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Organized criminal groups’ impacts on Mexico’s Energy Sector since the 2000s

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Photo by Roberto Arcide on Unsplash

Organized criminal groups have severely hampered Mexico’s energy sector since the 2000s, as their violence and fuel theft have disrupted energy development, delayed sector diversification, and discouraged foreign investment. Cartel violence and theft influence energy companies’ work schedules and tasks, project risks, and maintenance costs. Organized criminal groups have contributed to delays in Mexico’s efforts to diversify the energy sector, especially in regards to natural gas production and shale development. High costs associated with private security contracts and initiatives, as well as a bleak outlook regarding violence, cause foreign firms to hesitate when considering ventures in Mexico.

State-owned petroleum company Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) provides about one-third of Mexico’s federal tax revenues, but at the same time the United States was experiencing significant increases in gas and oil production during the ‘shale revolution,’ Pemex announced its pipelines had been ‘practically taken over by organized crime and armed groups’ stealing the oil to sell on the black market. Fuel theft, or ‘huachicol,’ which steadily increased to an all-time high in 2018 of nearly 15,000 illegal taps and has only slightly subsided since then to 11,022 taps in 2020, has enabled cartels to diversify their portfolios and become even wealthier and more powerful. At the height of illegal siphoning, the Pemex CEO stated fuel theft was costing Pemex the equivalent of U.S. $1.5 billion per year. Recently, the frequency of these taps decreased due to arresting collaborators and an increased presence of security forces at siphoning hotspots. Security and theft concerns have shaken Mexico’s energy sector and will continue to hamper it until the government develops an efficient strategy to reduce violence, prevent fuel theft, and restore security.

Organized criminal groups’ activities have disrupted energy exploration, development, and production, largely stemming from the overlapping territory of cartels and oil and gas development. In December 2006, newly-inaugurated Mexican President Felipe Calderón launched a war on drugs that, within a few months, involved 20,000 troops in counter-drug operations across the country. Cartels retreated to their support zones, where they diversified portfolios to make up for destroyed drug crops and interdicted shipments. As oil prices rose globally, cartels stole from oil and gas facilities, trucks, and Mexico’s hard-to-defend 17,000-mile pipeline network, as their territories overlapped with the most prolific areas for oil and gas development. Fuel theft rendered greater profits than cocaine trafficking, as money spent on necessary equipment to extract fuel from pipelines could be recovered within two days of operations, due to strong profits in the black market. Violence between warring factions and high frequencies of fuel theft led Pemex and other firms to conduct daily security briefings and institute strict work hours to keep employees indoors between 4 p.m. and 8 a.m. Violence and illegal taps of pipelines also led Pemex to temporarily shut down stations and halt routine maintenance in some areas.

In addition to organized criminal groups’ direct targeting and violence, their activities have also affected communities through unintentional explosions caused by clandestine siphoning. These incidents involve excessive maintenance requirements to repair holes, but illegal taps of pipelines have also caused dozens of catastrophic accidents. The deadliest explosion occurred in Texmelucan in 2010 when a few members of the Zetas cartel tried to siphon oil from a pipeline, but a spark produced a gas explosion and oil fire that killed 29 and injured 52. Such incidents have diverted money away from further exploration and development to address urgent maintenance needs and pay for collateral damage.

These groups’ activities have also delayed the diversification of Mexico’s energy sector. Cartel violence hindering development contributes to Mexico’s consistent decline in natural gas output (nearly halved from 60,000 million cubic meters of production in 2009 to around 30,000 million in 2019), ensuring Mexico remains dependent on foreign gas. In 2004, the Spanish energy and petrochemical firm Repsol became the first foreign company to drill in Mexico since the country nationalized the oil industry 66 years earlier, but after completing a 10-year contract with Pemex to develop conventional natural gas fields near the northern Mexican border, the firm left because even with hired private security, cartel violence was unsurmountable. During Repsol’s drilling in the Burgos Basin, Pemex reported that cartels stole as much as 40 per cent of the Basin’s natural gas condensate, which also implicated U.S. energy companies for allegedly encouraging the theft, further complicating attempts to diversify Mexico’s energy sector.

Violence is also largely to blame for Mexico’s dashed hopes of leveraging fracking to reverse a ‘national decline in oil and natural gas output to two-decade lows.’ In the early 2010s, the United States drastically increased domestic oil and natural gas production during the ‘shale revolution.’ A similar fracking boom in Mexico, however, has yet to materialize with its 545 trillion cubic feet of shale reserves, compared to the U.S.’s estimated 665 trillion cubic feet. A lack of infrastructure, heavy regulation, and water scarcity contributed to this delay, but concern for security and theft is a significant obstacle. After reforms ended Pemex’s 70-year monopoly on Mexican oil in an attempt to attract foreign investment, fracking executives in Texas stated they would have ‘likely expand[ed] into Mexico if the government could [have] address[ed] the violence,’ but the lack of a firm response from the Mexican government caused them to hesitate. Most concerns are linked to violence caused by the Gulf and Zeta cartels operating near Mexico’s shale plays in Sabinas, Burgos, Tampico-Misantla, and Veracruz Basins.

