I spent last year in Mexico and found the places I visited beautiful, safe, and heavily populated by transplants from LA and the Pacific Northwest who were quickly transforming the area into their own image. Of course if you're part of a tight knit group living out on the fringes (and beyond civilization and police) so that you can live a lifestyle supposedly outlawed in the US two centuries ago, I suppose you would be less safe. This does not however, translate into Mexico becoming more violent. No one beats us at that.
13
I do not think the question of US assistance was answered fully. The problem of American's, legally filling up their trunks with legally purchased guns and then driving them across the border to sell is heavily understated. Furthermore, we know that if the US ended the war on drugs, decriminalized drugs and legalized marijuana the drug cartels would go broke, possibly by Christmas.
12
"Violent drug cartels are most active along much of the border with the United States…" Hmmmm.
"The gangs’ firepower is extraordinary, and it almost all comes from the United States… Mexico has long been asking the United States to halt the flow of guns south." Hmmmm.
Must contemplate…
10
After reading these questions and their answers, it sounds like, "There is nothing we (or anyone) can do." Cartel violence and too many guns in America are both nearly unsolvable problems.
8
I was born and raised in Mexico City, and left in 1996 fearful of what saw as increasing violence.
In the early nineties, several family members and those of close family friends were kidnapped. One never came back and is presumed dead. Another was left with a limp because the kidnappers shot him when he tried to escape and left the bullet in for the three months he wascaptive.
One time, my brother was drugged by a woman he met at a bar after she went home with him. He was unconscious for a little over 24 hours while she emptied his apartment. When he went to file a police report, he was told several men had died in this way, and that he was alive only because he was too big for the poison to kill him.
Since then, members of my family have been robbed, or had their home safety boxes emptied (probably with information from domestic staff), or been held for hours at gunpoint while criminals take them on a tour of ATM machines to empty their bank accounts. Life for them has become one in which people move from one compound to another, spending as little time as possible on the street.
Most recently, a cousin was killed for the contents of his wallet as he exited his usual bank branch. The killers knew he was carrying a larger amount than usual tipped by someone on the inside.
I still go back to visit, but I feel anxious every minute I'm there. Other Mexicans I know who emigrated here tell me they also share that sense of doom when they go back.
Mexico is a failed state.
24
President Lopez Obrador's approach to the drug cartels is essentially one of appeasement. The public's safety in fact remains at even greater risk. The fact Mexican Marines responded to this massacre and not the Mexican Army who are stationed at a base within a few hours from where the attack occurred, underlines how Mexico's military has been compromised by the cartels. The Mexican Marines are not only highly trained but they are the most loyal and highly vetted and their operational security is notable.
This is not a case of mistaken identity, nor robbery. Something as simple as a contract hit on the family could have been carried out with the overarching goal of driving this tight knit community from their ranches and orchards. Usually small business owners have to pay tribute and maybe this family hadn't paid tribute or maybe their success as ranchers made their assets desirable.
The sad part in all of this is the people of Mexico cannot have faith in their local, state or federal law enforcement agencies because some officers are also on the cartel's payroll. Mexican citizens are kidnapped and if their families complain too much then they go after whomever in the family is taking their story to the press. Another grisly factoid, the number of journalists in Mexico killed by year: 2017 eight, 2018 ten, 2019, 12.
19
Five years in row I have been a tourist in Sonora and Baja. I won’t be returning this year and probably not ever again. Adios.
6
@rp Then you can come to Monterrey, Guanajuato, Queretaro, Guadalajara, Merida, Oaxaca, Zacatecas, Aguascalientes, Puebla, Taxco, Morelia, Saltillo, San Luis Potosi, Mexico City, San Miguel de Allende, Palenque, Ribera Maya, Sayulita, Tequisquiapan, Tepoztlan, and many other cities, beaches and magical towns....let me tell you all of them safer than many American Cities, including schools.
14
So not one of the journalists here had a solution to the problem of violence.
And many commenters take the easy way out and say it’s the US’s fault.
A culture of corruption inherited from Spanish times rules much of Latin America and is manifested in different ways in different countries.
Mexican society will continue to devolve as incentives change for the Cartels and common criminals ( but always rise) until an exogenous force is brought to bear on an underdeveloped criminal justice system.
