Anyone on the planet with half an eye on the TV knows there is an orgy of butchery in Mexico. The country so deep in blood, it is hard to shock anymore. Even the kidnapping and killing of nine policemen or a pile of craniums in a town plaza isn’t big news. Only the most sensational atrocities now grab media attention: a grenade attack on a crowd of revellers celebrating independence day; the sewing of a murder victim’s face onto a soccer ball; an old silver mine filled with fifty- six decaying corpses, some of the victims thrown in alive; the kidnapping and shooting of seventy-two migrants, including a pregnant woman. Mexico reels from massacres comparable to brutal war crimes.
have arrived at a restaurant in Sinaloa state 20 minutes after a police commander was gunned down having breakfast. Within an hour, the corpse had been carted away, and waiters were preparing tables for lunch; you could eat some tacos and have no clue there had been an early-morning murder. I have watched hundreds of soldiers sweep into a residential neighbourhood and kick down doors – and suddenly vanish again with the same speed they arrived.
This is not a random explosion of violence. Residents of northern Mexico have not turned into psychotic killers overnight after drinking bad water. There is a clear time frame as to when this violence exploded and when it escalated. There are identifiable factors that have caused the conflict. And there are real people who have pulled the strings of armies, made fortunes from the war, or pursued failed policies from government towers.
At the centre of the whole dirty drama are the most mysterious figures of all: the drug smugglers. But who are they really?
In Mexico, traffickers are described collectively by the Spanish word “El Narco”, using a singular proper noun. The term, which is shouted loudly in news reports and whispered quietly in cantinas, provokes the image of an enormous, ghost-like form leering over society. Its capos are shadowy billionaires from ramshackle mountain villages, known from grainy, 20-year-old photos and the verses of popular ballads. Its warriors are armies of ragged, mustachioed men who are thrust before the press like captured soldiers from a mysterious enemy state. It attacks like a wraith under the noses of thousands of police and soldiers patrolling city streets – and the vast majority of its murders are never solved. This ghost makes an estimated 30 billion dollars every year smuggling cocaine, marijuana, heroin, and crystal meth into the United States. But the cash disappears like cosmic mist into the global economy. In short, El Narco is the silverback in the room. But most people can’t put much of a face on that gorilla.
On the streets where El Narco reigns, being in the drug underworld is referred to as being in “the movement”. That word gives a sense of the broad meaning of organised crime on the ground; it is a whole way of life for a segment of society. Gangsters have even begotten their own genre of music – narco corridos – lead their own fashion style – buchones – and nurture their own religious sects. These songs, styles, and sermons all build up an image of the drug lords as iconic heroes, celebrated by dwellers of Mexico’s cinder-block barrios as rebels who have the guts to beat back the army and DEA. El Narco has entrenched itself in these communities over a century. By following its development as a movement – rather than just sketching the police stories of the drug kingpins – we can get much closer to really understanding the threat, and figuring out how to deal with it.
The first wave of serious cartel warfare began in the autumn of 2004 on the border with Texas and spread nationwide. When President Felipe Calderon took power in 2006 and declared war on these gangs, the violence multiplied exponentially.
So why did cartels blossom during the first decade of Mexico’s democracy? Tragically, the same system that promised hope was weak in controlling the most powerful mafias on the continent. The old regime may have been corrupt and authoritarian but it had a surefire way of managing organised crime: taking down a few token gangsters and taxing the rest.
Just as the collapse of the Soviet Union ushered in an explosion of mafia capitalism, so did the demise of the PRI [Institutional Revolutionary Party]. Mexican Special Forces soldiers became mercenaries for gangsters. Businessmen who used to pay off corrupt officials had to pay off mobsters. Police forces turned on one another – sometimes breaking out into full-on inter-agency shootouts. When Calderon replaced [Vicente] Fox, he threw the entire military out to restore order. But rather than falling into line, as Calderon hoped, gangsters actually took on the government.
In the first four years of Calderon’s administration, the Mexican Drug War claimed a stunning 34,000 lives. That tragic statistic is enough for everyone to realise it is a serious conflict – more casualties than in many declared wars. Though, in a country of 112 million, it is a very low intensity war. The Vietnam War claimed three million casualties; the American Civil War 600,000; in Rwanda, militias massacred 800,000 people in 100 days.
Another hard fact in Mexico is the number of officials who have been murdered. In this four-year period, cartel gunmen slayed more than 3,000 public servants, including 2,200 policemen, 200 soldiers, judges, mayors, a leading gubernatorial candidate, the leader of a state legislature, and dozens of federal officials. Such a murder rate compares to the most lethal insurgent forces in the world – certainly more deadly to government than Hamas, ETA, or the Irish Republican Army in its entire three decades of armed struggle. It represents a huge threat to the Mexican state.
The nature of the attacks is even more intimidating. Mexican thugs regularly shower police stations with bullets and rocket propelled grenades; they carry out mass kidnappings of officers and leave their mutilated bodies on public display; and they even kidnapped one mayor, tied him up, and stoned him to death on a main street. Who can claim with a straight face that is not a challenge to authority?
