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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 Forgotten Casualties: The Indirect Gendered Consequences of Explosive Violence on Civilian Populations

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by Miles Cameron Hunter

9 July 2019

One of thousands of Syria’s widows; Hanaa’s husband went missing before their son was even born. She now struggles to support him on her own. (Image credit: 2014 UNRWA Photo by Taghrid Mohammad)

Explosive violence is a feature of most contemporary armed conflicts. It comes in many forms: from mortars and airstrikes, to landmines and suicide bombings. Tragically, it is civilians who face the brunt. There is little sign of this trend abating: the casualty monitor run by Action on Armed Violence observed a 165% increase in civilian deaths as a result of explosive violence between 2011 and 2017.

The impact of explosive violence is far-reaching, triggering numerous indirect consequences beyond an initial blast; this affects everything from the provision of effective healthcare, to education and sanitation. However, this piece focuses on a less-discussed impact of explosive violence: the series of indirect gender-related consequences. Patriarchal societal norms and values in many war-torn regions often result in women being immensely disadvantaged. Meanwhile, the traditional impression that men are the chief actors in war is still overstated, frequently leading to the impact on women going unseen. These views persist even as explosive violence in modern war harms a growing number of women and children. Women regularly find themselves widowed in societies that repress their independence, raising families alone in poverty while often enduring limited access to health and after care services. Greater awareness regarding these gender-based issues is overdue.

For men, the consequences are often more self-evident. As a result, they tend to overshadow the subtler, but no less important, impact on women. The raw statistics suggest that men and boys are more likely to be harmed in an explosive incident than women, especially when looking at landmines or explosive remnants of war (ERWs). According to data from 2015, 86% of explosive incidents where the gender was known involved men. A main reason for this is societal norms and traditional gender roles that are often present in affected areas.

In many of the worst hit regions, such as Syria and Zimbabwe, it is commonplace for men to be the chief breadwinners for the family, while afflicted regions also tend to be more economically disadvantaged. As a result, occupations such as farming and scrap salvaging are notably at risk, with labourers (usually men) forced to work dangerous land to provide for their families.

But there are more indirect gendered-consequences. In societies where it is the norm for a man to provide, a maimed father has a knock-on effect on the family. Often, it is children, generally boys, who are pulled out of school to work instead, facing the same dangers from explosive ordnance. Women also suffer the cost.

Despite being more likely to suffer direct consequences of blasts, men are also in a more advantageous position to cope by receiving treatment and/or finding alternate employment. This is largely due to gender-based bias in many affected societies. Dr Sherry Wren, in association with Doctors Without Borders, has expressed concerns that medical treatment in conflict zones, such as those in Sub-Sharan Africa and the Middle East, is far less accessible to women. Data suggests that sixty-nine percent of surgeries between 2008 and 2014 were on men, leading to fears that women are under-represented in hospitals due to their second-class societal status. It is true that for direct violent trauma, such as gunshot wounds and explosive injuries, seventy percent of surgeries were performed on men. This is not surprising. However, the alarming figure is that even for indirect trauma, such as illness and disease, seventy-three percent of surgeries were performed on men. This is a stark inequality.

The key finding of this report is that women endure many long-term, and often overlooked, indirect consequences of explosive violence. In general, there is already an issue with long-term trauma in post-war states being neglected. However, for women this is exacerbated due to a second-class status in the patriarchal societies that make up the majority of modern conflict zones. Injured women are less likely to have access to aftercare services and generally face more stigma and marginalisation than men if disfigured; according to  UN research into gender-based perceptions of war survivors. There are also health complications unique to women. For instance, a blast can damage the female placenta, leading to direct or indirect complications in childbirth in future: indeed, this is one of the biggest killers of young women according to the WHO.

Women in Non-Western patriarchal societies also suffer from many indirect socio-economic consequences of explosive violence. Those widowed, or who have a husband incapacitated, face a plethora of struggles. They find themselves in a position where they must be chief breadwinner in cultures that frequently militate against women working, while also retaining the responsibility of raising children.

In Syria and Lebanon, fifty percent of families with a female head face food insecurity and are twice as likely to live in deprived informal settlements. Many women struggle to find work due to gender-based stigma. As a result, they risk being dragged into poverty and/or forced into exploitative means of income such as sex work or seeking early marriage for young girls. All of this can cause intense psychological scarring, which although not as immediately evident as physical injury, can be equally debilitating.

Even when women struggling in the aftermath of explosive violence do find conventional work there are harsh inequalities. In Lebanon, it is reported that women often work longer hours than men for just seventy-seven percent of what their male counterparts earn, while also having demanding maternal duties.

There are many more hardships facing women than those documented in this report. But its findings are demonstrative of clear gender-based issues persisting in civilian populations affected by explosive violence. The notion that men are the primary actors in war still prevails despite the ever-greater toll on women and children. Consequently, the plight of thousands of women affected by explosive incidence often goes unnoticed.  As awareness for their predicament grows, traditional assumptions need to evolve along with the changing nature of war.

Miles Hunter graduated from King’s College London with a BA in War Studies and an MA in Terrorism, Security and Society. He is currently a researcher with the charitable NGO Action on Armed Violence.

Strife Feature | Escalation in Action: An Addendum to ‘Clausewitz On Campus’

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By M.L.R. Smith

 

The entrance of King’s College London Strand Campus, where the violence took place on the 5th of March (Credit Image: RoarNews)

 

Last December Strife published an article, ‘Clausewitz On Campus’, by me on the militarisation of the university environment. The article pointed to the increasingly violent rhetoric on campus and the manner in which this was, in some instances, manifesting itself in actual cases of physical violence. The piece sought to conceptualise the contested domain of free speech within higher education as a form of war, using Carl von Clausewitz’s theories to illustrate how the culture war on campus could be interpreted with a degree of analytical detachment.

