MEXICAN DRUG

WAR
This war started in 2006, continued till 2010, and is still
continuing. A bit of detail about it can be as under…

A few quotes/lines and the photographs have copied from the World Wide Web,
as it is.
LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY
ARPAN MITTAL
11004259
A0002
ROLL NO. 9
HISTORY ASSGNMENT
Allotted on 1 sept, 2010

To be submitted on 11 sept, 2010

Submitted on 9 sept, 2010

 MEXICAN DRUG
WAR

The Mexican Drug War, an armed conflict, is occurring between

rival drug cartels (motive: overthrowing Mexico’s government) and
Government forces in Mexico (motive: lowering the levels of drug
trafficking and consumption in the country and helping to recover public
places so the Mexican people can live in peace). Mexican drug cartels(or
drug trafficking), have existed for a few decades, but have become more
powerful since the demise of Colombia's Cali and Medillin cartels in the
1990s. Wholesale illicit drug market in the United States is dominated by
Mexican drug cartels(earnings estimates range from $13.6 billion to $48.4
billion annually). There has been an increase in drug violence after the
arrest of key cartel leaders, particularly in Tijuana and Gulf cartels, as
cartels fight for control of the trafficking routes into the United States.

President Felipe Calderón said that the cartels seek "to replace the
government" and "are trying to impose a monopoly by force of arms, and
are even trying to impose their own laws."

Mexico being a major drug producing and transit country, is the main
foreign supplier of cannabis and methamphetamine to the United
States. Mexico comparatively produces lesser amount of heroin to what is
produced in the world, but contributes to the major part of heroin which is
supplied to Unites States. Drug cartels in Mexico control approximately
70% of the foreign narcotics that flow into the United States.

TIME LINE
Though there is very big time line, showing numerable events, available

from 2006 to 2010, but a few events of 2010 are listed below:

2010

• January 2, Carlos Beltrán Leyva, brother of Marcos Arturo Beltrán-

Leyva, arrested by Federal Police officers in Culiacán, Sinaloa.

• January 8, Due to high crime rates in the municipality of Tancítaro,

Michoacán, its Municipal Police force have been disbanded. City
officials left the Army and State Police in charge of public security.
• January 12 - Federal Police agents arrested Teodoro "El Teo" García
Simental, a partner of Tijuana cartel in La Paz, Baja California Sur.
• January 31 - Sixteen teenagers gunned down at a party in Ciudad
Juárez, with no apparent criminal ties. The outrage of the city turned
into neurosis.
• February 2010 - Los Zetas engaged in a violent turf war against is
former employer/partner, the Gulf Cartel, in the northern border city
of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, rendering some border towns to "ghost
towns".
• March 4 - Firing on gunmen from the air, Mexican Navy moved in, in
helicopters.
• March 14 - 3 people associated with U.S. consulate killed in
Chihuahua in shootings. Two of their children-injured. Presidents
Obama and Calderón condemned the attack!
• April 23 - In San Dimas, Durango, troops clashed with gunmen(6
gunmen killed, on captured). Army reported-only one of their own
was injured.
• May 31 - A mass grave containing 55 bodies found in an abandoned
mine near Taxco.
• June 19 - The mayor of Guadalupe Distrito Bravos, a suburb
of Ciudad Juárez, 3 police offers, the mayor, and 9 gunmen killed, in
an attack on Jesús Manuel Lara Rodríguez!
• June 27- 9 people at a drug rehabilitation clinic in Gómez Palacio,
Durango, killed by gunmen.
• July 18 - Gunmen in SUVs went to a party on the outskirts
of Torreón, killed 17 party-goers.
 • August 22 - Police found the body of a citizen of U.S state of Georgia
in a car along the highway between the Pacific resorts
of Acapulco and Zihuatanejo, while the U.S. Embassy could not be
reached to confirm the man’s identity.
• August 30 - In Calderon's second coup of the year, authorities
capture Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez, the U.S.-born trafficker who was
fighting to lead the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel based in central Mexico.
Valdez was said to put up little resistance when he was captured in
the State of Mexico.
• September 2 - In clashes near the US border, 27 suspected drug
cartel shot dead.

A war was announced by Mexico’s president Felipe Calderón in December, 2006

on the drug cartels, reversing earlier government passiveness. The government
made some gains but at a heavy price - gun battles, assasinations, kidnappings,
fights between rival cartels, and reprisals resulted in over 9,500 deaths s(over
5,300 killed last year alone)

President Barack Obama had said that agents were deployed near the border
and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to Mexico to take a broad agenda -
overshadowed by spiraling drug violence and fears of greater cross-border
spillover. Legal deligates on both sides of the border assured to stop the violence
and the flow of drugs(north) and guns and cash(south). Here are a few
photographs….

Some Talking Points

• 1Violence continues to escalate, often spilling across the border into

the U.S. depite Mexico's efforts to battle drug cartels.
• 2Mexico’s violence -in 2009, about 9000 drug murders, raises
questions about Mexico's anti-drug strategy, anti-corruption efforts,
law enforcement reforms, and increases doubt about its political will
to continue the fight.

