Rapid Proliferation of Drug Gangs in Guerrero State

Borderland Beat (click here for story) this afternoon carries a graph released by the Mexican Attorney General's Office, showing a rapid proliferation of gangs in Guerrero.  The green portions show gangs operating there in December, 2017, and the red shows the number of gangs today.  New local gangs include such colorful names as Los Jefes, Gente Nueva, los Tequileros, el Pez, and La Barredora (the sweeper).  The new national-level organizations are the Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templars) and the Cartel del Pacifico.  Guerrero state has seen a major spike in homicides in recent weeks.  Guerrero is one of the poorest states in Mexico, the economy is not thriving, and the temptation to join a gang that pays well must be strong.  Capitalist competition for access to expensive goods with a good markup for the global economy appears to be working well in Mexico.

Candidate List Finalized for Mexico's 2018 Presidential Election

Campaigning begins on March 30

Leading in the Polls:  Andrés Manuel López Obrador (MORENA) Will Launch His Presidential Campaign in Juárez

So far the consistent front-runner for President in the 2018 Mexican elections is Andrés Manuel López Obrador, 64 years old, better known in Mexico as AMLO.  This will be his third try for President.  His platform is Left-of-Center, as he has opposed the largely conservative (i.e., neoliberal) trends in Mexican politics since 1988.  U.S. citizens might think of him, roughly, as the Bernie Sanders of Mexican politics, but with a broader grassroots base among the poor, who face fewer impediments to vote than in the US.

 He is running under the banner of the Movement for National Regeneration (MORENA), a party he founded in 2014 after abandoning the PRD, a leftist Party he joined in 1988.  In 2006, after massive electoral fraud, Felipe Calderon, of the Conservative PAN Party, was declared President by a small margin against AMLO.  Thousands of his adherents for weeks occupied large sectors of Reforma Blvd, in the heart of Mexico City, claiming he was the legitimately elected President.  He served as a highly popular mayor of the Federal District (Mexico City) from 2000-2005, when he resigned to run for President.

From the state of Tabasco, in Southern Mexico, AMLO's electoral base is largely in the South.  The decision to begin his campaign in Juárez signals his intent to reach out to Northern Mexico, where the party is not well organized, but where citizens have been hammered by crime and drug-related violence, as well as massive corruption by leaders of the major (and well organized) parties in the North, the PRI and PAN.

AMLO has promised that should President Trump insist on building his wall, he will request the assistance of the United Nations to halt its construction.

PRI Candidate Jose Antonio Meade is not a PRI Party Member 

After six years of embarrassing, ineffective, flagrantly corrupt governance from PRI President Enrique Peña Nieto, nearly 60% of Mexicans say they will not even consider voting for a PRI candidate this year.  So discredited is public opinion against the slick arrogance that marks this party's current brand, the PRI actually picked a non-PRI member to head their ticket, in coalition with the PNA party, organized by an exceptionally powerful teachers union, and the Green Party of Mexico (PVEM).  Jose Antonio Meade served effectively enough as a cabinet member under PAN president Felipe Calderon that he was appointed Minister of Finance under Peña Nieto.  He belongs to no political party, but does sport a PhD in economics from Yale.  He has proven to be a less-than-charismatic campaigner, which puts him at a disadvantage vis a vis AMLO, a skilled orator.  Meade has campaigned on a platform to end corruption, but, given the shameless electoral fraud committed routinely by the PRI at grassroots levels, his credibility in being able to do so is questionable.  His greatest appeal aside from being a competent manager, is that he is not AMLO, who is greatly feared by the nation's elite, who have been lavished with official favoritism for several decades.

Conservative PAN Party Candidate Ricardo Anaya Running in Coalition With Leftist PRD Party

The two major parties in Mexico during the past 30 years, the PAN and the PRI, have been so discredited by corruption and incompetence, that they need to borrow the more credible reputations of other parties.  The highly Conservative PAN, traditionally Roman Catholic and pro-small business (think of the Republican Party in the 1950s) this year will run in coalition with the PRD, founded by the son of Lázaro Cárdenas--an almost mythical Leftist president from 1934-1940 who might be compared in his policies with FDR. 