The commentary charted how the so-called culture wars were unfolding ostensibly within American higher education. The article expounded upon the increasing tensions that are clearly observable in the U.S., but it did not anticipate that King’s College itself would come to feature so prominently in the growing culture wars on this side of the Atlantic. On Monday, 5 March 2018, an event organised by the KCL Libertarian Society, involving a debate between Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute and YouTube commentator Carl Benjamin (aka Sargon of Akkad) was violently disrupted by masked ‘antifa’ protestors, who forced their way into the lecture hall, assaulting students and staff, as well as engaging in threatening behaviour that included the throwing of smoke bombs and flares outside the venue. According to reports a number of security guards sustained injuries.

This piece is, therefore, an addendum to the original article. It aims to elaborate on what these events tell us about how this conflict is evolving and where ultimately it might lead. In particular, it seeks to enlarge upon Clausewitz’s understanding of escalation in war: namely, the irresistible momentum that is created, once contesting forces engage, which begin to push their way towards maximum exertion. It also dwells upon the moral responsibilities incumbent on students and academics who are committed to a pluralistic academy, dedicated to the exchange of ideas, free from censorship, self-censorship, physical intimidation, and threats.

 

Civility or surrender?

‘Clausewitz On Campus’ assessed how some conservative and classical liberal thinkers were seeking to meet the frequently violent challenges of anti-free speech activists by seeking to escalate their response, not through counter-force but by intensifying their willingness to take on their adversaries by laughing at them through jokes and satire. The article sought to conclude on a conciliatory note, hoping that the prospect of jokes and humour as an accompaniment to political discourse offered the prospect of containing any spiral towards physical confrontation.

After events like those at KCL in early March, and other protests elsewhere, I am not so sure that such qualified optimism is warranted. Moreover, it seems that some free-speech advocates, who may once have held that arguing through evidence, facts, reason, and logic would be enough, are losing confidence in the idea that simply demonstrating one’s ability to debate better than one’s opponents is sufficient even to get their voice heard.

Writing in the National Review, the conservative journalist David French argues that the religious zeal of the intersectionalist warriors  ‘steamrolls right over the lukewarm, leaving them converted or cowed’. Yet, ‘the answer’, he believes, ‘isn’t to steamroll back… but rather to respond with calm conviction’. He sees the maintenance of civility as a key weapon in the free-speech arsenal. ‘Civility is anything but surrender’, French declared. ‘In fact, I’d argue that in the long run it’s the path to ideological expansion, not retreat. It’s the path to becoming a reliable, trustworthy communicator. It’s the best way to get a hearing outside your tribe, and it still leaves room for righteous, necessary anger – while choosing its targets carefully’.

Civility in public conversation has, of course, everything to recommend itself. It is premised, nonetheless, on the willingness of the other side to listen and to respond with equal courtesy. That is the essence of the free-speech compact: we might disagree profoundly, but I will listen to you respectfully, and reply accordingly after hearing you out. You will do the same when I am talking. And, who knows, maybe one – or both – of us will modify our thinking as a result, because we both understand that firm though our convictions might be, neither of us is in the possession of the ultimate truth.

A problem arises, however, when one side, convinced of holding the ultimate truth, seeks to shut the other down and prevent people from having their voice heard altogether. This may occur through ‘no platforming’, a hecklers veto, or physical intervention and threats of force to stop events or bully venues into curtailing their support for speaking engagements. When this happens, the pact breaks down. Civility and honour count for nothing. The choices are stark. Either you are converted, cowed, or you escalate, and seek to steam roll back.

 

Fighting fire with fire?

Voices on the conservative/classical liberal spectrum are coming to exhibit exasperation at the forcible shutting down of speaking events, the banning or exclusion of speakers, and the growing atmosphere of intimidation and threats that are being directed their way. Arguing against David French, Milo Yiannopoulos has stated: ‘Being nice and polite and playing by the rules has become a strategic disadvantage. I don’t think it has worked for us. I think it is holding us back. I think it is ineffective’. While eschewing any remedy through violence, he maintained: ‘I think it is time to fight fire with fire. I think it is time for us to respond in kind to these people. I think it is time for us to do to them what they have spent the last thirty, forty years doing to us’.

What ‘fighting fire with fire’ might entail will be examined further below. For the moment, it is necessary to reiterate the remorseless strategic logic inherent in this increasingly volatile situation, namely, that physical force eventually begets physical force. Bursting into a lecture hall, roughing up the speakers and shouting down presenters is not an act of free speech – an attempt at persuasion – it is an act of force, aimed, as Clausewitz averred, to compel our opponent to fulfil our will. That is to say, it is intended to defeat an adversary, and shut them up for good.

 

Free-speech and escalation?

The analogy Clausewitz provided to illustrate how the dynamic develops is that of a pair of wrestlers: ‘Each tries through physical force to compel the other to do his will: his immediate aim is to throw his opponent, in order to make him incapable of further resistance’. Thus, individual increments in force from one side will bring an equal and opposite increase in effort from the other. Applying this logic to the culture wars over free speech, it is easy to see where this leads. If the argument is that certain forms of speech constitute ‘violence’, which should be suppressed through actual violence, then all this does is to legitimate a similar reaction in kind. This is the strategic logic of escalation.

In a liberal-democratic society it should be clear, therefore, that respect for free speech is, in fact, the safety valve that prevents escalation. Once that respect is eroded, either by groups determined to prevent the other from speaking, or worse, by the state itself through legislated speech codes or the suppression of political dissent, then polarisation occurs and a process of escalation and counter-escalation is likely to take root.

