Why They Call It A War

Today's online surfing came up with a couple of gems concerning Mexico's ongoing drug wars. One is a pithy essay that suggests that competing drug cartels be looked upon more as "armies of mercenaries" than criminal families, even though money and not political gain is their objective.

The second is Drug Violence in Mexico: Data and Analysis Through 2010, a lengthy and disturbing survey of murders, kidnappings and similar mayhem in Mexican states over the past several years. The report was written by Viridiana Ríos, a doctoral candidate at Harvard University and a research associate of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego, and David Shirk, the institute's director. Released today, it looks to be the most timely and reliable canvas of drug-related violence in Mexico yet accumulated. Some highlights from its 28 pages:

- In the first four years of the administration of President Felipe Calderon, 34,550 killings have been linked officially to organized crime in Mexico. During the entire six-year term of Calderon's immediate predecessor, Vicente Fox, just 8,901 killings were attritubed to drug-related crime. Calderon has two years remaining in his term.

- Of the total, 15,273 killings occurred during 2010, a nearly 60-percent increase over the previous year.

- Of the total number of killings last year, 84 percent were in just four of Mexico's 32 states - Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Guerrero and Baja California. (It's important to note here that Baja California, also sometimes called Baja California Norte, is the state to the north of Baja California Sur. Baja California Norte includes Tijuana, where 472 drug-related killings took place last year. In all, 540 drug-related murders occurred in Baja California Norte last year. By comparison, 4,427 were in the state of Chihuahua, which includes the deadly city of Ciudad Juarez. The report notes that Baja California Sur, which includes the popular vacation destinations of La Paz, Todos Santos, Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo, is one of five Mexican states virtually untouched by drug-related violence; last year, 10 killings in the entire state were attributed to organized crime, but that compares with just 1 drug-related murder in the state the year before.

- This isn't the best of times to be a public official or a journalist in Mexico. Of last year's deaths, 14 were Mexican mayors (an unprecedented high), and 11 were journalists. (A total 27 Mexican mayors have been killed over the past six years.)

- Killings related to organized crime accounted for about 45 percent of all murders in the country last year.

- Nearly one-quarter of the killings were attributed to conflict between the dominant Sinaloa cartel and the Juarez cartel. Another 17 percent were attributed to conflict between the Sinaloa and Beltran Leyva factions, while 9 percent stemmed from feuds between the Sinaloa and Gulf and Zeta organizations.

- If Mexico in on your list of possible vacation destinations, the safest states look to be Baja California Sur, Campeche, Queretaro, Tlaxcala and Yucatan. Each has averaged no more than 10 drug-related homicides per year since 2007.

The report is longer on statistics than it is on analysis, and shies from predicting whether the conflict will intensify or whether some sort of equilibrium will be reached among the various warring drug factions. For sure, over the past year the drug cartels adopted more aggressive tactics, including explosives and traffic blockades, and became more brazen in boasting of their accomplishments through handwritten banners, viral internet videos and the popular form of ballads called narcocorridos. "In this sense, the tone of violence has become increasingly ominous over recent years," notes the study.

The report, however, is cautiously optimistic about what lies immediately ahead for Mexico in its struggle with drug cartels. It notes that drug-related violence trended down in the second half of 2010. The Merida Initiative, a three-year, $1.4-billion, U.S.-backed assistance package to help Mexico with social services and programs, could help undercut the appeal of drug trafficking as a way of life. Intensified border interdiction of drugs, a drop in demand for drugs in the U.S., smaller potential profits for the cartels, the high-profile arrest or killing of several drug lords, and steps to improve the country's criminal-justice system all could help alleviate the violence, the report suggests.

"It is important to keep Mexico’s recent violence in perspective. In a country of more than 100 million people, the odds of being killed in a drug-related homicide in 2010 were one in 6,667, about the same as the odds of being killed in an automobile accident in the United States (about one in 6,500). The odds of being killed in Mexico’s drug violence decrease dramatically if a person is not a drug trafficker, mayor, or police officer in a disputed trafficking region," notes the report. (It does not mention the odds of being killed in an automobile accident in Mexico.)

On the other hand: "With no sign of surrender on the part of the government or the (drug-trade organizations), Mexico’s drug war is far from over. Nor is it even clear that the worst has passed. Indeed, the start of 2011 seems to herald a continuation or increase in violence in the coming year. In the first three weeks of January 2011, Reforma reported 245 drug-related killings per week, 41 more than during the same period a year ago and 20 more than the average for 2010. At the same time, with the presidential elections looming, the Calderón administration needs to shift to a strategy that will help build political support for his party in 2012. This may lead the federal government to focus on regions that are easily controllable and efforts that will yield high-impact results. However, this may leave the most difficult cases, such as Ciudad Juárez, in turmoil, with violence keeping the same high but steady trend that occurred in 2010," concludes the report, sounding not at all hopeful of peace any time soon.