El Chapo Isn’t the Only One Missing in Mexico

Images Huffington Post

Juan “El Chapo” Guzman recently escaped prison. Again.  Albeit not via the prison laundry service.  There was little doubt that he had assistance leaving incarceration behind that first time back in 2001.  There is no doubt he had ample assistance this time. The sophisticated network of tunnels running from his cell and beneath the facility, leading to his freedom, were not dug by a hacksaw and prison spoon.

This only underscores that corruption is endemic in Mexico. It exists at all levels of government; it is pervasive throughout the judicial system, and extends like tentacles through law enforcement and even the militia. All countries suffer corruption to varying degrees, but Mexico is an extreme case, and is rooted within a culture based on “Plato or plomo”: silver or lead.  Because there is no rule of law – only the rule of Cartel crime and the fear they wield.

North American culture has glamourized organized crime. We’ve storified the Mafia, made the DirtyThirties the stuff of modern legend. We’ve even musically rendered the terrifying gang wars between Crips and Bloods.  But we have nothing that compares to the absolute power and retribution wielded by the Cartels just south of the border. We have not lost innocent lives by the thousands. There are no hidden mass graves scattered across the nation, holding the bodies of those whose families will never know peace. Our reporters are free to cover the stories they choose, as they see fit, and to openly challenge those who make the rules without paying with their lives and the lives of their families. I write this piece because our ignorance has made us dangerously oblivious.

The border between Mexico and the rest of North America is nothing more than a line on a page. It exists as a symbolic demarcation, but it will not stem the flow of drugs north, nor the secreted caches of guns and cash south.  Los Zetas, a horrifically violent cartel that claimed almost half of Mexico and rivalled the mighty Sinaloa Cartel led by Guzman, laundered their drug money in race horses up in the lush green pastures of Oklahoma (read more here).  More recently, an uptick in violence in the province of Alberta, Canada revealed that cocaine and other drugs were being smuggled north by Mennonites (read more here ).  Remember: plata o plomo.  What would you do to keep those you love safe, if you knew the threat against them was very real? The reach of the Cartels has been vastly underestimated.

As turf wars turn ugly, and the most powerful cartels create alliances to turn on each other, it is the civilians who pay the price. The region of Monterrey, along the Gulf Coast, was a beacon of promise for Mexico’s economy. Universities. Culture. Manufacturing.  Monterrey, in the north eastern state of Nuevo Leon, had everything to offer foreign investors and tourists. Except when it became the battleground between the Gulf Cartel and their spin-offs come rivals, Los Zetas.  Los Zetas had been the security arm of the once mighty Gulf Cartel, and as such, they were highly-trained, paramilitary who functioned as a machine. When they decided it was time to become their own cartel, Nuevo Leon was awash in blood.  Gun battles happened mid-day.  People ran for cover.  Families were terrified to send their children to school or go out.  You could be caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time anytime.  For those who dared cover the stories of what was going on, reprisals were deadly. Reporters were hunted down, gunned down in their place of work. Collateral damage was almost a way of life now.

And still, the world knew nothing. There were a few sources able to get the news out. Entire newspaper offices have been torched.  To tell the truth comes at a very high price.  Borderland Beat has done an ongoing excellent grass-roots coverage from within.  El Blog del Narco covers stories of the drug trade there.  Daniel Hernandez of Vice News has been delving right into the gritty heart of the matter. But the norm are stories we don’t here, like that of reporter Stephania Cardosa and her young son, who had to disappear for their own safety. In a quotation from the article by reporter Chivis Martinez, Cardosa says “She knows that many people are concerned for them, but for their safety she cannot communicate with anyone nor her family. She asks the Federals of Mexico for protection not only for her and her son but for her family.” Here is the link to the full article here: http://www.borderlandbeat.com/.  

Mexico has an ugly urban legend. Las Mueras de Juarez.  The dead women of Juarez. It’s femicide on an unimaginable scale, a legend only in that nobody can explain the mysterious disappearances of thousands of women, and the grisly graves found around Juarez.  These women are mothers, sisters, daughters.  They go to work at the factories, taking the bus to their night shifts, knowing that they may be prey for whomever has been killing women for almost two decades now.  Astonishingly, the authorities have been unable to crack the case. Reporter Brooke Binkoswki had enough of the silence, and brought their stories to light in her recent piece in The Globe & Mail.

