Today, Conflict Health presents the fourth in a series of guest posts by Paul Rexton Kan. Professor Kan is currently working on his forthcoming book, Cartels at War: Mexico’s Drug Fueled Violence and the Challenge to US National Security, from Potomac Books.
July was a month of firsts for Mexico. There was the first car bomb in the country’s history that was used by the Juarez cartel in an ambush against police. The first kidnappings of national TV journalists occurred when they were covering the unprecedented story of prison officials who allowed certain inmates out at night to kill rival gang members in the city with the use of prison weapons and vehicles.
In July’s month-full of firsts, allegations were made by the cartels involved that Mexican security institutions have been picking sides in the drug war. Graffiti on a wall of a shopping mall contained a claim of responsibility for the car bomb also included the allegation; it read in Spanish “What happened on the 16 (street) is going to keep happening to all the authorities that continue to support Chapo (Guzman), sincerely, the Juarez Cartel. We still have car bombs (expletive) ha ha.” Another message was aimed at the FBI and DEA which was posted in an elementary school in Ciudad Juarez: “FBI and DEA, start investigating authorities that support the Sinaloa Cartel, if you do not, we will get those federal officers with car bombs. If corrupt federal officers are not arrested within 15 days, we will put 100 kilograms of C-4 in a car.” For its part, the Sinaloa cartel was implicated in the kidnapping of several well known, national TV reporters in Mexico. The cartel’s intent was to force the reporters’ station to air videos made by the cartel that implicated police in siding with another cartel composed of former enforcers who were once members of the Mexican special forces, Los Zetas.
As if to undermine the allegations that the Mexican state had been siding with the Sinaloa cartel, the Mexican military dealt a significant blow against the group when it killed one of the cartel’s top figures, Ignacio Coronel Villlareal, during an arrest raid in western Mexico on July 29. But violence might rise nonetheless if the Sinaloa cartel believes that the government caved into the threats from the Juarez cartel and is now siding with them.
Whether the Mexican government has picked a side as part of its strategy to bring violence under control or whether portions of the police and military have picked sides without the knowledge and consent of the government, the cartels clearly see the state as another “narco”. The result might be an August full of frightening and unexpected new firsts…and the continuing peril of the Mexican state.
Paul Rexton Kan is currently an Associate Professor of National Security Studies at the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. While finishing his Ph.D., he was the Deputy Director of the Center for China-United States Cooperation where he coordinated professional exchanges with Chinese officials from the policy institutions linked to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of State Security, and the People’s Liberation Army.
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