Many Mexicans believe that national politics lost its way in 1988 when Cuahtemoc Cardenas (the son of President Cardenas) was denied the PRI nomination for president in 1988 in favor of Neoliberal (that is to say, contemporary Conservative in the US sense) Carlos Salinas de Gortari.  Today the regime of Salinas is universally reviled, and the ideological split it caused within the PRI led to the election in 2000 of PAN President Vicente Fox, the first non-PRI government in seven decades.The current alliance between the PAN and PRD is schizophrenic in policy terms--Nancy Pelosi Liberal vs Mitch McConnell Conservative--but it seeks to reignite what you might call the legitimate patriotism that made each party popular in the first place; that is, the Leftist legacy of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920, which created the PRI, and the sincere efforts of PAN during the 1960s-1990s to moderate the increasing corruption and and undemocratic forces within the PRI.  In this narrative, in short, the PRI in 1988 abandoned its promises to the masses in favor of what looks like Paul Ryan Republicanism for the rich--so much so that the son of Cardenas himself split from the PRI in 1988 to form the PRD, which continued to follow the promises of the Revolution.   On the other hand, the reformist PAN, once in power, simply adopted the highly corrupt, anti-democratic practices of the PRI and, even worse, pressured by the US, Calderon forged anti-drug cartel policies that led to the orgy of drug-related violence Mexico has been experiencing for more than a decade.

The problem with the coalition is that the PAN candidate, Ricardo Anaya, does not have the stature of, say, Francisco Barrio, of Chihuahua, who risked his life for improving democracy in Mexico during the 1980s; nor does the PRD have anyone of serious stature, after the departure of both Cuahtemoc Cardenas and AMLO in 2014, So it has no fighters who could credibly promise to restore the lost legitimacy of either party, much less reconcile the ideological differences between the PRD and PAN.

Anaya's only claim to fame is that he was a federal deputy (congressman) and President of the PAN party.

si el presidente estadunidense Donald Trump insiste en la construcción de un muro fronterizo, presentará una denuncia en la Organización de las Naciones Unidas. http://m.milenio.com/elecciones-mexico-2018/amlo-andres-manuel-lopez-obrador-donald-trump-muro-onu-denuncia-veracruz_0_1106889592.html

si el presidente estadunidense Donald Trump insiste en la construcción de un muro fronterizo, presentará una denuncia en la Organización de las Naciones Unidas. http://m.milenio.com/elecciones-mexico-2018/amlo-andres-manuel-lopez-obrador-donald-trump-muro-onu-denuncia-veracruz_0_1106889592.h

Mexican Politics Almost as Bad as in the US

César Duarte was governor of Chihuahua from 2010 to 2016, elected as a member of the PRI Party.  President Enrique Peña Nieto is also a member of the PRI Party.  In part because of allegations of severe financial corruption, Duarte's successor, Carlos Corral, of the PAN Party, had a relatively easy time getting elected Governor of Chihuahua in 2016 on an anti-corruption platform.  (Is this beginning to sound familiar?).  Subsequently, the State of Chihuahua filed 11 charges of aggravated embezzlement against Duarte, including the diversion of about $13 million from public funds into political campaign coffers, and deviation of about $53 million through shell companies.

It has been rumored that Duarte is living in El Paso, where he is said to own 9 homes, including one worth $2.5 million. In September 2017 Governor Corral asked the Mexican Attorney General to extradite Duarte from the US back to Mexico.  After months of delay, Governor Corral in January inquired about the status of the extradition.  The Attorney General's office replied that the order of extradition was imminent. A few days ago, when asked about it, the US Marshall's office in El Paso--the agency that would be responsible for arresting Duarte on an order of extradition--asserted that they have not received any order to extradite ex-Governor Duarte.  Click here for story in Mexico News Today.

 Governor Corral believes the Attorney General's reluctance to extradite Duarte may have something to do with partisanship, since Duarte is a PRIista, as is President Peña Nieto.  Presidential elections will be held in Mexico this year.

What?  The justice system in Mexico might be influenced by partisan politics?  Is it getting to be as bad there as it is in the US?

Acapulco continues to be wracked by violence

Borderland Beat (click here) reports that As of Friday night, February 16, 49 persons were victims of homicide in Acapulco so far this year.  On Thursday there were eleven murders, and nine more on Friday.  Acapulco is located in Guerrero state, currently the most violent state in Mexico (see La Politica New Mexico, February 9)

Elisa Sanchez Monday at 8 AM on KTAL LP Las Cruces.