Here we can return to the violent events at KCL on 5 March, because we can see what the sequence of escalation begins to look like. For all the claims by the groups behind the violent disruption to have shut down the event (which was interrupted but was continued at another location), it is clear that the confrontation did not proceed as they may have hoped. Members of the audience resisted verbally, and ultimately physically, with one intruder being wrestled to the ground (remember Clausewitz), while the ‘antifa’ flag was taken off the protestors, and is now proudly displayed by Sargon of Akkad on his YouTube channel. Meanwhile, King’s security staff physically ejected ‘antifa’ trespassers who had tried to vault over the security barriers in the Strand.

 

Self-defence as escalation?

Evidently, ‘antifa’ disruptors encountered more resistance to their activities at KCL than they seem to have experienced elsewhere. Symbolically, it didn’t go their way at all, with Sargon himself making it clear about what he thought of the proceedings with a post, entitled the ‘The Battle of King’s College London’, which displayed video footage of the violence: ‘As you can see antifa burst into the event. They pushed me around. They pushed other people around. And then we defended ourselves to victory by punching the crap out of one or two of them’. He went on: ‘I actually did try reasoning with them on stage [which can be heard on the audio of the video]… And, honestly, if they attack you, I recommend you defend yourself as vigorously as you feel necessary. Don’t let these thugs get away with intimidating you or being violent to you. You have every right to defend yourself’.

Invoking the concept of self-defence in response to events like the ‘Battle of King’s College London’, with the very title of the video itself espousing the logic of war, represents one obvious way in which escalation is taking place: the use of physical resistance to repel violence being directed towards oneself. Self-defence, though, is unlikely to be the only method of escalation for those on the pro-free speech/conservative/classical liberal spectrum, and could presage any number of non-physical forms of resistance based principally on copying – or adapting – the tactics of those that they oppose. This might encompass more systematic campaigns to expose the origins of those groups and individuals involved in the counter-free speech movement (an activity known as ‘doxing’ in the online world) or the more organised ‘trolling’ of such organisations.  It might also embrace other tactics such as resort to legal actions or the reporting of left-wing opponents for ‘hate-speech’. There might be any number of other methods. At the harder end of the spectrum ‘fighting fire with fire’ might see the evolution of counter-demonstrations and disruption tactics. The free-speech movement, of course, is in danger of being caught in a bind. If it adopts tactics that seek to close down opposing systems of thought, no matter how much they have been provoked, it risks undermining the premises of their own argument about the primacy of freedom of expression.

 

Returning the serve?

Other elements along the political spectrum, however, might feel less compunction towards adopting the methods of their enemies, from whom, in effect, they seek to learn, especially if their tactics are seen to be successful. For strategic theorists this is another observable phenomenon. In this regard, we might come to discern a variant in the escalation dynamic. Rather than the somewhat involuntary process of escalation that Clausewitzian theory enunciates, one might see the development of a process known as ‘Returning the serve’. This is a form of strategic interaction identified by University of Nottingham criminologist, Lyndsey Harris (a former War Studies graduate), in her analysis of the operation of loyalist paramilitary organisations during the Northern Ireland conflict.

Towards the latter part of the conflict, loyalist paramilitaries would respond to particular Irish Republican military acts with a specific action of their own (often of greater ferocity). The explicit intention was to counter the original action – ‘return the serve’. This is not so much a reflexive slide into escalation, more a conscious attempt at political signalling: ‘If you do this to our side, we will hit your side back… much harder’. Needless to say, retaliation as a form of escalation has been a feature of many wars in the past. In Northern Ireland it certainly became a murderous reality. The statistics show that in the final years of the conflict, roughly between 1989 and 1994, the loyalist paramilitaries were outgunning all the Irish Republican groups by a ratio of about 3 to 2, forcing the Irish Republican movement itself into an ever more constrained strategic position; one factor, it might be contended, that led it into a ceasefire and peace negotiations a few years later.

The Northern Ireland case is a salutary illustration of escalation and strategic signalling: an example not to be repeated, one hopes, under any circumstances. But we should be under no illusions about where the escalatory cycle can lead if individuals and authorities do not assume responsibility for what is currently happening on our campuses and in society at large. There are commentators who have argued that an actual ‘war’ of sorts over culture and society in the West has been going on for years – since September 2001, if not for a number of years before that. Many books and commentaries have appeared on that topic already. It is an interesting proposition, but not the direct concern of this article. Nevertheless, the point is that to have violence seep directly into the university environment is an ugly development and a disastrous prospect should it spread. Should this occur, radicalisation towards the extremes is the only likely result, which benefits no one apart from those who want to see society polarised. And that cannot end well. As Clausewitz knew, once passions are inflamed further escalation is never far away.

 

A question of responsibility

First and foremost, the principal responsibility for the deterioration of the atmosphere on campus resides squarely with those who seek to shut down the speech of others. This is an arbitrary and self-proclaimed arrogation of power to decide who can and who cannot be heard in the public square. It is a muscular and – if you wish to analyse it in this manner – a deeply masculinised assertion of power too (it is interesting to note the acute gender imbalance in the ‘antifa’ protest). Any person of a liberal conscience should resist those who would seek to assert such domination over others, and who thereby further seek to militarise the university campus more than they have done so already, let alone those whose actions endanger the safety of students and staff.

At one level, any ‘escalatory’ response should be to ensure the provision of adequate protection around speaking events if necessary. The firm but proportionate response of KCL’s security personnel to the events of 5 March is perhaps one, albeit minor, positive development in that regard. Equally, the College administration has the responsibility to ensure that any members of the KCL community who put the lives of others at risk are held fully accountable under College disciplinary rules; and that includes the prospect of expulsion and police investigation. Above all, it is incumbent upon students and academic staff to assert, uphold, and defend the foundational principle that should underpin any university worth its name in a liberal polity, that of freedom of thought and freedom of expression. That really would be a measured and worthy form of escalation.

