by Raúl Yzaguirre
Raúl Yzaguirre
As the eyes of the world remain focused on violent conflicts in the Middle East, one the United States’ closest international allies is under siege.
Mexico is embroiled in a widening war with our hemisphere’s most powerful drug cartels. That’s the message Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon delivered during a visit to Washington this week.
Authorities in Mexico report that more than 5,500 people were killed in 2008 in the wake of an unprecedented campaign to take down the kingpins who have been operating criminal empires in that nation with virtual impunity for years.
Tragically, President Calderon’s noble and resolute quest is a quixotic one. To paraphrase an old saying,
Mexico’s closest ally in this pursuit, the United States, also happens to be his worst enemy.
The growing power of Mexico’s drug cartels is directly related to the huge demand for drugs in the United States. Simply put, our fellow Americans are the cartels’ best customers and consequently the financiers of the ongoing slaughter of law enforcement personnel and innocent bystanders in Mexico.
The United States also is a major source of the increasingly powerful weaponry being used by drug traffickers, whom experts say have more powerful and sophisticated weapons than the federal troops and police assigned to combat them.
Mexican officials report that 90 percent of the guns they confiscate are purchased at stores and gun shows, then smuggled into Mexico.
Last month, outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates (whom President-elect Obama has announced will remain in that post) pledged that the U.S. will redouble its efforts to supply money, training and equipment to help Mexico “confront these criminals and protect our citizens” as part of the Merida Initiative.
The initiative is the latest in a series of unsuccessful efforts to stem the flow of illegal drugs into the United States and it is expected to cost about $1.4 billion. This week, President-elect Barack Obama announced that he supports the program.
Unfortunately, as with every other U.S.-backed international anti-drug initiative that’s come before it, the Merida Initiative is doomed to fail. A case in point: Mexico’s cartels are now the main suppliers of illegal drugs into the United States. That wasn’t always the case. Our southern neighbor earned this dubious distinction after the United States helped cripple the powerful Colombia based cartels of 1980s and 1990s. In other words, even though we won some battles in Colombia but we’re losing the war in Mexico.
The Merida Initiative will fail because the root cause of this crisis is not international drug traffi cking but drug addiction and drug abuse in the United States, which are fundamentally public health issues.
The current policy of attempting to control the supply of drugs entering the U.S. is a proven failure. Relying on stepped up law enforcement to curtail U.S. demand for drugs has only clogged our courts and prisons and produced more drug abuse.
Mandatory drug rehabilitation, more education and prevention initiatives, and more research are the only proven solutions. Without a solution, the killing in Mexico will continue.
Mexico’s drug lords give law enforcement authorities and anyone else who stands in their way a choice: “Plomo o Plata.” Literally, lead or silver. (The lead is meant for the whole family.)
Mexico may be supplying the drugs, but the United States is providing the lead and the silver.
(Raúl Yzaguirre is executive director of Arizona State University’s Center for Community Development and Civil Rights. He served for 30 years as head of the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s most influential Latino advocacy organization. E-mail: raul.yzaguirre@asu.edu). ©2009