Such violence and costs associated with security or repairs discourage foreign investment. As organized criminal groups diversified revenue sources, extortion and kidnappings of energy sector employees became frequent. The Zetas, in particular, tortured and slaughtered victims, but as groups fixated on the energy sector, the risk for oil workers increased. Cartels kidnapped over 50 Pemex employees between 2004 and 2014. Through the Zetas’ policy of ‘plata o plomo’ (‘take the money or take the lead,’ meaning a bullet, although ‘steel’ would be more appropriate for their signature punishment of decapitation by chainsaw), they enforced complicity with fuel theft. Given this security situation, foreign companies were, and remain, unwilling to invest in development projects or send workers to Mexico.

Steep security expenses to protect people, infrastructure, and resources have dissuaded foreign companies from investing in Mexico’s energy sector. As a state-owned enterprise, Pemex has benefitted from military escorts and patrols protecting one of Mexico’s key revenue sources. Even so, Pemex armed and trained workers to fend off fuel thieves and hired private contractors for areas prone to violence because military support was not enough. Grupo Unne, a transportation company moving fuel, even instituted a satellite tracking system to monitor fuel vehicle location and status to further enhance security. Foreign firms with energy ventures in Mexico must factor in costs to protect their assets, a financial burden that shows little promise of subsiding anytime soon.

Organized criminal groups’ violence and fuel theft have disrupted energy development, delayed sector diversification, and discouraged foreign investment. Steps taken by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration seem to have slightly reduced pipeline siphoning, as the number of illegal taps countrywide decreased by around twenty-six per cent in his first two years in office, but as long as fuel theft and violence in the vicinity of oil and gas production persists, cartels will continue to generate profits at the expense of the Mexican economy and energy diversification. The Mexican security apparatus remains weak, despite reform efforts. Mexico’s National Guard, recently established with the mandate to combat crime, has been heavily involved in border security operations due to the migration crisis. President López Obrador supported constitutional reforms to permit military involvement in public security for an additional five years, contrary to a 2018 Supreme Court ruling that such an action was unconstitutional, reflecting the country’s dire security situation. Community defence forces may be one resource the state can still leverage. Although Mexico seems to have missed the opportunity during former President Peña Nieto’s term to train and integrate self-defence forces as part of the Rural Defence Corps, reinvigorated efforts to integrate such groups to improve security conditions may still be possible in parts of western Mexico through efforts led by the National Guard. Effective integration and utilization of such self-defence forces may enhance security and enable federal forces to focus on securing energy infrastructure. Unless the government restores security at and around energy development sites, Mexico will remain dependent on foreign gas, despite its massive natural gas deposits and potential for domestic production.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. Also, the appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the U.S. Army, the DoD, or the U.S. Government of the referenced sites or the information, products, or services contained therein

The Evolution of the Mexican Navy Since 1980

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EO4, Mexican Navy, 1993. Photo Credit: Bill Larkins, licensed with CC BY-SA 2.0.

This article is a part of our 2021 Series on Caribbean Maritime Security.  Read the Series Introduction at this link.

On the 1st of December 2018, Mexico inaugurated President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Within only a few days of beginning his term, he had clearly established his security and defence priorities: tackling the country’s internal violence and scrapping all “unnecessary” defence expenditures. This announcement had a tremendous effect on the Mexican defence establishment, which was already planning several key modernizing projects.

One of those projects is the procurement of eight light, multi-purpose frigates, co-developed with the Danish shipyard Damen. Though, this acquisition is just one of several projects intended to better equip the Mexican Navy with capabilities appropriate for the maritime challenges of the 21st Century. However, proposed overhauls of the Mexican Navy risk coming to nothing amidst political landscape disinterested in maritime defense issues.

To better understand the Navy’s current state, it is important to first explore its doctrinal evolution over the last 40 years. To this effect, this article draws from informal interviews with retired Mexican captains and admirals, assessing their thoughts in light of Mexico’s naval doctrine evolution since 1980. The group identified three main doctrinal evolutions since 1980, the first taking place at the beginning of that decade, the second starting in the middle of the 1990s and the last, which is still ongoing, beginning in the wake of September 11, 2001.

A Constabulary Navy (1980 – mid 1990s)

After the Second World War, the Mexican Navy focused on building a constabulary force to conduct coastal patrols, fisheries control and limited search and rescue (SAR) operations. Platform-wise, Mexico relied on decommissioned US Navy vessels that formed the backbone of the fleet for decades. The sudden discovery of large oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, which occurred at the same time that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) came into existence, started to change this constabulary focus. The first evidence of this was the acquisition of the ARM Cuauhtémoc, a Spanish-made tall ship that would serve as the navy’s training vessel as well as a tool for naval diplomacy. The acquisition of Cuauhtémoc sent a clear message that the Mexican Navy was ready to look outward.