 

Conclusion: a warning from history

There is no doubt that we are in a curious epoch in the affairs of modern higher education. The decline of viewpoint diversity and the threat to the free exchange of ideas jeopardises the very essence of what makes the concept of a university an enlightened project: one that is tolerant, pluralistic and dedicated to the expansion of knowledge and human progress, and where the only criteria for judgement is based on facts, evidence, and reason. That the modern university in Britain and the United States is becoming a theatre where such foundational values are violently contested is remarkable.

This article has expanded upon a number of themes related to the concept of escalation to illustrate how and why the culture wars might evolve in this phase where we are witnessing an increasing recourse to violence by those who wish to escalate their struggle in order to close down avenues for debate. As ever, the hope is that reason and moderation prevail. Yet, values once held to be core and which have sustained the modern university, and the liberal society as a whole, are under challenge. The future appears likely to be characterised by more confrontation and more escalation. We should, though, make no mistake about where the path of escalation can take us, which can be to a very dark place indeed.

Historical analogies tend to be misleading, and students of our subject should be wary and reject direct comparisons. Analogies can however offer insights, illustrations, and warnings. The closest parallel to our current condition that might suggest itself in terms of where we are heading is the period of instability that Italy experienced from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. This was a period that saw the descent of Italian politics into a confused miasma of fear, radicalisation, and violence that came to be known as the Anni di Piombo – the years of lead or, more prosaically, the years of the bullet. For many years I taught the Anni di Piombo era in Italy to third year undergraduates. In the years to come I hope that I will not be teaching a version of the Anni di Piombo about my own country.

 

M.L.R. Smith is Professor of Strategic Theory and Head of the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. He specialises in the nature of dissent and the strategies of non-state actors. He is author of ‘Fighting for Ireland? The Military Strategy of the Irish Republican Movement’ (Routledge, 1995) and, most recently, with David Martin Jones he is author of ‘Sacred Violence: Political Religion in a Secular Age’ (Palgrave/Macmillan 2014), and ‘The Political Impossibility of Modern Counterinsurgency: Strategic Problems, Puzzles and Paradoxes’ (Columbia University Press, 2015).

Image Source: here

Generation Terrorists: The Politics of Youth and the Gangs of Freetown

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By Dr Kieran Mitton 

A poster in Susan’s Bay calls on Sierra Leone’s youth to be peaceful during elections (Credit Image: Kieran Mitton)

Youth at Risk – Youth as Risk

On the evening of the 15th February, six leading presidential candidates for the Sierra Leone presidential elections took to the stage. Over three hours of a live broadcasted debate, each answered questions about their plans for the country. Seen by some as a milestone in Sierra Leone’s post-war political development, the following morning the capital Freetown was abuzz with talk about who had acquitted themselves, who had failed to impress, and what – if anything – this might mean for the election result on the 7thMarch. In the offices of a youth development organisation, staff enthusiastically discussed the event.

In an adjoining room, I met with their colleague Mohamed*, a man with decades of experience working in the city’s poorest informal communities. What did you think of the debate? I asked. Was it a sign that Sierra Leone’s political scene is moving towards serious discussion of policies, or as one report put it, ‘growing up’?

Mohamed smiled. Pointing to his colleagues next door, he replied: ‘Each person there is arguing about why their preferred candidate won the debate. What the candidate actually said, how they performed – it doesn’t matter.’ He went on to make a familiar point; voters put party, tribe and personal loyalties ahead of policies. Whilst certainly not new or unique to Sierra Leone, this he contended, meant such debates had little bearing on the electoral outcome. The promise of some candidates to provide free education, surely a positive development for the country’s youth, was just rhetoric, he concluded. In fact, ‘politicians keep the youth uninformed and uneducated so they can use them to their own advantage.’

In Sierra Leone’s post-conflict era, great stress has been placed on engaging young people, providing solutions to severe unemployment and lack of educational opportunities to ensure the country never again experiences civil war. The idea that it was a ‘youth crisis’ that precipitated conflict dominates academic analysis and was a key conclusion of the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This emphasis has entrenched a peacebuilding discourse that presents youth as both an at risk population – vulnerable to chronic poverty and exploitation of their grievances – as well as a risk – a potential source of violence, instability, or even renewed conflict. In its crudest form, this latter discourse is found in frequent characterisations of ‘idle’ and criminal youth in local media, where their economic hardship and violence is explained not so much by their circumstances as by their ‘bad’ character. Election campaigns, through rhetoric aimed at youth and through violence involving youth, have reinforced both. Mohamed’s scepticism towards political promises, and belief that politicians seek to exploit young people, is born of experience.

Recycled Rhetoric and Remobilisation

Successive elections since 2002 have promised much but delivered little tangible change for many young people.  Initial optimism that a new administration might bring transformation, or that political patrons’ offers of jobs in exchange for support would be honoured, has invariably given way to disillusionment and deepened cynicism. A bitter sense of betrayal pervades the stories of those who describe their past enlistment by ‘big men’. The ability to register this frustration at the ballot box is certainly valued – an important and too often overlooked contrast to pre-war Sierra Leone – but it underlines a fundamental problem of the country’s political landscape. Both major parties – the ruling All People’s Congress (APC) and the opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) – are seen as offering little deviation from politics as usual. The same old familiar faces of the establishment continue to dominate political life. And so, many of Sierra Leone’s youth believe they can change governments, but they cannot make governments change.

Violent clashes of past elections have done much to reinforce the ‘youth as risk’ discourse, reinvigorating tired tropes of idle youth and dangerous ex-combatants.  During 2007 elections, fighting between supporters of rival parties took place across the country, leading then SLPP President Tejan Kabbah to declare a state of emergency. Yet these incidents were not simply the boiling-over of pent-up frustration nor the wanton criminality of unemployed youth. In another sign of negative political continuity, parties and political patrons had actively courted – and importantly, been courted by – groups of youth and ex-combatants to act as security ‘taskforces.’ Incentives ranged from gifts of drink and cash to promises of jobs and education. Providing ‘security’ often equated to intimidating political opponents and interrupting rival rallies. In the years following, a small number of senior ex-combatants on the winning APC side had reaped the rewards of this bargain, but most others missed out.