• 3The Obama Administration has regularly criticized the "failed drug

war," yet it continues to employ the Bush Administration's Mérida
Initiative to help Mexico fight the cartels.

• 4Blaming America for Mexico's drug crisis and cash smuggled into
Mexico is popular abroad, but the changes in gun laws, demand
reduction and legalization of marijuana supported by "blame
America" types lack support in the U.S.

• 5Without consistent U.S.-Mexican collaboration, enough resources,

strategy, and presidential engagement, the U.S. will face an ever-
worsening security circumstances.

• The deaths caused by drug-related pandemonium in Mexico were

about 9,000. It the worst year since President Felipe Calderón took
office.

• U.S. and Mexico faced a critical year in 2010 in their mutual

encounter with Mexico’s fatal criminal cartels.

Red Alert
• Mexico traffickers pass on approximately 500 to 700 metric tons of
cocaine to U.S. each year.

• Mexico being a fabulous source of marijuana, produced about

15,800 metric tons in 2007. Mexico is increasing marijuana
production in U.S. 50 to 60% of profits of Mexico come from
cannabis.
• Mexico serves hefty amount of heroin and methamphetamines to
U.S. due to which Mexican profits range from $13 billion to $38
billion.

• The number of deaths due to drug violence have been constantly

increasing from past 5 years: 1,537 in 2005; 2,221 in 2006; 2,673 in
2007; 5,630 in 2008; and 9,635 in 2009.

• Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, has developed a
reputation as the deadliest city on the planet. More than 1000 cops
and military persons have lost their lives in these fights.

• Analysts explain about Mexico, its change from gangsterism to

dangerous hybrid forms of ‘paramilitary terrorism’ with ‘guerrilla
tactics’.

Some healthy measures enforced

• A cooperative assistance program established by President George

W. Bush, is being continued by Obama Administration, known as
“Mérida Initiative”.

• Administration has agreed to “dual containment,” securing the U.S.–

Mexico border from Mexican drug-trafficking organizations (DTO) or
cartels operating in the U.S. in order to reduce smuggling of guns
and bulk transfers of cash from the U.S. to Mexico.

• Signals on the “war on drugs” have been sent by White House.

President along with senior officials announced hard work aimed at
diminishing the supply through eradication and police action a
“historic failure” and assured a new mix of rational and effective
tactics.

• The officials must tale more audacious leadership role. The

elements of such an approach would feature:
 A comprehensive, well articulated anti-narcotics tactics for the
America
 An adequately funded plan comprising of sustained support for
Mexico.
 Improvised law implementation and inter-military colaboration
 A publicised national programme for public diplomacy and
decreased demand addressing the connections among the
 murderous criminality of traffickers and the individual drug
consumers.
• Government is endeavouring and trying to think out of the box to
make new and intelligent strategies to come out of these problems
and chaos.

Former Salvadoran guerrilla Joaquin Villalobos, for believes the

state is gaining the upper hand. “It takes time to reduce violence,
but drug trafficking is going through a process of self-destruction
that deepens when the state confronts it,” he states.
1
Numbered plastic markers are set on the pavement to determine the location of bullet casings found
at the scene of a shootout where unknown gunmen opened fire and killed four police officers in
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on Feb. 17, 2009. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) #
2
Federal police officers sit aboard an aircraft while flying to the border city Ciudad Juarez in Mexico,
Monday, March 2, 2009. The deployment is part of a troop increase of 5,000 men planned for this city
which has been hit hard by organized crime related violence. (AP Photo/Miguel Tovar) #
3
Mexican soldiers check the identity of a man during an operation searching for drugs and weapons in
Reynosa, on Mexico's northeastern border with the U.S., late Tuesday, March 17, 2009. (AP
Photo/Alexandre Meneghini) #
4
Shoes used for smuggling marijuana are displayed in the Drug Museum at the headquarters of the
Mexican Ministry of Defense in Mexico City March 9, 2009. High precision rifles, a diamond and gold
encrusted mobile phone, clandestine laboratories for drug processing and many more items that once
belonged to drug traffickers are displayed in this private museum used by the military to show the
soldiers the lifestyle of the Mexican drug lords. (REUTERS/Jorge Dan Lopez) #
5
Central American migrants being held in captivity react as Mexican Army soldiers, unseen, enter to
liberate them in Reynosa, Mexico, late Tuesday, March 17, 2009. More than 50 migrants were being
kept in captivity by a kidnapping gang in order to extort their families in exchange for their freedom,
according to Mexico's Army. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini) #
6
Forensic workers remove one of nine bodies found at a plot on the outskirts of the border city of
Ciudad Juarez March 14, 2009. An anonymous call led police to a site where at least nine bodies
were found in a shallow grave local media reported. (REUTERS/Alejandro Bringas) #
7
A forensic investigator in Tijuana examines a vertebra and other bone fragments that were all that
remained of a human body recovered from a barrel of acid. The gruesome discovery in the Otay Mesa
part of the city is consistent with a signature killing style of "El Teo", Tijuana's most wanted cartel
kingpin. (Los Angeles Times photo by Don Bartletti) #