On Monday morning, February 19, La Politica New Mexico will interview Elisa Sanchez, a community activist, on KTAL.  Among her many achievements, Ms. Sanchez at one time was President of the Mexican American Women's National Association, in Washington DC.  She was also the director of the ENLACE program at NMSU, devoted to preparing Hispanic students for success in college.  Topic to be covered:  what does it mean to be a Hispanic in Dona Ana County today?

Juarez wave of body-torching continues

La Polaka (click here) reports the bodies of three men and a woman were found lst night, torched, in the back of a four-door Dodge Ram pickup on Km 27 of the Casas Grandes highway (not far from the turnoff to Santa Teresa), near Col Villa Esperanza. The night before neighbors in the SE area of Juárez saw smoke coming from a house and, believing it was a fire, called 911.  When authorities arrived they found the charred body of a woman.  In recent months internecine conflict between drug gangs in Mexico has taken a turn toward the gruesome, including beheadings.

Rep. Angélica Rubio (NM House District 35) speaks out on racist cartoon on KTAL 101.5 LP


This morning Rep Angélica Rubio phoned into KTAL's La Politica New Mexico program, arguing that the cartoon "normalizes" racist remarks made by President Trump about Mexican immigrants.  the cartoon depicts a White couple being assaulted by gun-toting thieves while the Husband says "honey, I believe they would prefer to be called Dreamers or Future Democrats."

The cartoon, by an out-of-state syndicated cartoonist, appeared in the ABQ Journal last week.  The Journal has subsequently apologized for running it.  Joe Monahan this morning (click here) wrote the Journal is increasingly out of touch with New Mexico.

Chihuahua Governor Criticizes Federal Police Presence in Chihuahua

President Enrique Peña Nieto (PRI) signed a bill in December 2017 enhancing the role of federal police forces in assisting state and local law enforcement in areas of heightened violence.  Federal Police began arriving in Juárez last month, and are expected to be deployed to Baja California Sur, Colima, and Cancun, as well as Juárez.

Chihuahua Governor Javier Corral (PAN) today challenged the constitutionality of the law, objecting especially to the requirement that state governments must pay for the troops that have been
sent.  In 2008 the federal government, in an agreement with state and local authorities, sent more than 10,000 army troops into Juarez to combat the huge spike in drug-related violence, which culminated when Juarez, in 2010, became the most violent city in the world.  The troops came with limited intelligence information or capabilities and their presence coincided with a gut-wrenching wave of non-drug-related criminal activity.  Many citizens believe the inability of federal troops to dampen the drug-related violence encouraged criminals to heighten their activities, leading to a wave of kidnappings and extortion.  In 2010 the troops withdrew, relinquishing their authority to the newly-created Federal Police agency.

Governor Corral argues that the newly created Internal Security Law violates the constitutional rights of states to control their internal security.

Jose Z. Garcia to Moderate Candidate Forum in Anthony, NM on February 22.

Elections will be held in Anthony NM for city council.  Dr. Jose Garcia will moderate this forum, featuring candidates for city council.  The event will be bilingual.  Sponsorship, dates, times, etc., will be forthcoming in this spot.  One issue likely to come up during the forum is the proposal by Mayor Diana Murillo-Trujillo to purchase the privately owned golf course in Anthony.  The mayor discussed this proposal on KTAL's La Politica New Mexico last month.

Monday Morning 8:00 AM on La Politica New Mexico KTAL LP, 101.5 FM

Hispanics in New Mexico in the Age of Trump:  Shirley Baca will call in from Santa Fe to comment on legislators' reactions to the racist cartoon appearing in the Albuquerque Journal.  The Journal has apologized for running the cartoon.  She has asked several House members to call in as well.

Firefight Last Night Between Police and Azteca Leader Leaves Three Dead and Juárez on Alert for More Trouble

La Polaka reports a suspected leader of the Juarez branch of the Azteca gang was killed last night during an exchange of gunfire between police and gang members.  It started when heavily armed men sprayed bullets at people inside a car wash in Col. La Cuesta.  As they fled the scene they ran into a municipal police unit which chased them for several blocks.  An exchange of gunfire ensued as the gang members were cornered, leaving three dead and several wounded.  One of the men killed in the exchange appears to be a high-ranking member of the Azteca gang, causing some concern there may be an effort by gang members to extract revenge.

