A New Bilateral Strategy between Mexico and the USA

Time will tell to what extent Tuesday’s meeting between American and Mexican national security authorities marked the beginning of a new era in bilateral relations. Obviously, something important has changed. The message sent by Obama, going beyond courteous diplomatic formulas, indicates that border violence initiated by organized crime has crossed a line that the U.S. government considers dangerous for its own interests; therefore, it has decided to act.

The U.S. accepted joint responsibility, especially with regard to the demand for drugs and the trafficking of weapons; recognized the delays of putting the Mérida Initiative into practice; acknowledged the economic and social dimensions of the problem; and applauded President Calderón’s efforts. Nonetheless, the U.S. government left implicit its dissatisfaction with a strategy of the Mexican government that relies heavily on the armed forces to lead the “war” against drug traffickers.

In a way, intentional or not, the posture of the U.S. government has underscored the flaws of a strategy that is being devoured by its own weaknesses. For one, the army’s intervention (as a substitute for the federal and state police) to contain crime has not stopped the violence. Moreover, there hasn’t been an attempt to create or reorganize civilian security agencies, which should be in charge of operations against organized crime. On Tuesday, all of this was said in a friendly and collaborative manner, although Janet Napolitano’s words, harmonized by Hillary Clinton’s softer tone, presided over the meeting, whose results are summarized in an agenda centered on four strategic areas. These four areas include the dissolution of criminal organizations in both countries, the strengthening of security institutions, the development of a secure border that is competitive for the twenty-first century and the strengthening of social cohesion in communities on both sides of the border. We’ll soon see how Mexican security institutions are affected by this new comprehensive policy, which takes into account the seriousness of the problem and the implications for the immediate future of both countries.

It is an important step to admit the need to strengthen social cohesion as a strategic component of action against organized crime. This helps the process of moving away from a simplistic theory that refused to recognize a direct link between the population’s standard of living and the peak in crime. Although, in a bilateral context, the subject focuses on the border, it is also true that the problem has national dimensions, inseparable from the circumstances of general order that have brought about inequality, poverty and the hopelessness of millions of young people, whose access to employment is closed off, even if they enjoy the benefits of higher education. Without a doubt, these are breeding grounds for the proliferation of organized gangs.

In that respect, and I am only citing it by way of illustration, a study presented by the Dirección Regional del Colegio de la Frontera (Border College Regional Office) in Ciudad Juárez shows with precision to what extent there is a correlation between juvenile delinquency and major marginalized urban districts. This study “considered the indicators of housing and public service infrastructure,” the lack of “schools and institutions of middle and higher education,” and the absence of recreational and green spaces. While the analysis doesn’t try to establish “a mechanical relation between the criminal and urban infrastructure indexes, it can’t discard — it adds — that these services shape the horizon of the daily life of this population and its prospects for the future.” If we add “the progressive social and urban fragmentation in progress,” then we can understand why thousands and thousands of young people who are born into and live in marginalized circumstances join gangs that sooner or later are used by organized crime groups for their own ends.

The unease, the growing irritation of civil society in the “hot” zones on the border and elsewhere, is not directed (as it is sometimes indicated) to request the suspension of coercive actions against criminal groups that dispute routes and markets. It is also not a request to restore the complicity of criminals with the authorities. It does represent a demand for, more than direct political combat, an acknowledgment in the national policy of the profound social, economic and cultural implications of the problem, the weight of corruption and impunity, and the urgency to act with respect for human rights in situations where the population is at risk. In other words, what is in question is the notion of a “war” (as if we are immersed in a conventional conflict defending national sovereignty) between the “enemies of Mexico,” the drug traffickers and the armed forces, where terrorized citizens either have to bear witness to or be collateral victims of growing barbaric and inhumane crime.

Today, after the acts of violence that have accumulated throughout these past months, it is evident that the country cannot effectively face the challenge of organized crime without a profound change in national priorities. To continue under the rule of a vision that is incapable of reverting tendencies toward social polarization and exclusion would guarantee an increase in conflict zones and the extension of a culture of hopelessness that erodes social cohesion.

It remains to be seen if the bilateral focus dominates a vision that has in its sights the development of Mexico, which would entail important changes in the general direction of public policies and in bilateral cooperation, or if it will insist on a purely repressive formula (with timely reversals in social assistance) that will add more and better military resources to a war that cannot be won with weapons alone, no matter how much the effort is compared to the ones being carried out in Afghanistan and Iraq.