding the tarp with Ofelia’s face on it. Martínez and other mothers spent two hours asking “Where are they, where are they?” They marched chanting slogans.