In 2012, the situation was markedly different. In the run up, grave concerns were expressed as incidents of violence between rival party taskforces and youth groups continued to occur across the country. Much analysis warned of turmoil on a par with 2007, if not worse. Yet in the end the re-election of the APC’s President Ernest Bai Koroma was largely peaceful. Of encouragement was the role of civil society, including youth organisations, in actively campaigning against electoral violence. My interviews with ex-combatants also found a pronounced determination among some not to be ‘fooled’ again and drawn to violence on the back of false promises. That said, opportunities for their recruitment were comparatively scarce. The SLPP was wracked by splits and Koroma enjoyed strong support, winning over the 55 percent mark required to avoid a run-off vote. It is that second round that is associated with heightened violence, with the contest close and votes of minor parties up-for-grabs.

An APC poster in central Freetown thanks departing President Koroma on behalf of the young (Credit Image: Kieran Mitton)

2018 Elections and the Gangs of Freetown

In the years since 2012, the same challenges blighting youth mobility in Sierra Leone have not diminished. Official UN figures put youth unemployment and underemployment at 70%. A sense of weariness is detectable among many who held great optimism during Koroma’s first term. Whilst there has been visible infrastructural development, the poorest have felt little benefit. Hopes that mining profits might lead to economic transformation for the benefit of all have dissipated, and the response to the Ebola outbreak of 2014, no small challenge for any government, highlighted endemic problems of corruption and fraud against which Koroma had vowed to fight in 2007.

The vote on March 7th will see Koroma stand-down after serving the maximum two terms. For this reason alone, it will be significantly different to the 2012 ballot. But in a welcome shake-up, two new political parties have entered the fray. Former Vice-President Samuel Sam-Sumana leads the Coalition for Change (C4C). Sumana made international headlinesin March 2015 after seeking asylum in the US embassy following a fall-out with Koroma and the APC. He was subsequently sacked, a move which in November 2017 was ruled illegal by the ECOWAS Court of Justice. Sumana’s support-base is in Kono, a key swing district that could prove decisive.

Another new player is the National Grand Coalition (NDC) led by Kandeh Yumkella, a former UN Under-Secretary General. Having split from the SLPP, he remains firmly opposed to the APC and could also take votes from both major parties. The entry of these parties raises the prospect of a much closer contest than the last, and the common view among Sierra Leonean and international observers is that the election will go to a second round.

With the expectation of a run-off vote, fears arise of a repeat of past election violence. But here there is also an important change from previous campaigns. In the immediate post-war years, attention was firmly fixed on ex-combatants and the potentially devastating consequences of their mobilisation. As that generation has grown older, and judging from the last election, moved away from direct engagement in violence, a new generation of young marginal Sierra Leoneans has taken their place in the discourse of dangerous youth: gangs.

Referred to as cliques, gangs and youth street associations have a long history in Sierra Leone. However, police, youth activists, researchers, local communities and gangs themselves agree that they have grown in size and significance in recent years, and are becoming institutionalised.** As mention of ex-combatants and party taskforces wanes in media reporting, discussion of the ‘clique problem’ has increased.  In 2015, news of fatal gang-related stabbings and public discussion of crime and violence led the Attorney General and Minister of Justice to describe gang activity in Freetown as ‘domestic terrorism’ , demanding immediate attention by the security sector. That attention saw police offer rewards for information on gang leaders, and in 2017, the Minister of Defence took to the airwaves to advocate his personal view that the solution to rising gang violence was to implement the death penalty. As the elections have drawn closer, general fears over gangs have narrowed to one specific concern: that they may be used by politicians to attack opponents and intimidate voters.

A ‘Member of Blood’ gangster proudly displays his tattoo (Credit Image: Kieran Mitton)

To what extent are the gangs truly a threat in upcoming elections? My research has sought to better understand Sierra Leone’s cliques and their violence, focussing on Freetown though gangs are to be found across much of country. There is not space here for in-depth detail of gang organisation and activity, or the responses to it. Here I wish to briefly explore the specific issue of election violence drawing on recent interviews and time spent with three factions: the red-wearing Bloods or M.O.B. (Members of Blood); the blue-wearing Cent Coast Crips (CCC); and the black-wearing So-So Black. In Freetown, Bloods dominate the west, Crips the centre, and Black the east, though boundaries are fluid and sub-cliques diffuse. Based primarily (but not exclusively) in informal settlements or slums, members are identified by bandanas – locally ‘mufflers’ – in their respective colours. They hang-out in ghettos and street-corners, listening to music, drinking, smoking and dealing marijuana. They range from young teens to those in their mid-thirties. Contrary to some portrayals, they are not significantly connected to ex-combatant networks, and in many neighbourhoods there are no ex-combatants among them. This is unsurprising considering some were born after the war.

When it comes to violence, a main driver is inter-gang disputes – ‘beefs’ over colour. One gang-member I interviewed had recently been released from a year-long prison sentence for stabbing a rival who had ‘provoked’ him by walking into his territory wearing a red muffler. Other larger-scale incidents have taken place during music concerts and football matches where rival groups come face-to-face. Running ‘rampages’ of vandalism and scuffles have accompanied the movement of east side gangs through enemy territory in the west and centre.

A sign outside a popular gang hangout in Susan’s Bay prohibits wearing gang colours (Credit Image: Kieran Mitton)

Personal disputes, often over women, also lead to vendettas and cycles of revenge. Opportunistic robbery, particularly at night, is a source of income alongside dealing marijuana. The latter is a subsistence game and there does not appear to be substantial conflict over the trade or dealing spots. But the elections, perhaps, offer new opportunities.

