When did Mexico screw up? Part 2

A dreadful story is on the front page of many of Mexico’s newspapers today:

The bodies of 72 people were found yesterday in a concealed mass grave at a ranch in the northern state of Tamaulipas, around 100 miles away from Brownsville, Texas. According to preliminary investigation, the bodies belonged to people from Central America and Latin America countries, who were trying to make their way to the United States.

The same preliminary results –not confirmed yet–indicate that the migrants were kidnapped by the Zetas, an organized crime group that has established its own laws in the state of Tamaulipas. The migrants could have been killed because they refused to work for the organization or because they didn’t pay the extortion fees the Zetas demand.

Stories such as these bring up the original concerns from my previous posting and also bring up the issue of parallel states that are challenging and threatening the established institutions and government of Mexico.

Some readers have thoughtfully participated in this exchange of ideas and have submitted their opinions about what has led to this level of deterioration in Mexico. Issues such as poverty, unequal distribution of wealth and opportunities, widespread corruption and lack of confidence in the judicial system have appeared in most of the comments.

I have been receiving more responses to my question from different people in Mexico.The most recent was from Octavio Rivera, a journalist based in Mexico City, who links the disintegration of the country to several causes. He sent a list of thoughts that he hopes will add more elements to this discussion.  Here are his comments:

Mexico is not the poorest country in the world, but it is the most unequal. For years and years, entire generations have lived in hunger and they have been condemned to a life without opportunities and dreams.

Also, for years and years, politicians have seen politics as a path to get rich. For them, a vocation for service and honesty are concepts that are practically non-existent. When you have a political class and a bureaucracy moved only by greed, corruption imposes its reign. In Mexico, corruption is endemic. It has affected vital institutions such as the judicial system.

Because of this corruption, organized crime has been able to infiltrate in the political system. For that reason, the war against it is condemned to fail because the state is fighting an enemy within itself.

 Furthermore, Mexico shares its border with the major consumer of illegal drugs in the world. Millions of U.S. addicts require their doses of drugs and somebody has to supply it. What would happen if for one day, one week or one month, those addicts didn’t get their drugs? I have the impression that the U.S. anti-drug policy is just a hypocritical  ruse. The U.S. needs the drugs, although its discourse says the contrary.

What was the breaking point?

When organized crime understood that they didn’t have to be subordinate to the political power, as supposedly it was in the decades before the 2000 election.  Because of its growing firepower and its multimillion profits, organized crime is the biggest threat to Mexico today.

After the news today, one doesn't have any other choice than to agree with Rivera's comment. Let's continue the discussion.

Comments

[joe b]

When I worked in Mexico, 1999-2006, I used to joke with my Mexican friends that they needed another revolution to cure the problems with their corrupt government. Some would say, "joe, you are choking!"
It seems that they have that revolution, for the reasons cited here, in Rivera's comments. I think it will take a philosopher's comments to grasp what is happening. The world is not as simple a good vs evil, because they are often intwined. Gracias.

[Lost]

Today I read an article in the Mexican press that traces the problem back to the '70s and the "dirty wars" in Latin America. I didn't bookmark it, and only read it via Google Translator, but the thrust was that around the time of the Tlatelolco Massacre (1968) the PRI found it convenient to enlist the cooperation of the underworld in doing dirty political work. In exchange, they would receive cooperation in satisfying the booming demand for drugs in the US.

This appeals to me in that I think many problems in the US and elsewhere are blowback from the Cold War era, if not going back to the Spanish Civil War.

Another issue I would raise, is was Mexico ever a "successful state"? There are many definitions of "failed state" but I would say a successful state first monopolizes violent coercion and second implements a system of justice which is regarded as legitimate. Is Mexico "just somewhat more failed than in the past, and because 'if it bleeds it leads' we're a paying some slight attention on occaision"?

Third, I lived for some years in Japan and would like to contrast that country with Mexico. When the elites of Japan were confronted with Western power in the late 19th century, they didn't decide to invest their wealth in foreign imperial powers. They scoured the world for best practices, brought them home, and used the resources they had (water and people, mostly) to build a country capable of determining its own destiny. Of course later elites made one hell of a mess, but the experience is still relevant.

Cheers for an excellent blog. I was impressed with the high quality of comments to the earlier post.