The arrival of the ARM Cuauhtémoc was followed by the introduction of six Uribe-class offshore patrol vessels (OPV) from 1981 to 1982, also bought from Spain. These vessels were intended to boost the navy’s maritime presence in Mexico’s recently demarcated three million square kilometer exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The OPVs were lightly armed but capable of embarking helicopters, which helped the navy as a capability multiplier for ocean patrol missions. Integrated air and naval operations helped the navy gain confidence and laid the groundwork for subsequent growth.

Towards International Cooperation (mid 1990s – 2001)

Although Mexico and its naval forces had prioritized sub-state threats before, the end of the Cold War reinforced their focus on naval policy relating to non-state actors and trans-national crime. For example, the fight against drug trafficking at sea became, and still is, a cornerstone for U.S.-Mexico maritime security cooperation. Bilateral security and defence cooperation between both countries reached new heights during this decade, and the Mexican Navy has played a key role in maintaining security ties with the United States ever since.

Subsequently, the Mexican Navy decided to increase its naval shipbuilding efforts and to focus on domestically developed offshore patrol vessels. Building on the lessons of the Uribe-class the Mexican government built four Holzinger-class OPVs in local shipyards during the first half of the 1990s. At the same time, the navy acquired two Bronstein-class and four Knox-class frigates from the United States, all part of the Cold War glut of US Navy vessels. The vessels were outdated by international standards but helped the Mexican Navy maintain a modest ocean-going capability.

During the second half of the 1990s, the navy was also investing in its personnel by sending more personnel to attend training in US Navy and US Coast Guard schools. Though mostly academic, this foundation of security cooperation between the United States and Mexico was important for the current doctrinal stage, which came in the wake of the 2001 attacks on the United States.

Speeding Up Internationalization (2001 – Present)

After the attacks on 11 September 2001, the Mexican Navy came to the consensus that it had more to worry about than maritime drug trafficking. Specifically, it became increasingly concerned with the possibility of a terrorist attack on offshore drilling platforms in the Bay of Campeche, and in response to this perceived threat, the navy acquired two Aliya-class corvettes from Israel. They were the first Mexican vessels capable of launching anti-ship missiles, which was a major step in conventional naval capability. The two Aliyas were part of the Navy’s overall patrol scheme in the zone, also comprised of interceptor boats, Raytheon-made Sentinel coastal radars and a special operations base located on an oil platform. The Navy also continued to build offshore patrol vessels like the Oaxaca-class OPV. By the end of President Vicente Fox’s administration in 2006, the Mexican navy could call on a fleet of modern OPVs and limited anti-surface warfare capabilities.

Fox’s successor, President Felipe Calderón (2006-2012), took office and aggressively used the Mexican military to attack the growing power of the drug cartels. These measures included the Mexican navy’s marines who were generally regarded as the most efficient, respected, and reliable force in the military. The crackdown on the cartels also drew the Mexican Navy into closer cooperation with its US counterparts. In his book A Tale of Two Eagles, Craig Deare argues that during this period is was the war on organized crime that allowed the United States-Mexico security and defence relationship to reach new levels. Cooperation was most evident in intelligence sharing and in the United States’ actions assisting the Mexican navy to invest in new platforms, like maritime surveillance aircraft.

Simultaneously, the Mexican Navy has continued to invest in patrol vessels, for instance the aforementioned Oaxaca-class and a new class of Stan Patrol vessels built in Mexico under license from Damen Group in the Netherlands. Eventually this project led to the most ambitions Mexican acquisition, the multipurpose SIGMA 10514 frigate. The SIGMA 10514 project would not have been possible without building on some of the earlier Mexican shipbuilding programs like the Oaxaca-class. For the Mexican Navy, the SIGMA-class is a strategic bet on the country’s national defence in the 21st Century. Initially envisioned as a class of eight vessels, construction has been halted after only the first, ARM Juárez, has been launched.

Final Thoughts

The SIGMA project has been suspended since December 2018, with only one ship operational. All other naval construction has also been halted, breaking with what has been a near constant period of acquisitions since the 1990s.

The future of the Mexican navy is at a crossroads. The doctrinal evolution that started in the 1980s, both in terms of organizational culture and capabilities, has yielded a modern-thinking navy with moderately capable vessels but, a lack of interest in the navy and maritime affairs by the current administration may halt or even begin to reverse some of that hard-won progress.  Nonetheless, even while naval construction is halted, decades of evolution in service culture and doctrine should survive a temporarily hostile political climate.