Nor have authorities been able to assist in other mass disappearances, like the most recent of 43 male students from a teachers college who went to Iguala to protest at a conference held by the mayor’s wife. They were kidnapped and killed but the bodies have not been found. The mayor and his wife masterminded the plot and the chief of police assisted. He is still on the loose. As per the recent article by Chantal Flores in Vice News, the ongoing search has instead turned up 129 bodies, in 60 hidden graves.

The current state of global affairs truly feels like management by crisis. But North America has its own crisis that has been left unattended to simmer south of the border far too long. We ignore the endemic corruption within Mexico at our own peril. Because when we confront the culture of “Plato o plomo”, silence is not golden.

Thanks for reading!

Cheryl Biswas

The Legacy of Freedom

This weekend marked an extraordinary anniversary: 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.  I still remember how I felt watching live coverage of those heady, dream-like moments as elated Berliners climbed all over one of the most hated symbols of repression.  They were celebrating their new freedom, ushering in a new era of change and hope. In that moment once again we were all Berliners.

While it stood, the Wall itself stood for injustice, intolerance, repression, despair.  It was the antithesis of all the West believed to be good, and it was the gateway to what lay beyond the Iron Curtain.  Western political thinking has imbued an almost mythical quality to how evil Communism is portrayed, especially by the former Soviet Union. Even as the Wall fell, the fears of nuclear attack were still palpable.

But change raced in, hard and fast, bringing with it new levels of crime and corruption.  The hard realities following the fall of the wall soon dispelled the fairy-tale hopes of prosperity and brotherhood the western world had naively held for those countries once held in communism’s vice grip. Change is never easy, not even when it’s for the common good.

Fast forward twenty-five years later.  Russia is now led by Vladimir Putin, a dangerous throwback to the days of KGB control and a man who has ushered in a new cold war in east-west relations.  He has blatantly usurped the rights and freedoms not only of Russians, but of the Ukraine and Crimea, regions he seeks to control to rebuild the might of what once was.

In the middle east, a new group known as ISIS has engaged in nothing short of genocide to hunt down and eradicate those who don’t conform with their stringent and extremist beliefs.  Like a marauding horde of insects, ISIS strategically terrorizes the region, impervious to global condemnation or the horror of what they inflict on innocents.  They leave the world little choice in how to deal with them.  They are the force we must now eradicate to protect the very freedoms we cherish.

In Mexico, 43 young men paid the price for speaking their minds. They have vanished, and if found will likely be bodies in one of the many horrific mass graves where those who cross the Cartels are buried, along with their desire for change.  The cartels wield unquestionable and terrifying control over every level of government and of security within the country. So long as the world continues to buy their product, the cartels fear nothing and no one.  This is a land where journalists pay with their lives for writing the truth.

The rights of women and children are denigrated by Boko Haram in Africa, and the Taliban in Afghanistan.  But it is in those most vulnerable where we can see hope and strength most clearly. The breath-taking bravery of a girl named Malala has shown the world, especially those who tried to kill her, that freedom is a fight that lives within us, regardless of gender, age or origin, and it burns bright as a torch passed from one soldier to the next.

Twenty-five years have brought new challenges and threats. This week, we will honour those brave men and women who fought two world wars to ensure freedom, if not peace, for those generations to come. It is our duty to defend what they gave their lives for, so that our children know freedom, and cherish it. We have much work to do.

Don’t Cry for Me Sinaloa

The truth is I have not left you

Since his arrest two weeks ago, almost nothing has been reported about the head of the formidable Sinaloa Cartel. I have my own theories of the relationship between “El Chapo” and the current administration under President Pena-Nieto. While English language newsfeeds carried stories of the arrest, Spanish language feeds carried headlines proclaiming El Chapo financed the campaign this past summer of the new Mexican president.  As per an article in Borderland Beat on Feb. 22 2014, “something bad happened between the PRI and El Chapo Guzman”.

The PRI, Institutional Revolutionary Party, was more than a party. It was the party, and had held power in Mexico for 71 years. But as the adage goes, “absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  Corruption and electoral fraud led to internal rifts and the left-wing split to become the PAN party, which went on to win the election in 2000. For 12 years, PAN governed Mexico, most notably under Felipe Calderone who declared war on the Cartels in 2006. Violence sky-rocketed as the Cartels retaliated, putting law enforcement and civilians directly in the line of fire. The economy suffered equally, worsening the already endemic state of poverty and systemic corruption. Calderone made more enemies than friend during his tenure, and when the 2012 elections took place in July, it was no surprise that the PRI was restored to power.

