DOES MEXICO HAVE A STAKE IN THE DRUG WAR?

In the "War on Drugs," the U.S. has relentlessly has pressed other countries
to combat production and trafficking of illegal substances within and across
their borders. Mexico, in particular, has faced strong pressure from
Washington to "do its part" in combating the menace, with the annual
certification process serving as a major cudgel in the White House's hand.
But does Mexico have a transcending national interest in fighting the drug
war? First, a sharp distinction must be made between the drug war and the
drug trade. All too often, its advocates justify the drug war on the basis
of phenomena that some argue are prompted by it. For example, it is the
war, not the trade that is ultimately responsible for most of the corruption
in transit countries. A distinction must also be made between the interests
of individual Mexicans and the country's often self-seeking political
apparatus.

Mexico's participation in the drug war is often justified in the name of its
national security, but it is far from certain that the results of the
conflict have made it any safer. James Rochlin, author of Redefining
Mexican "Security": Society, State, and Region under NAFTA, argues that the
war on drugs, rather than the trade, poses the greater threat to the
citizenry, since it has served to legitimize and encourage a potentially
dangerous militarization of Mexico and has allowed the state to use
repression as a means of addressing social discontent. The war on drugs is
also utilized to buttress the state's machinery as it engages in a vastly
unpopular restructuring of the economy, mainly at the expense of the poor
and the working class. The drug trade, on the other hand, actually may
provide certain benefits to Mexican society, mainly regarding job creation.

Economic Consequences of Drugs

In economic terms, it even is arguable that the drug trade has had a
positive impact on Mexico, bringing a huge windfall of dollars into the
country. While much of this cash flow may be in "empty calories," in that it
is untaxed and almost immediately flows out of the country, the heroin trade
alone could be enriching the country by as much as $1.5 billion a year. Poor
peasants directly benefit from the trade as cultivators of plants yielding
narcotic derivatives which earn them far more money than do legal crops. As
part of their overhead, many mid-level drug lords may use part of their
ill-gained profits to improve the lives of the marginalized. By creating
jobs, raising the standard of living of poor peasants, building schools,
clinics, and roads, they gather the support of entire communities.

In contrast, anti-narcotics campaigns cost the government a significant part
of its entire annual public security budget. In Feb. 1999, the authorities
announced a three-year, $400 million plan to improve Mexico's anti-drug
effort, with the Zedillo regime identifying drug trafficking as one of its
greatest national security threats.

Corruption

In "The U.S.-Mexican Border and the Foreign Policy of Counter-Narcotics,"
Eric Wexler estimates that area drug cartels spend around $500 million a
year bribing local, state and other government officials. Those who argue
that drug-related corruption goes all the way to the top were buttressed
over a year ago when Gen. Gutierrez Rebollo, Mexico's drug czar, was
arrested for taking bribes from drug cartels. Drug-related corruption
includes officials on the take, as well as the police and the military
playing a more pro-active role by protecting drug shipments, harassing a
cartel's designated rivals, or even directly getting into the drug business.

Narco-corruption clearly poses a fundamental threat to Mexico, undermining
confidence in public officials on the drug lords' pay rolls. If Mexico
ended this war, some corruption undoubtedly would remain because traffickers
would still be motivated to bribe police officials to favor them over
competing cartels, but there would be no need to induce officials to look
the other way. It is entirely conceivable, even likely, that much
drug-related corruption would disappear were Mexican authorities to take the
combined steps of ending the anti-narcotics campaign while increasing police
pay. The inescapable conclusion is that the war on drugs as an effective
means of combating narco-corruption can have the paradoxical result of being
among its main causes.

In reality, the U.S.-inspired drug war is equally an onslaught on the
citizenry because it has given the authorities an enhanced capacity as well
as a cover to intensify repression of the population. In her book
Desperados, Elaine Shannon describes the use of intimidation and torture by
the police in their efforts to find and destroy drug crops. Their favored
methods include threats to drop blindfolded peasants from helicopters to
gain acquiescence. International human rights organizations have accused
the Mexican government of a long history of rights violations. In a recent
report, Human Rights Watch states that, "Mexico's human rights problems
extended far beyond the occurrences in Chiapas. In many parts of the
country, serious human rights violations, including torture and illegal
arrests, continued to take place in incidents related to counterinsurgency,
drugs, and common crime."

U.S. condemnation of the Mexican military's tactics can be regarded as
highly hypocritical. Washington has not only helped arm it, but has also
trained many of its personnel. Controversy arose in early 1998 when the
Washington Post reported that the anti-drug tactics the Pentagon trainers
teach are "similar to the counterinsurgency methods they used in the
preparations of Latin American officers during the Cold War."

In Whose Interest?

The drug war is not necessarily in the unqualified interest of Mexican
society because, while the drug trade brings with it corruption and
violence, it also provides the economic incentives mentioned above. The
ruling PRI government is engaged in the drug war both as a result of
unremitting U.S. pressure and because it serves its domestic political
interests. The drug war fits nicely into what journalist Ted Lewis calls
Mexico's "two-face strategy," whereby: "The north-looking, smiling face of
commercial Mexico offers low wages, and a stage-managed democratic
partnership with the U.S. The inward-looking face of Mexico is harsher: an
austere and repressive state and security apparatus that, with a nudge from
the U.S., has drastically cut back on social services, while continuing to
use bribery, torture, murder, and, in some cases, the latest forensic
techniques provided by U.S. police agencies to control, hunt down, and
imprison its political opponents."

Unfortunately, a bona fide reevaluation of current policy is highly unlikely
in Mexico, let alone in the U.S., where few mainstream political figures
question its efficacy.