A clear sign that the Navy is still on the same strategic path that began 40 years ago, would be its participation in multinational naval drills and exercises, such as UNITAS, RIMPAC or Trade Winds. If the Navy does not take part in those exercises, and the shipbuilding program remains halted, the Mexican Navy will have a hard time to keep the pace of its strategic doctrinal evolution.

Time will tell.

The Case Against Mexico Joining NATO

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By Raúl Zepeda-Gil

Artwork: “Esquadron 201,” The 201st Mexican Fighter Squadron, Mexican Expeditionary Air Force Artist: Ginny Sherwood

Mexico has no benefit in joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In a pragmatic sense, the relation with the United States constrains how Mexico employs its foreign policy. Adding a new layer of complexity, coming from an international organisation that has an overwhelming leadership from the U.S., would futher hinder Mexico’s foreign policy by reducing its freedom degrees of action by excesing a neutralilty instance in international security matters.

Historically, Mexico has diverged from the U.S. foreign policy and acted in a semi-neutral basis for the rest of the world. After the recurrent invasions from the U.S. and France during the 19th Century, Mexico adopted constitutional principles enshirend in article 89, fraction X: self-determination, peaceful conflict resolution, follow international law, and the proscription to threat to use force against other State. 

Mario Ojeda, one the most relevant experts on Mexico’s foreign policy, described the paradox of a relatively weak country neighbouring through a long border with the United States: it has independence in foreign policy in exchange for cooperation in everyday matters. Mexico does not engage in international security affairs of the U.S., but has intensive cooperation in other maters: border protection, migration issues, having a Free Trade Agreement, and Plan Merida for anti-drug initiatives. 

In 2019, Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary-General of NATO, in response to the integration of Colombia as a partner of the alliance, mentioned that other Latin American countries could integrate in the same way. This appeal happened in a particular geopolitical moment: Brazil had requested to join NATO to help Donald Trump pressure the rest of the member states internally. 

2021 has changed the scenario: Trump is now out of office. And Joe Biden will reinforce the U.S. presence in NATO. However, before these junctures, two members of the Atlantic Council have made their case for Mexico in NATO. Skaluba and Doyle argued: 

“Mexico could serve as a gateway for an intensified NATO presence in Latin America where the alliance is absent outside of a formal partnership with Colombia. Given Russia’s criticality in propping up Nicolás Maduro’s regime in Venezuela and China’s growing influence throughout the Global South, an augmented NATO role in Latin America could further democracy promotion while providing a timely deterrent effect, including on Russia’s solicitation of Mexico to increase bilateral trade and security agreements.”

This idea has been widely debated. In 2012, Christopher Sands, of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkin’s University, said:

President Obama and Prime Minister Harper should consider Mexico when they meet with other NATO leaders in Chicago. NATO with Mexico as a member could also confirm the alliance’s role as a guarantor of security and mutual cooperation against transnational security threats that contributes to the prosperity of the west, in Europe and North America equally.

Both pieces, plus the Stoltenberg declaration, do not mention why or how Mexico would benefit from a NATO membership beyond the current benefits from the bilateral relationship with the U.S. or the integration within the free trade agreement government Canada. Both quotes show that having Mexico’s main interest in NATO is to be functional to the NATO agenda. Nonetheless, history has shown that Mexico’s geographical closeness to the U.S. automatically requires Mexico to be auxiliary to the Atlantic agenda. Mexico is so entwined with the U.S. that it will choose to be with the U.S. on a global scale conflict. 

Nonetheless, beyond a real common threat to Mexico and the U.S., such as the Japanese Empire during the Second World War, Mexico does not need to enter into the agenda of international conflicts of the U.S. The advantage of Mexico’s independent foreign policy is that Mexico exchanges cooperation of its own agenda without the need to be involved in issues that are not geopolitically relevant to Mexico. For example, the George W. Bush administration pressured Mexico to enter the “coalition of the willing” in Iraq in 2002. Nonetheless, México denied joining that endevour initially because it was not supported in the UN Security Council. Afterwards, with the negative vote of Mexico in the UN Security Council in 2003, the Iraq War was not athorised, therefore, giving Mexico the main reason to deny any future involvement: it was against the Mexican constitutional principle of following the international law. Indeed, diplomatic tensions arose, but the bilateral agenda continued as usual, and Mexico did not embark in a conflict; it not needed be involved. 

For a country so dependent on the U.S. economy, joining to NATO would mean relinquishing degrees of freedom in foreign policy. Mexico is in line with North America’s defence by cooperating with the U.S. Northern Command and follows constitutional principles of peaceful resolutions of conflict and democratic values. However, joining with NATO would mean that Mexico could be pressured to integrate to conflicts in Afghanistan, Libya, Bosnia, or Yemen, contentious by themselves in other multilateral forums. 

As stated before, Mexico usually disagrees with NATO countries in the UN on international security matters. For example, Mexico has never supported Responsibility to Protect as a policy, instead prefers diplomatic mediation. And has never supported military responses for international security matters, rather than just peacekeeping operations.