The perception was that, under the PRI, keeping the Cartels happy had managed to keep the peace and maintain some degree of economic stability.  Essentially, the government had operated on a policy of “laissez-faire” and turning a blind eye, enabling the Cartels to develop increasingly more control and amass more wealth. Wealth which found its way into the pockets of the public officials who served their interests. The rich got richer; the poor got poorer. PAN, and Calderone, believed they could bring about necessary change but the levels of corruption were far beyond anything they could impact. The power of the Cartels determined the rule of law, and the government itself. As was proven out in July 2012 and the reinstatement of the old guard, the PRI.

At the time, Pena Nieto appeared nothing more than a very attractive puppet on strings, prepared to service the highest bidder. That would have been the Sinaloa Cartel and Chapo Guzman. And for the months that ensued, Guzman continued to enjoy freedom and control in Mexico, eluding capture until February 24 this year.

What went wrong? Why would Pena Nieto bite the hand that feeds him? At one time, when the battle for control of Mexico was clearly between Los Zetas and Sinaloa, it was clear who held the reins. But Cartel alliances are fleeting at best, and the internal politics are divisive and explosive. Los Zetas succumbed to internal rivalry and then the arrests of the brothers at the helm. Newer, younger gangs and cartels have evolved, changing the criminal topography of Mexico. Today, another key player has just been killed, El Chayo, the head of The Knights Templar Cartel.  With a number of smaller, weaker players vying for control, the government may be renegotiating their level of influence. As always, it comes down to who serves whose interests best. Chapo Guzman is still too powerful a figure to discard or take out of any equation regarding the future of Mexico.

When Hell Freezes Over

This is the story that I have been waiting to write. Just as the crisis in the Ukraine was developing, there was another major news story. As quickly as it aired, it vanished. And yet, for me, and for anyone following the constantly evolving cartels in Mexico, this was more than newsworthy. This was historic. This would change everything. Because the most elusive criminal figure in organized crime in the western hemisphere had finally been caught.
On Saturday February 22, the story broke that Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was now in the custody of Mexican authorities. This was the notorious head of the Sinaloa Cartel, a cartel kingpin who no adversary and certainly no law enforcement agent, had managed to take down in the ensuing bloodbath for control over Mexico. Everyone knew where he was: Mexico. Everyone knew where his stronghold was situated: somewhere in the central, mountainous region closer to the Pacific Ocean. There were numerous operations and armed assaults on suspected locations, but none ever yielded up Guzman. Until now.
The reason this all matters is that Chapo Guzman controlled far more than the drugs from his cartel. He controlled much of the drug trade in the west, managing Sinaloa more like a multi-national enterprise, a very profitable enterprise. To do that, Guzman had to strategically position himself ahead of all the other cartels vying for control. In 2010, major changes came with the emergence of a new, deadly and power-hungry cartel. Los Zetas had been the highly-trained armed enforcers for the powerful Gulf Cartel. Now, they wanted to claim their own stake. In a bloody declaration of their independence, they battled for control over the east coast of Mexico, and placing cities like Monterrey directly in the line of fire. The disparate groups banded into two alliances: one headed by Sinaloa and one by Los Zetas. Two formidable forces, with very different approaches, had effectively carved Mexico in half.
The loyalty of those within his ranks, or under his control, enabled Guzman to effectively hide in plain sight. More than any other cartel, Guzman and Sinaloa directed the affairs of government from the highest levels down to the smallest locales. And they held a similar hold over law officials. The proof of this has been validated and documented in stories and arrests. The sad truth is that decades of systemic corruption only made it easier for the cartels to exert their control and influence. While the former Calderone administration declared a war on drugs, they were vilified for the cost in human lives. Now, the Pena Nieto regime is a throwback to earlier days when the government had a more laissez-faire relationship with the cartels. For as much as the officials he bribed or coerced served his purposes, Chapo Guzman certainly served many interests, most importantly maintaining a balance of power amongst the cartels.
But cartel allegiances can shift like sand. Especially when cartels implode, or leadership is decimated by targeted attacks. Tijuana, La Familia, Gulf all suffered similar fates. Smaller, weaker cartels formed in their wake, further contributing to the inherent instability. And yet, Guzman maintained the helm and the integrity of Sinaloa. Until now.
Which raises some very important questions. What happens next? How will the balance of power be affected? Before anyone starts allocating spoils to the victor, we don’t really know who the victor really is. It’s still too soon to tell. Because with Guzman, we see only as much as he chooses to reveal. And the battle for control of Mexico is far from over.