In the last couple of years, gang members have described one faction or another as siding with a political party. They recount stories of large payments being paid to gangs by intermediaries of parties, with the implicit (and sometimes explicit) expectation they would in turn give their support and cause ‘trouble’ for their opponents. Individual political patrons are alleged to have used gifts of alcohol, cash and job opportunities – the old familiar promises offered to ex-combatants in the past – to bring them to their side. Substantiating these claims remains difficult, but they are stories repeated across Freetown and regularly hinted at in news articles. They came to the fore on 26th January in the middle of the city, during a rally linked to the nomination ceremony of the ruling APC party. Fights broke out between youth wielding machetes and knives, and at least one individual was fatally stabbed. Pro-SLPP and APC outlets accused each other of being behind the violence, before police announced that the perpetrators were in fact gang members.

Fifty-five gangsters were subsequently arrested, including an individual who had previously been described in interviews as an intermediary between the government and cliques. In discussing the incident, members of various factions told a similar story, though again it could not be substantiated. The intermediary, they claimed, acted as a go-between with the government to tackle gang violence, often dispersing large amounts of money to gang leaders from the safety of a central police station. Several gangsters expressed the view that in reality, these were political payments to secure support, rather than investments in peace. On the specific occasion of the rally, they claimed, one clique suspected this individual of withholding funds for himself and began remonstrating. The dispute escalated to violence when another gang came to his defence, leading to the killing. Following the arrests, a Freetown judge sentenced the fifty-five to either three months imprisonment or payment of a Le1000,000 fine (roughly $130USD). Rumours quickly circulated that the fine was paid, and according to one confidential informant, that the money came from the ruling party.

The details of the above incident remain disputed and unverified. Beyond the usual challenge of rumour substantiating for fact, in the charged political environment of the election campaign there are clear reasons for parties to implicate each other in abuses. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that some gang members are seeking to profit as hired muscle, and political patrons have likewise courted them to this end. These stories mirror the mobilisation of ex-combatants and youth in past elections. Now, it seems, a new generation is becoming part of this old problem. Solo, a gang captain in his early twenties, commented:

‘At this election time we see them [the politicians]. After this time, we won’t see them. When they need us, they are our friends. They come with rum, cider, they offer small money. They want us to vote for them, go to the rally, to fight their rivals. All the parties come to us.’

This returns us to the opening concern. Has Sierra Leone’s political system, and specifically its relationship with marginalised youth, changed significantly? From the perspective of gang members, it has not. Elections still represent to some a brief window of opportunity for personal advancement, but at the risk of committing violence that only deepens fears of dangerous youth and perpetuates a political relationship built on mutual exploitation and distrust. Sierra Leone’s past shows that violence in such a context may become not simply a mercenary act, but expressive rebellion and defiance against those who seek to prosper from it. Whilst so much focus has been given by peacebuilders to the DDR generation and the supposed dangers of unemployed ex-combatants, a younger generation born after the war faces the same hardships of chronic poverty, limited educational opportunities, and a destructive relationship with political leaders. The feared growing ‘gang problem’ in Freetown and across Sierra Leone cannot be understood or addressed in isolation from these hardships.

To end on a positive note, anti-violence campaigning from civil society groups and the determination of Sierra Leoneans to maintain peace remains unwavering. Despite popular concerns, to date gangs do not appear to have been mobilised to the same extent as taskforces and youth groups in the past. This offers hope that elections will pass peacefully, though few will be surprised if they do not. Whoever emerges victorious, they will have an opportunity to inject renewed energy into tackling the root causes of youth marginalisation. This is an endeavour that by definition must be sustained long after the campaign posters have been taken down. It is a matter first and foremost not of a youth crisis, nor even a gang problem. It is about changing the very practice of politics and governing itself. A major but critical challenge that begins at the very top.

*Some names have been changed to preserve anonymity.

** For this observation and insights into the nationwide activity of gangs I am grateful to Professor Ibrahim Abdullah.

 

This article has been republished on Strife Blog with the author’s permission. It was originally published on Mats Utas Blog http://bit.ly/2FfefyA

 

Dr. Kieran Mitton is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Research Director of the Conflict, Security & Development Research Group, and co-Chair of the Africa Research Group, at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. He is developing a comparative research project – Youth at Risk/Youth as Risk: Global Responses to Urban Violence – that examines gang dynamics and interventions in Cape Town, Freetown, London, and Rio de Janeiro. He is the author of Rebels in a Rotten State: Understanding Atrocity in the Sierra Leonean Civil War . You can follow him on Twitter @kieranmitton

Images Source: all photos were taken by the author

Organised crime and terrorism Part IV: Setting examples: Violence as communication in Mexico’s Cartel War

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This is the fourth, and final, piece in Strife’s four-part series exploring the relationship between organised crime and terrorism in a 21st century security environment. The first, second, and third parts can be found here, here, and here, respectively.

By: Joe Atkins

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Fire engulfs a casino in Monterrey, killing 52 people. Source: BBC News.

Too often, some conflicts attract attention only when something abnormally brutal happens. This occurred in Nigeria, when the terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls on 14 April 2014, shocking international audiences. This happened also, some months later, in Mexico. There, in the state of Guerrero, 43 students were kidnapped on 20 September 2014. Two weeks later, local police forces found a mass grave, with the charred and tortured bodies of 28 of them. Mexico’s Attorney General claimed that the former mayor of the town of Iguala ordered the massacre, in cooperation with the local cartel, Guerreros Unidos. A year after the fact, however, an international committee, appointed by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, expressed serious concerns regarding the Attorney General’s account of the event[1]. This sparked doubts about the reliability of this version, which affirms that members of the Guerreros Unidos killed the students, took them to a dump, and burned their bodies. Reports about the federal police’s monitoring activity of the students casted a shadow on this episode of brutality[2].