The previously mentioned authors argued that Mexico would benefit from the Security Sector Reform (SSR) framework that NATO implemented in Eastern Europe. Is it necessary that Mexico join NATO to ask for bilateral or multilateral cooperation in implementing SSR framework? The authors were not aware that bilateral cooperation with the U.S. in anti-narcotics agenda has involved some SSR programs under the Merida Initiative signed during the George W. Bush administration. Nowadays, UN peacekeeping is a more effective way to engage in SSR reform in the defence sector than NATO initaitives. Mexico has established a new peacekeeping educational centre for its recent engagement in UN peacekeeping since 2014, after a long absence from any peacekeeping since the late 1950s. Therefore, there are no apparent benefits in cooperating with NATO.

Finally, we remember why NATO was founded: to combat Soviet influence Undeniably, Mexico also was under the influence of Cold War global politics. However, instead of following the US foreign policy agenda, Mexico has followed a foreign policy agenda based on promoting peaceful resolution of conflicts, neutrality in conflicts, and the promotion of de-nuclearisation. Mexico has developed a diverse portfolio of multilateral initiatives in the UN that are possible because it does not follow U.S. foreign policy: migration agreements, small arms trafficking and recently, promoting the global vaccine alliance for developing countries. Close cooperation in real bilateral problems with the U.S. allows Mexico to act with more freedom in global issues. Joining NATO would hinder that freedom.

it is not a problem to argue that a country has a role in the global scenario. But, the problem with the Atlantic Council’s arguments is that they do not consider any of the current foreign policy traditions of Mexico. In simpler terms: they did not even mind asking or thinking in Mexican terms why would it be useful to be in NATO, beyond a random menu or SSR reform, without knowing what is happening in its SSR agenda. In even more practical terms: if there is something that unsettles the U.S. about the Mexico’s bilateral relations with Russia or China, a phone call between the State Department and the Mexican Secretariat of Foreign Affairs would be more effective than a long and exhaustiative process in joining NATO. 

 

Raúl Zepeda-Gil is a Mexican PhD Student in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London. He holds degree in political science by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and a master’s degree in political science by El Colegio de Mexico. One of his research topics is Mexican multilateral foreign policy and civil-military relations. You can follow him on Twitter at @zepecaos. 

Cash Crops, Conflict, and Climate Change

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by Eve Gleeson

Mexico’s Avocado police on patrol (Image credit: Katy Watson/BBC)

The cultivation of crops is a steady and promising source of economic gain for developing states, both through internal markets and international trade. However, these powerhouses of economic success may well serve as a double-edged sword. Lacking robust and well-enforced laws and regulations, the economies and populations of many states have become dependent on, or in some cases addicted to, the success of these crops for their livelihoods and security. This success has precipitated destructive practices in subservience to the crop’s lucrative economic benefits, such as informal governance by militias and the decimation of environmental resources such as land and water.

Circumstances in Yemen and Mexico, in particular, point to these hostile relationships surrounding cash crops. In Mexico, militias are operating through kidnappings and killings, forests and ecosystems are being destroyed for land clearings, and local populations are facing health hazards from excessive pesticide use. In Yemen, the market monopolisation of a non-food crop is exacerbating a famine originally created by war and natural resource scarcity. In both of these cases, environmental pressures have preceded or followed from the urgency exerted by a stressed food system, depicting the inseparable relationship between unsustainable agriculture and compromised social, economic, and political stability.

Yemen’s cash crop drug: conflict, famine, and natural resource depletion

The War in Yemen, a conflict between the Houthi rebel movement, government forces, and a coalition of Arabian states, has resulted in a famine that harbours a much darker backstory than blockades stopping the import of food and water to the country. In addition, the famine has been worsened by the growth of khat (or qat), a stimulant drug that features as Yemen’s superstar crop. It has brought such financial gain to its growers that it has taken priority in farming country over other crops, such as wheat or fruits, that could provide sustenance to its people. Khat is so ubiquitous in the country’s political economy that it has become entwined with the interests of warring factions, further spurring conflict, water depletion, and famine on the peninsula.

The crop is the source of a violent dispute between farmers, a currency for bribe-seeking soldiers, and a dominant figure in the country’s markets, detrimentally crowding out crops that could help soften the blow of Yemen’s famine. It provides a source of funding for both the Houthi rebels and the pro-government forces in the war, as ‘qat traders pay a tax on their qat to whichever side controls their region‘. The crop also consumes close to forty per cent of Yemen’s clean water reserves, thereby further overtaxing water resources already weaponised by warring factions that destroy infrastructure, obstruct roadways, and blockade imports.