The Azteca gang began in the El Paso jail system in 1986, and gradually spread, becoming an international organization.  The gang joined up with La Linea, the armed force of the Juárez cartel, about a decade ago, about the time the supremacy of the Juárez cartel was challenged by the Sinaloa Cartel for control of the Juárez plaza.  This rivalry led to the exceptional spike in violence in Juarez in 2008-2010.  The gang suffered serious reversals in 2014, when 55 Barrio Azteca gang members were indicted in El Paso and when Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, the Lord of the Juarez plaza, was captured, leaving the Sinaloa cartel in a much stronger position in Juárez. 

Where Violence is Bad in Mexico, on a Scale of One to Five:  Chihuahua says Thank God for Colima!  Yucatan says Come to Merida and Chichen Itza!  Quintana Roo Says Tulum and Playa del Carmen are Great in the Winter Time!

Suggested Links:

• Angus Deaton on the Under-Discussed Driver of Inequality in America:  "It's easier for Rent-Seekers to Affect Policy Here Than in Much of Europe":  Pro-Market

• Stocks have gone from overvalued to undervalued:  Spencer England, Angry Bear 

• Democrats Have Gotten Way More Liberal on Identity Issues:  FiveThirtyEight 

• Charter Schools and the Achievement Gap:  Sarah Cohodes, The Future of Children

Each of these is well worth a read; all are brief.  Angus Deaton is a Nobel Prize winning economist who argues that the political power of corporations has rigged the system in favor of the top 1%.  Unlike Europe, there are no longer any countervailing powers, such a labor unions or political parties, that can restrain the rigging.  FiveThirtyEight explains from polling data why Democrats continue to push identity issues.  Sarah Cohodes believes the experimentation allowed in charter schools is teaching us how to close achievement gaps in minority populations, even though as a whole charter schools perform no better than public schools.

Four Men Killed in SW Juárez Yesterday Afternoon; woman shot in legs this morning

La Polaka reports:  Yesterday afternoon men, armed and dressed in tactical uniforms entered an auto repair shop at Senderos del Prado and Senderos de Pedraza in SW Juárez, an area known as San Isidro.  They sprayed bullets at four men who were inside, killing Francisco Javier Flores Montoya, 45, Tony, 40 years old, and an unknown man around 50 years old.  Dozens of empty cartridges were found on the floor, calibers 40 and 223.  In a separate incident a woman was shot several times in the legs this morning outside of her house, also in SW Juárez.  She was taken to the Social Security hospital.  Just a friendly warning?

Doing Business With the "Juniors" on Gomez Marín in Juárez:

Children of the wealthy class in Juárez deal drugs at the best bars, restaurants, and nightclubs

Diario de Juárez reports that the Gomez Morin corridor--just East of Triunfo del la Republica--has become a tony place to purchase drugs from wealthy, well-dressed dealers, driving late-model expensive cars; these are, according to Diario, the sons and daughters of the "protected" rich.  They are known locally as the "Juniors."  The drug of choice seems to be methamphetamine, but other good stuff is available as well.  Young women who engage in retail drug trafficking, are known in Juarez as "Las Chulas," or "niñas bien" (best translation:  "the beautiful people.")

The Gomez Marin corridor is one of the most security-conscious areas of Juarez, full of elegant restaurants and bars, with loads of private security forces and ostentatious public security vehicles visibly displayed to deter drug-related trouble.

As competition for acquiring the capability to buy, warehouse, and transport drugs to Juarez for transit to El Paso has grown in recent years, creating a new rash of inter-drug-gang violence, more and more drug business partners have focused on expanding the local Juarez market.  Just a few years ago a restaurant patron or bar client would have to risk an awkward moment to ask the bartender or parking lot attendant if he or she perchance had some extra meth.  Sometimes disastrous things would happen to that bartender or parking lot attendant.  The rise of the "Juniors" has made these awkward moments  unnecessary:  Junior Chula will simply stop by your table, gossip a little bit about the Trump Wall or public corruption in Chihuahua, and then go on her merry way, leaving behind some pills.  Source:  Diario de Juarez.