2
@DD corruption inherited from Spanish times? Try corruption inherited from the Catholic church. To delve further on that point, what is a family to do when they have 3 to 4 "bendiciones" when they can barely afford 1? And they do this because the sacrada "iglesia" tells them to. So now what happens when you've got 3 more kids than you can reasonable take care of? What are that child's opportunities? Mexico has come a long way but we've got to stop having more children than we can take care of and we've got to start creating opportunities for the children we have.
12
The recent incident of having 400 armed cartel soldiers stop the arrest of El Chapo's son is not normal. The description of that indicated a very coordinated and disciplined attack. I doubt seriously if any American police force would be capable of confronting that without mass casualties. That really is a symptom of a failed State. A set of circumstances where the United States bears a significant part of the blame. Our "war on drugs" created these cartels the same way alcohol prohibition helped birth organized crime in this country. Now, we blame the victim and talk about Mexico's murderers, gangs that exist because of American dollars and American weapons.
11
I am not sure that we are in the best position to advise a neighboring country how to address the gang issue. It is one of the most serious problems in our society as well.
8
The violence and associated corruption is caused by the USA. The USA and its drug addled population fuels the drug cartels with money. The USA unwillingness to regulate guns provides cartels with firepower. America’s drug war provides the cartels with the black market to thrive.
No one in the USA has a right to have disdain for the situation in Latin America where your average American is unwilling to do anything meaningful about it.
26
This is going to take a "Fight fire with fire" approach for years. Nothing else will work.
2
And violence has always worked so well…
1
The United States pressed Mexico to locate its newly-established National Guard along the Guatemalan and US borders to help deal with the flow of asylum-seekers and migrants north. That may address American interests but places them far from areas dominated by cartels. And the US insists on DEA agents operating in Mexico but does not permit Mexican authorities to track gun traffickers in the US. But the real problem is the unwillingness of the US to control activities of the "Cartel of the Potomac" the loose alliance of lobbyists, PR specialists, money managers, and others who maintain a drumbeat insisting on efforts to detain would-be fieldhands, dishwashers, and dog-walkers, draining thousands of CBP officers from systematic searching of vehicles for drugs. Why is it Mexican authorities find tons of drugs to be smuggled across the border while American authorities rarely do? How is it that Mexican meth is cheaper today than it was 10 years ago? Every CPB officer chasing Central American children is one less interdicting drug smugglers, fueling corruption and danger in the US. Why do we insist on having Mexico's National Guard police asylum seekers instead of acting against cartels? But we protect the interests of the Cartel of the Potomac instead of the country because Citizens United funnels dark money from smugglers to corrupt figures in Washington.
19
A fortnight from a gun battle that paralyzed Culiacán, and one of your reporters has the audacity to declare “yes, it is safe for Americans to travel in most parts of Mexico.” That statement remains completely contrary to year after year of record breaking violence that has engulfed the nation. Once peaceful enclaves currently overrun by violence have been issued their first ever US State Dept. travel advisories. With five of the six most violent cities in the world situated in Mexico, the country is far from safe, regardless of how one slices the details.
28
@Richard
50 people were killed in mass shootings in Vegas and Orlando. Are those places dangerous places? Should American families avoid those cities?
Glass houses and all.
35
@Richard... Hmmm, been in the state of Campeche for twelve years; four years in the maritime industry and the balanced retired. It's safe for me. The only altercation was with a taxi driver over a fare. I power walk at night for 1 1/2 hours beginning between 11p and midnight. I have never been negatively accosted nor experienced any near death experiences. I feel free to walk anywhere in my city.
As someone mentioned the mass shooting in Las Vegas, my voting and banking address, I certainly would not walk late at night on the periphery of The Strip or downtown.
10
@Joe Unfortunately the mass shooting in Las Vegas and Orland aren't comparable to what's happening in Mexico. The scale of the armed forces that the cartels can field overwhelms local law enforcement and even, as seen with El Chapo's son, the Mexican military. What both have in common is the ready availability of military grade American firearms.
5
We can rationalize this by admitting that it is the demand for drugs in the U.S. that is causing the problem - and it is. We can admit that gun sales from us to their cartels is part of the problem - and it is. But the biggest obstacle to the cartels would be if we legalized drugs. Without a profit motive the cartels would cease to exist. As for addiction, a percentage of our citizens will always be vulnerable to anything that makes them feel better: nicotine; alcohol; lotus leaves; exercise. Education and treatment is better than the DEA.