To make matters worse, the stimulant drug is also challenging Yemen’s dependence on groundwater reserves that are dwindling under drought, heat, and other climatic irregularities. The government lacks the capacity to enforce modern water rights, which have been rejected by wealthy farmers who regularly exploit their poor counterparts by drilling on their land. Now, farmers freely drill wells without government regulation. As a result, they continue to use highly unsustainable groundwater reserves to feed khat production, with no plan for developing renewable water sources for human or agricultural use as droughts persist and temperatures rise.

‘Blood Avocados’ in Mexico’s Michoacán state

Avocados, known to many in the growing industry as ‘green gold’, account for conflict between rival farmers and traders in Mexico. Cartels, violence, and extortion are just some of the troubling factors behind this cash crop; one that has drained resources– land, water, and capital– from the regions in which they are grown. Major importers such as the United States, the EU, and Japan have driven a $2 billion industry rooted thousands of miles away with little conception of the havoc the efforts have inflicted on the region of Michoacán, where production is concentrated.

In the Michoacán state, four principal narcotics cartels extorting avocado farmers have transformed the region into what Mexican online magazine Clarín Mundo has called Mexico’s ‘Capital of Violence’. Failure to pay ‘monthly protection’ fees to the cartels has resulted in kidnappings, killings, and seizures of farmland. In response, state-funded self-defence militias have sprouted from the local community to combat these gangs, whose narcoterrorism is partially financed by the extortion of farmers. Consequently, the region’s capital of Tacitaro has become militarised: ‘The new force is equipped with armored patrol trucks, and each officer wears full combat gear, including bulletproof vests, helmets, and high-power rifles — all provided for by the state police’.

This industry is also guilty of precipitating deforestation and water depletion (avocados require nearly 320 litres of water per unit) as well as stimulating competition for land that has provoked the intentional burning of wildlife ecosystems. This deforestation, performed illegally, points to gaps in environmental governance. Climatic irregularities, such as droughts and floods, have further troubled soil and land health, compromising the fertility of existing farmland. Given that growing a crop at an industrial scale often requires the heavy use of pesticides, these chemicals have contaminated the water supply in avocado-growing regions and sickened local populations.

The bigger picture: the disparate effects of climate change on developing states

This unmistakable relationship between food and conflict is an increasingly global issue that threatens and is likewise threatened by, the pressures of resource and environmental degradation. Though vastly different in nature, the cases of Yemen and Mexico illustrate how unsustainable agricultural practices, themselves propagated by gaps in governance and commodity demands from rich, developed states, can manifest in a conflict where effective protection of farmers and land is absent, particularly in an era when climatic changes are an increasing threat to security. Similar situations are unfolding in places like Iraq, where desertification and salination of water tables resulting from climatic irregularities are intensifying grievances in an already fragile state.

For this reason, the looming threat of climate change is not a ‘first world problem’. Although developed countries have the technological and financial resources (even if they lack the willpower) to transition to renewable energy, sustainable agricultural practices, and lower carbon emissions, the threat is a less immediate one for many. Wealthier developed countries have the resources for more expensive projects, like desalination of saltwater, if groundwater reserves become exhausted or contaminated. For communities that strive day-to-day for economic, political, and social stability and predictability, climate change can mean compromises to essential crop yields, irreplaceable loss of natural resources, increased conflict, and even displacement.

How can the global community ensure that more vulnerable populations stop suffering from food and nutrition insecurity, domestic tensions and war, contaminated and insufficient water resources, or displacement at the hand of climate change? Addressing climate change is at the forefront of this matter: lowering greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the carbon sequestration capacity of land by repairing broken systems. In the short term, we must consider how the demands and interventions of more developed and often opportunistic states impact the ability for less stable states to ensure food, water, and other basic livelihoods. Grassroots organisations like Soil, Food and Healthy Communities in Malawi and Sustainable Harvest International in Central America are making major headway in creating more sustainable and regenerative practices in communities that struggle with food insecurity. But movements in the West must acknowledge the disparate effects of climate change on vulnerable communities and their impact on international security.

Eve Gleeson holds a Master’s degree in International Relations from the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. After briefly working in threat intelligence, she is shifting her focus toward sustainable agriculture and food policy. She can be found on LinkedIn or on Twitter at @evegleeson_. 

Militarization and Accountability on the United States-Mexico Border

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By Carly Greenfield

28 December 2018

A U.S. Border Patrol agent stands near a section of the U.S.- Mexico border fence while on patrol in La Joya, Texas. (John Moore/Getty Images)

 

On 21 November, a jury in Arizona found Border Patrol Agent Lonnie Swartz not guilty in the involuntary manslaughter of José Antonio Elena Rodríguez, a Mexican teenager shot and killed by Swartz in October of 2012. Swartz fired from the United States side of the border in Nogales, Arizona, into Nogales, Mexico, killing 16-year-old Elena Rodríguez. Elena Rodríguez is not the first teenager to be killed by U.S. law enforcement along the border; a similar situation occurred with another Mexican national, 15-year-old Sergio Hernández Guereca. When he was killed in 2010, however, his killing did not result in a lawsuit. Both cases raise questions surrounding authority in border zones.