The massacre of the 43 students of Guerrero was a particularly notorious case, even for crime-ridden Mexico. It attracted international attention, constituting a major embarrassment for President Enrique Peña Nieto’s government. Outside observers, however, face a daunting task when they try to make sense of Mexico’s highly intense violence, made even more difficult given the complexity of the conflict itself. It is no surprise that some commentators simply dismiss violence as devoid of any rational meaning. Actually, the intricate character of the conflict is a problem also for cartels and state authorities themselves. Blurred allegiances and conflicting attributions of blame make communication very difficult. In this context, violence has become a tool to convey information and propaganda.

The Mexico drug war has been going on since 2006 and has caused among 30 and 60 per cent of the 120.000 homicides that occurred in the country between 2006 and 2013[3]. During the last ten years, eight cartels have been competing with each other for the control of the trade routes for cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine. Simultaneously, they have confronted the Mexican state, by corrupting or intimidating police and judiciary officials, by scaring local mayors, and by influencing elections. To add confusion to this already complex situation, allegiances and power relations have been very fluid. Local gangs, in fact, often switch loyalty, while some cartels have been effectively defeated, only to have rivals and offshoots rising in their place. Moreover, several anti-crime forces have been operating, including the Mexican Army and Navy, with various degrees of effectiveness and collusion. Local citizens, finally, have conjured up their own vigilante forces, which have often demonstrated as much brutality as the drug trafficking organisations[4].

In this complicated context, it is often difficult to know who is ruling in a particular area. Thus, cartels and gangs have often decided to make their presence felt by way of cruelty and terror. This already happened during the outburst of drug-related violence in the 1990s, when beheadings became a frequent method to send messages to rival cartels. The new era of “high-intensity crime”, however, has renewed and expanded this function of violence.

Now, messages conveyed by violence reach multiple audiences. Politicians are the recipients, as well as police officers, journalists, the armed forces, and the public at large[5]. Violence has become a major communication tool, and its effect is different depending on the receiver. Cartels target members of particular categories to push them to cooperate or to make them neutral; violence, however, hits common citizens as well, sowing confusion among them and paralysing any attempt to revert the drug traffickers’ grip on society. Moreover, violence has become so widespread that it is actually possible to identify different types of violence, each of which conveys a particular message from drug trafficking organisations.

Mass killings are one of these types. If we look deeper into Mexico’s most dangerous states we can find other massacres like the one in Iguala. In most of them, survivor reports, CCTV videos, or victims’ reports pointed out at the Los Zetas cartel, formed by ex-members of Mexico’s Special Forces. In 2010, in San Fernando, Tamaulipas state, Los Zetas affiliates killed 72 immigrants from Central and South America, after their refusal to join the cartel or pay extra fees to enter the United States[6]. In 2011, in the same area, Zetas hijacked several passenger buses, raping the women and forcing the able-bodied men to fight among themselves, awarding the survivors with cartel membership[7]; in total, 193 people died. Only some months later, in Monterrey, Nuevo Léon state, a Los Zetas commando fired indiscriminately on customers in a casino, and then started a fire that destroyed the building, killing 52 people in total [8]. In the same area, the year later, 49 bodies were found dumped by a roadside on the Mexican Federal Highway 40[9]. The Los Zetas cartel seems to be responsible for all the mass killings above. The heightened rivalry between Zetas and the Sinaloa cartel over cocaine routes in North-Eastern Mexico is the most likely explanation of this series of indiscriminate violence. Massacres, however, are also a means to maintain the Zetas’ reputation as cold-blooded murderers with a taste for bloodshed[10]. It is a tool of psychological warfare. In an environment where violence is everywhere, the need to make its effect felt is even more pressing.

Violence as a communication tool, then, is the by-product of the rivalry among several cartels. This rivalry engenders a “competitive escalation of increasingly extreme and creatively violent acts”[11]. Most of this escalation, for now, resulted in the murder of single persons or of little groups. At its core, the murder in itself is always a message, as its perpetrators usually present it as a punishment, an act of justice. Since the beginning of the conflict, however, it has lost its symbolic strength, simply because there are too many of them[12]. Beheadings were an early method to convey a more forceful message and stun the audience, by showing that cartel members were capable of anything[13]. Even decapitations, however, have become increasingly commonplace, since a group of members of La Familia Michoacana threw five severed heads on a nightclub dance floor to publicise their “divine justice”[14]. With time, then, a whole set of forms of drug-related killing and treatment of corpses has formed, with its own lexicon. These words are quite common among different Mexican cartels and in the media coverage of the drug war.  For example, enteipados are bodies wrapped in duct tape; descuartizados are bodies that have been quartered (as the victims of the 2012 Nuevo Leon massacre); encajuelados are bodies left in the trunk of a car; entambados are bodies crammed in barrels; encobijados are bodies wrapped in blankets. In addition, cutting off fingers means that the dead person was a snitch; cutting hands means that the dead was a thief; cutting the tongue means the dead was a police or rival cartel informer, while cutting the foot means the dead was a defector[15]. Finally, bodies are generally left on roadsides, usually half or wholly naked. This happens most often for women, as a means to deprive them of their honour, but also for men, in an attempt to demote their manhood[16]. In Mexico, drug-related murders are seldom a hidden act. On the contrary, narcos leave the bodies in public places, where everyone can see and read the messages on the corpse.

Actual violence, then, has evolved from simple murder, by differentiating into different types, according to quantity, treatment of the body, and ritualized display of it. Another dimension, however, is particularly important in the current inter-cartel war: the broadcasting of violence. Brutal acts committed by cartel members, in fact, are not only important as a local display of strength. With the diffusion of Internet, in fact, their reproduction has become as much a tool of psychological warfare as an integral part of the narcocultura. In the past, cartels had also profited from traditional channels, by devoting attention to timing to guarantee that specific time slots of local television news cover the murders.[17] The online presence of drug trafficking organisations, however, is increasingly important. The Internet has become a major battlefield in the information war, with its own offensives and counter-offensives[18], and cartels and vigilante groups have become its major actors, with the Mexican state present in a lesser degree[19].