A Few Measures of Ethnic Inequality in New Mexico

 Note:  there is a lot of information here.  I am trying to convey relative differences between ethnic groups in New Mexico as well as between New Mexico and the rest of the country (US)

1.  Income:  Average Household Income (WhNH=White Non Hispanic)

 2.  Poverty:  Percent Below Poverty Line

 Notice the sharp difference in poverty among New Mexico Native Americans conpared with Native Americans in the rest of the country

 3.  Education:  8th Grade Reading Scores

4/  Education:  Fourth Grade Reading Scores Since 1992






 Notice there is a tendency for Hispanics at the national level to be catching up slightly to the national White population:  but not in New Mexico, where Hispanics twenty years ago were ahead of their national counterparts, but now lag behind.  Also note the growing gap between national White scores and NM White scores.  Is this a commentary on New Mexico education?

5.  Education:  8th Grade Math Scores



 The pattern is clear.  Hispanic and Native American income levels and educational achievement are significantly below the national averages for Hispanic and Native Americans, and well below that of White Non-Hispanics who, in New Mexico, lag behind their White counterparts in the rest of the country.  As the graph of reading scores since 1992 shows, the gaps are not closing despite affirmative action programs, NGOs dedicated to reduce the gaps, and, at times state government action.  Given that 60% of the population below 18 years of age in New Mexico today is either Hispanic or Native American, New Mexico cannot possibly get the workforce we will likely need for a thriving economy in twenty or thirty years unless we improve education for Hispanics and Natives and get Anglos up to national speed.  If we don't turn around now, we just may get where we're going, and it isn't where we want to go.

(Not) Talking About Things Taboo:  NAFTA, Corn Farmers, US Employers, and Drug Gangs in Mexico

The North American Free Trade Association, NAFTA, still viewed in some circles as a crowning achievement of the Clinton administration, did increase interaction between Mexico and the United States.  But not all of it was beneficial to the whole, and some was catastrophic for sectors of the population in both countries.  Since NAFTA was a bipartisan sacred cow for many years, rigorously enforced by our news media industry, public debate about these catastrophes never emerged, and when Trump blasted a hole in the NAFTA sacred cow, he limited his attack to blaming wage stagnation within his famous "base" to "bad deals" and the arrival of undocumented workers, part of his attack on immigration.  Below are two negative consequences of NAFTA, both of them pretty much taboo on national media.

Corn and Undocumented Migration:  Agricultural products were included in NAFTA, including corn.  US corn producers, subsidized by US taxpayer welfare checks to corn farmers to the tune of about $10 Billion per year (year after year, half the cost of what Trump wants for The Wall, in direct payments to corn farmers), flooded Central Mexico with corn at prices below the cost of production.  Three million corn producers in Central Mexico, most of them mini-farmers, were unable to compete (in an area that has grown corn for 10,000 year) and only one million have been able to survive.  What happened to two million corn farmers in Mexico?

Many of them took readily available jobs in the US.  Employers who needed cheap labor, like the hotel industry, air conditioning firms in Phoenix, meat packers, construction crews, etc., simply let it be known they were open for business to our neighbors to the South.  Transportation networks were set up to pick them up at the border and transport them to work.  It was, of course, illegal to knowingly hire undocumented workers.  So of course employers never knowingly hired them, and law enforcement simply looked the other way, lest they get nasty calls from congressional offices complaining about overly aggressive enforcement.  When someone without documents gets a job, at least two sides have broken the law.  Ignorance is no excuse applies only for the worker, not the one who hires.  And, as we all know, some of the children of these families are now facing deportation, held hostage by a dysfunctional Congress and unsympathetic President.

Corn and Drug Gangs:  Many other Mexicans who lost out to Iowa corn farmers got into another, growing enterprise:  the multi-billion dollar drug traffic.  This is a complex business, requiring connections with foreign countries, elaborate transportation systems, constant laundering of money, extensive warehousing of the product, political connection-building, marketing new products to the larger cities, intermediaries to cut deals with law enforcement agencies, the alteration of automobile and truck body parts, the creation of tough security units, including assassin squads, and, of course, persons willing to risk crossing the border.  On the US side, parallel organizations distribute the goods to market.  In the case of central Mexicans impoverished by cheap US corn, many of them filled these jobs.  During the past five to ten years, the know-how to run a successful drug gang has spread, and there has been a major proliferation of drug gangs throughout Mexico.  And a huge proliferation in extortion, gang-related violence, and murder, including a recent trend upwards in the use of beheading as a signature assassination.