While the majority of shootings along the border have been by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, the military has also been involved in a similar incident. The killing of 18-year-old U.S. citizen Esequiel Hernández by U.S. marines deployed to the border in 1997, which resulted in no indictments for the marines involved, remains a blight on military involvement along the border. As active-duty troops are set to be deployed through the new year, the decades old case continues to inform military engagement in the region. The Elena Rodríguez case is not isolated, and the lack of clarity over who is responsible to whom in a national and joint-authority international space like the U.S.-Mexico border, now with both law enforcement and military bodies present, should bring considerable disquietude.

The role of the military on the border

In the wake of President Trump’s deployment of over 5,000 active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border at the end of October, many pundits and commentators started mulling over the legality of the order in reference to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. This act is a misunderstood and largely non-enforced doctrine that enshrines, in the minds of many Americans, the separation between military and law-enforcement roles within U.S. territory.[i] The act itself, however, has many exceptions, and a 1981 reform further restricted its application. For starters, the law initially only applied to the Army, as it was created as a means to remove the Army from its role in the post-Reconstruction South.[ii] A 1956 reform brought the Air Force into the act, and a 1992 Department of Defense regulation folded in the Navy and the Marine Corps.[iii] The Posse Comitatus Act still includes allowances for National Guard forces operating under state authority, the role of the Coast Guard in peace time (through which the Navy can play a support role without breaching the Posse Comitatus act) or the Presidential power to use troops pursuant to subduing domestic violence.[iv] All of this to say Posse Comitatus has so many holes, and so few court cases holding up its authority, that it has had little influence on the use of the military in the interior.

The reform in 1981, called the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Officials Act, was in many ways a death knell for the Posse Comitatus Act as it relates to border security.[v] The 1981 act created space for the military to cooperate with law enforcement as it related to the growing ‘War on Drugs.’ This quickly ballooned into aiding enforcement or supplying intelligence as it relates to immigration and customs offenses.[vi]

However, the myth persists that this act keeps the military from taking part in law enforcement roles like border security management and enforcement. A New York Times piece ran last month concluded that ‘[t]he Posse Comitatus Act, a Reconstruction-era law, prevents active-duty troops from engaging in law enforcement activities within the United States.’ This is patently false — or else the 1997 killing of Esequiel Hernández by active-duty marines, sent to patrol the border as part of an anti-narcotics mission, would have raised further consequences past the shooting of an American. The U.S. military has the legal and historical precedent to support law enforcement missions on the U.S.-Mexico border. The larger query is whether or not these deployments are effective; due to the 1997 case, most troops are unarmed and aid in constructing barriers. The purpose of their current deployment on the border, then, remains in question, as they are instructed not to come into contact with migrants or patrol with Border Patrol agents. Journalists have noted that while troops were rapidly deployed prior to the midterm elections in ‘Operation Faithful Patriot,’ the name surreptitiously changed to the much less inflammatory ‘border support’ post-election, reinforcing critics claims of performed militarization and misuse of the military. The politically fraught nature of their presence contributes to a hyper-charged environment along the border, which adds to the misconception of a crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border. This ‘crisis’ perception makes violence, including fatalities, all the more likely, and easier to justify.

The U.S.-Mexico border as a non-combat zone

Active duty troops currently deployed on the U.S.-Mexico border are not receiving combat pay as they are not taking part in a combat mission. As mentioned, the rules of engagement for the deployed troops have resulted in most soldiers and marines not carrying weapons and instead taking part primarily in constructing additional security barriers. Yet the border continues to be militarized even without armed, active military missions. Of the nearly 20,000 border patrol agents employed in fiscal year 2017, more than 16,000 served on the southern border,[vii] compared to fewer than 5,000 agents in the entire agency in 1992.[viii]  Notwithstanding, CBP is a civilian law enforcement agency, meaning they are meant to be held to account in the U.S. civilian court system, which handles cases involving U.S. agents on U.S. land. This is complicated when dealing with the area between the U.S. and Mexican fences and the distance a bullet can travel — namely, across a border.

The ramifications of an agency accountable to the U.S. government shooting and killing non-nationals on non-U.S. territory, then, remain unclear. In June 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the case of Sergio Hernández Guereca, the Mexican 15-year-old killed on Mexican territory by a border patrol agent,  upholding the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that the teenager’s parents did not have a right to pursue the case in U.S. courts.[ix] This contrasts with the decision made in the case of Elena Rodríguez, where the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that Elena Rodríguez’s mother did have the right to sue. The conflicting decisions create an uneven application of the law at the border, one that recognizes U.S. responsibility in some cases and not others.