40
@R. Anderson .... Americans need to accept that not every problem has a simple solution, or even a solution at all. I see this all the time, call it "Americansplain", pervasive on both sides of the political spectrum. Having the answers to "Americansplain" an immensely complex situation, with far reaching social, political, & economic implications in a country of 130 million. We boil it down to "if only the US legalized drugs, the country would be safe again, it's so obvious!"
Honestly, this is the same mentality that has driven our record in the Middle East the past 2 decades, & decimated the region. Pretending we understand have the solution, when our own citizens barely even know how to pronounce the country we send our troops to die for.
Without a stronger, less corrupt, centralized state in Mexico, this isn't a drug problem, it's an Organized Crime problem. It does NOT get better by simply legalizing drugs.
The Italian Mafia was not weakened post-Prohibition. Far worse, Cartels are such a way of life in Mexico that they will still look to maintain profits, & Mexico lacks a vacuum of well paying jobs, strong legal protection, defense, protection of property rights, etc.
Cartels simply will shift into new lines of business to leverage their power: increased human trafficking, organ harvesting, extortion of tourists, kidnapping wealthy Californians, dragging them to Mexico, (already starting to happen in San Diego). Endless possibilities
4
@R. Anderson That's a big "if." No way will we ever legalize drugs. So what's the point of playing 'what if'? The history lesson is: fight fire with fire is the only way at this point. Being more ruthless than the gangs until they are stamped down. Period.
1
To legalize drugs would require a level of rational thought, logic and understanding that Americans are not capable of exercising.
We are a faith based country. We eschew science, evidence and logic. We are more inclined to continue to police our way through this.
12
If American people wants to help Mexico, decrease the drug consumption in yourr country and the arms/guns traffic from your country to Mexico . very sad what happened to this mexican/american family something thats is happening every day for the drug trafficking. We all here in Mexico hate violence and even worse when this happens to innocent people like this childrens and women .
31
@leoj If if if if if. Really, I don't get the point of the "if" game.
A cartel approached them for something, and they resisted. Part of the price of living there, every so often you get your turn on the wheel. Maybe it was to supply women. Maybe it was to supply cover for cross-border enterprise, since they are dual citizens. Whatever. You have to "know where you are" and they do. Every so often the wheel comes around and you get your turn. Your choice. They know it. It's us who don't.
Mexico safe? Merida safe? Ah...no. While murders are way to prevalent even worse is kidnapping for ransom, which you don't read about very often. And this from a country with strict gun laws. Hum......
10
Mexico can learn from Italy. The Italians leave the Mafia fairly intact because they know that they keep "law and order" among the criminal elements. It's easier to keep track of a fairly monolithic organization - the Mafia - than to have a decentralized thugs terrorizing the nation.
12
Sao Paulo state in Brazil is said to have become much safer and peaceful, at least in terms of murder, after one organization, the PCC monopolized the state crime "industry".
1
Welcome to the life all of us who live on the border have to deal with each day.
50+ years living on the Arizona/Mexico border has shown me that Mexico is a third world country being propped up by the USA.
These stories are nothing new to us. Just those who think they know what it's like are shocked.
16
@Randy L. Remember when NAFTA was going to save Mexico and make it safer, richer, and less corrupt? Another government failure.
2
@Randy L.
Well said Randy.
A government that allows its people to be terrorized by armies of criminal elements cannot call itself a government. In all that has been exposed about the Mexican gangs one never gets the impression that the Mexican police or Mexico's armed forces have made a real effort to end the reign of terror that many of Mexico's most vulnerable citizens must suffer.
30
@Vincent Amato
They explain on the article how that strategy doesnt work. This isn't a solution you can shoot your way out of any more than we can end abuses on Wall Street by invading it.
6
NAFTA is another big factor. NAFTA destroyed small farming in Mexico, leaving many men with no hope of a job or supporting a family.
20
@we Tp "After the implementation of NAFTA the U.S. auto sector lost some 350,000 jobs since 1994—a third of the industry—while Mexican auto sector employment spiked from 120,000 to 550,000 workers. More than 950,000 specific U.S. jobs have been certified by the U.S. Labor Department as lost to NAFTA outsourcing and import floods under just one narrow program"
Mexico had a massive net gain of jobs on account of NAFTA.....