Yet in Mexico, the phrase “insurgent” sets off an even bigger political bang than the narcos’ car bombs. Insurgents were the glorious founding fathers who rebelled against Spain. The biggest avenue in the country, which cuts across Mexico City, is itself called “Insurgentes”. To give criminals this label is to imply they could be heroes. These are psychotic criminals. How dare you compare them to honourable rebels?
Talk about insurgency, wars, and failed states also sends shivers down the spines of Mexican officials looking for tourist and investment dollars. Brand Mexico has been given a hiding in the last three years. Some officials are even convinced there is a gringo plot to divert tourists from Cancun to Florida.
But Mexico is nothing like, say, Somalia. It is an advanced country with a trillion dollar economy, several world-class companies, and nine billionaires. It has an educated middle-class, with a fifth of school leavers going to university. It has some of the best beaches, resorts, and museums on the planet. But it is also experiencing an extraordinary criminal threat that we need to understand. As tens of thousands of bodies pile up, a strategy of silence won’t make it go away. In Spanish, they call that “using your thumb to block out the sun”.
From my early days in Mexico, I was fascinated by the riddle of El Narco. I wrote stories on busts and seizures. But I knew in my heart they were superficial, that the sources of police and “experts” were not good enough. I had to talk to narcos themselves. Where did they come from? How did their business function? What were their goals? And how was a Limey going to answer this?
My search to solve this quandary took me through surreal and tragic ambiances over the decade. I stumbled up mountains where drugs are born as pretty flowers, I dined with lawyers who represent the biggest capos on the planet, and I got drunk with American undercover agents who infiltrated the cartels. I also sped through city streets to see too many bleeding corpses – and heard the words of too many mothers who had lost their sons, and with them their hearts. And I finally got to narcos. From peasant farmers who grow coca and ganja; to young assassins in the slums; to “mules” who carry drugs to hungry Americans; to damned gangsters seeking redemption; I searched for human stories in an inhuman war.
While centred on Mexico, the book follows the tentacles of El Narco over the Rio Grande into the United States and south to the Colombian Andes. Gangsters don’t respect borders and the drug trade has always been an international endeavour. From its earnest beginning to today’s bloody war, the growth of Mexico’s mafias has been intrinsically linked to events in Washington, Bogota, and beyond.
To be able to dig deep into this story, I owe a huge debt to many Latin Americans who have spent decades labouring to understand the phenomenon. In the last four years, more than 30 Mexican journalists have been shot dead digging up vital information. I am continually impressed by the bravery and talent of Latin American investigators and their generosity in sharing their knowledge and friendship. The list is endless, but I am particularly inspired by the work of Tijuana journalist Jesus Blancornelas, Sinaloan academic Luis Astorga, and Brazilian writer Paulo Lins, author of City of God.
I recorded or filmed many of the interviews that make up the book, so their words are verbatim. In other cases, I spent days prying into people’s lives and relied on notes. Several sources asked me to avoid surnames or change their names. With the current murder rate in Mexico, I couldn’t challenge such requests. On one occasion, two gangsters gave an interview on Mexican television and were murdered within hours, inside a prison. Five sources whose interviews helped shaped the book were subsequently murdered or disappeared – although these killings almost certainly have nothing to do with my work. Those people are:
> Police Chief Alejandro Dominguez: Shot dead, Nuevo Laredo, June 8, 2005
> Human Rights Lawyer Sergio Dante: Shot Dead, Ciudad Juarez, Jan, 25, 2006
> Journalist Mauricio Estrada: Disappeared, Apatzingan, July 2008
> Criminal Lawyer Americo Delgado: Shot Dead, Toluca, Aug. 29, 2009
> Director of Honduran Anti-Drug Police Julian Aristides Gonzalez: Shot Dead, Tegucigalpa, Dec. 8, 2009
The last on the list, Julian Aristides Gonzalez, gave me an interview in his office in the sweaty Honduran capital. The square jawed officer chatted for several hours about the growth of Mexican drug gangs in Central America and the Colombians who provide them with narcotics. His office was crammed with 140 kilos of seized cocaine and piles of maps and photographs showing clandestine landing strips and narco mansions. I was impressed by how open and frank Gonzalez was about his investigations and the political corruption they showed up. Four days after the interview, he gave a press conference showing his latest discoveries. The following day he dropped his seven-year old daughter off at school. Assassins drove past on a motorcycle and fired eleven bullets into his body. It turned out he had planned to retire in two months and move his family to Canada.
I don’t know how much any mere books can help stop this relentless barrage of death. But literature on El Narco can at least contribute to a more complete understanding of this complex and deadly phenomenon. People and governments have to start making better sense of the mayhem and form more effective policies, so that other families, which may be closer to the homes and loved ones of readers, do not suffer the same tragedy.