Rights of non-Americans on non-American soil

In the oral arguments made in Hernández Guereca’s case before the Supreme Court in February 2017, the petitioners’ lawyer Robert Hilliard claimed that the case was meant to:

‘(…) address the ongoing problem along the southwest border that has resulted in at least ten cross-border shootings and six Mexican national deaths. And every time the Constitution, according to the government, turns off at the border, even though all the conduct happens in the United States.’[x]

The justices, however, were skeptical of extending Constitutional rights to someone shot and killed on non-U.S. soil as it would cloud understanding over who has access to Constitutional protections.[xi] The conversation reached into hypotheticals comparing the space between the U.S. and Mexico border fences to Guantanamo Bay, the piloting of a drone strike from U.S. soil, or whether the case would be distinct if a military officer had shot and killed Hernández Guereca. This reveals the military and foreign policy implications for border shooting decisions, even if CBP is officially a civilian law enforcement agency. Ultimately, with Hernández Guereca’s case dismissed, the uneven application of the law stands.

It should also be noted that the agent involved was charged in Mexico for Hernández Guereca’s death — yet the U.S. government refused to extradite him, even with extradition agreements in place between the U.S. and Mexico.[xii]

So if the Constitution does not apply beyond U.S. international borders, and the U.S. government refuses to extradite border patrol agents charged in Mexico for the shootings, then what options do victims’ families in Mexico have to access a fair day in court? In the current system, very few.

Law enforcement accountability

The implications for allowing a case against border patrol agents into U.S. courts reach past border enforcement and risk granting victims of U.S. military missions abroad access to Constitutional rights in lands far beyond U.S. control. Still, the militarization of the border does not aid in preventing such cases— there continue to be border deaths with little recourse for border patrol agents. Like in other parts of the United States, calls for law enforcement accountability are occurring along the border, too. But since the population in question is primarily non-American and border patrol agents oftentimes work in barren areas with few possible witnesses, change is slow. The route to justice continues to be hazy as appeals drag on and cases are unable to move forward in Mexico.

What develops on the border has significance beyond the border — for military missions, Constitutional rights, and U.S.-Mexico relations. The dynamics of the U.S.-Mexico border raise large questions around how militarization contributes to violence and a lack of accountability for border patrol agents. When President Trump and the government espouse unfounded levels of fear around border work, agents are more likely to respond to incidences lethally and then be protected from prosecution by their government. The current dynamics should remind Americans that the armed forces are not required to militarize a space, and that tragic situations ensue on the border even when media attention is not focused on it. With President Trump escalating the rhetoric and looking to recruit more border patrol agents, the shared U.S.-Mexico border will likely become deadlier and hold less consequence for those who patrol it.

Carly Greenfield is a Dual Degree masters candidate between Sciences Po and the London School of Economics, currently studying international security at Sciences Po. She completed her BA in International Relations at King’s College London and is a former BA Representative for Strife. Her research focuses on securitization, migration, and the conceptualization of borders, particularly in the Americas. You can follow her on Twitter @carlygreenpeel.

Notes:

[i] Lindsey P. Cohn, “Come What May,” Bombshell, Podcast Audio, 20 November 2018: https://warontherocks.com/2018/11/bombshell-come-what-may/.

[ii] Charles Doyle, “The Posse Comitatus Act and Related Matters: The Use of the Military to Execute Civilian Law,” Congressional Research Service, (1 June 2000).

[iii] Eric V. Larson and John E. Peters, “Appendix D: Overview of the Posse Comitatus Act,” from Preparing the U.S. Army for Homeland Security, (2001): RAND Corporation.

[iv] Nathan Canestaro, “Homeland Defense: Another Nail in the Coffin for Posse Comitatus,” Washington University Journal of Law & Policy Vol. 12, (January 2003).

[v] Paul Jackson Rice, “New Laws and Insights Encircle the Posse Comitatus Act,” Individual Study Project, U.S. Army War College, (26 May 1983).

[vi] Richter H. Moore, “Posse Comitatus revisited: The use of the military in civil law enforcement,” Journal of Criminal Justice Vol. 15, (1987).

[vii] United States Border Patrol “Border Patrol Agent Nationwide Staffing by Fiscal Year,” Customs and Border Protection, (2017).

[viii] Christine Stenglein, “Struggling to hang on to 20K officers, Border Patrol looks to hire 5K more,” Brookings Institution, (7 July 2017): https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/07/07/struggling-to-hang-on-to-20k-officers-border-patrol-looks-to-hire-5k-more/.

[ix] U.S. Supreme Court, “582 U. S. Hernandez v. Mesa,” Slip Opinion (2017).

[x] U.S. Supreme Court, “No.15-118 Hernandez v. Mesa,” Oral Arguments (2017).

[xi] Ibid.

[xii] “Extradition Treaty Between the United States of America and the United Mexican States,” (25 January 1980).

Image source: http://www.powerhousebooks.com/books/undocumented-immigration-and-the-militarization-of-the-u-s-mexico-border/