Cartels, however, still do not have a vertically organised propaganda strategy, with a coherent graphic style, formalised structures and technical sophistication[20]. Most of the output consists in self-proclaimed cartel members and, in large part, in young men attracted by drug trafficking myths. Cartel online presence, then, is scattered, grassroots, and spontaneous. It is, thus, also more difficult to tackle. This is particularly true for social networks, with reports of cartel activity on Myspace, Youtube[21] and Facebook[22]. Cartel members have used all these online channels to convey threats of violence or pictures and videos of murders and massacres. Apart from mainstream social networks and media sites, moreover, cartel-specific news sites have sprung up, to avoid the self-imposed censorship of local newspapers and to capitalise on narcocultura’s increasing success. The foremost example is blogdelnarco.com, which, since its inception in 2010, has become one of Mexico’s most visited sites. Blog del Narco broadcasts gruesome pictures of murders and, most famously, videos of interrogations, usually featuring the torture and homicide of the hostage[23]. In this way, cartel members humiliate the victim, as well as the rival cartels; they spread fear among their affiliates and show how the government is weak, if the victim is a police officer.

Outside commentators often define violence in the Mexican cartel war as “meaningless”. This assertion, as we have seen, is hardly true. Violence, first, serves as a way of settling disputes and punishing. This is not its only function, though. From the cartel’s perspective, violence is most effective when rival cartels, government forces, and the local population get to know that cartel justice has stricken. The communication of violence, thus, is an essential part of the act of kidnapping, torturing, or killing. As drug trafficking organisations lack the communication strategy and hierarchy that terrorist groups retain, every affiliate or group of affiliates participates in the larger information war, by acting, by leaving messages, and by broadcasting them via television or the Internet. The combined effect of this phenomenon is to sow confusion among those who fight the cartels and to establish a climate of constant, ever-lasting fear among a paralysed population.

 

Joe Atkins is an MA student in Latin American Studies. His interest in the Mexican drug war stems from an older fascination for Mexican culture and literature. He is also studying welfare and politics in the Central American countries.

 

Notes:

[1] Paulina Villegas, Experts Reject Official Account of How 43 Mexican Students Were Killed, New York Times, Sep. 6, 2015. Available on http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/07/world/experts-reject-official-account-of-how-43-mexican-students-vanished.html, accessed on February 4, 2016.

[2] Ed Vulliamy, One year ago, 43 Mexican students were killed. Still, there are no answers for their family, The Guardian, Sep. 20, 2015. Available on http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/20/mexico-43-killed-students-, accessed on February 4, 2016.

[3] Brianna Lee, Mexico’s Drug War, Council for Foreign Relations, March 5, 2014. Available on http://www.cfr.org/mexico/mexicos-drug-war/p13689, accessed on February 4, 2016.

[4] George W. Grayson, Threat Posed by Mounting Vigilantism in Mexico, Carlisle Barracks, PA, U.S. Army War College – Strategic Studies Institute, Sep. 2011.

[5] Howard Campbell, Narco-Propaganda in the Mexican “Drug War”. An Anthropological Perspective, Latin American Perspectives, Issue 195, Vol. 41 No. 2, March 2014, p. 64.

[6] Randal C. Archibold, Victims of Massacre in Mexico Said to Be Migrants, New York Times, Aug. 25, 2010. Available on http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/world/americas/26mexico.html, accessed on February 4, 2016.

[7] Adam C. Estes, Mexico’s Tales of Bus Passengers Forced to Fight to Death, The Wire, Jun. 14, 2011. Available on http://www.thewire.com/global/2011/06/gladiator-death-fights-mexico-drug-war/38812/#disqus_thread, accessed on February 4, 2016.

[8] Simon Rogers, Mexico’s drug war visualized, The Guardian, Jan 31, 2012. Available on http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/graphic/2012/jan/31/mexico-drug-war-visualised, accessed on February 5, 2016.

[9] BBC News, Mexico violence: Monterrey police find 49 bodies, 13 May 2012. Available on http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-18052540, accessed on February 5, 2016.

[10] Ioan Grillo, Special Report – Mexico’s Zetas rewrite drug war in blood, May 23, 2012. Available on http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mexico-drugs-zetas-idUKBRE84M0MF20120523, accessed on February 5, 2016.

[11] Campbell, p. 64.

[12] A facilitating condition of the increase in cartel-related deaths has been the diminishing costs of killers-to-hire. Estimates of a killer’s pay for a single murder in 2001 were in the range of $12.000; in 2011, cartels paid from $500 to $650 per month for indeterminate killings and other acts of violence. Paul Rextor Kan, Cartels at War, Washington, D.C., Potomac Books, 2012, p. 26.

[13] Kan, p. 29.

[14] BBC News, Human heads dumped in Mexico bar, 7 September 2006. Available on http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5322160.stm, accessed on February 5, 2016.

[15] America Y. Guevara, Propaganda in Mexico’s Drug War, Journal of Strategic Security, 6, no. 3, 2013, p. 138.

[16] Campbell, pp. 65-66.

[17] Campbell, p. 65.

[18] Robert J. Bunker, The Growing Mexican Cartel and Vigilante War in Cyberspace, Small Wars Journal, Nov. 2011, pp. 1-4.

[19] Guevara, p. 150.

[20] Sarah Womer, Robert J. Bunker, Sureños gangs and Mexican cartel use of social networking sites, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 21:1, 2010, pp. 91-92.

[21] Womer, Bunker, pp. 86-89.

[22] Juan-Camilo Castilo, The Mexican Cartels’ employment of Inform and Influence Activities (IIA) as tools of Asymmetrical Warfare, University of Kwazulu-Natal, 2014, p. 4.

[23] Campbell, pp. 68-70.