Assurance in Authority
The dreadful breakdown in civil authority and horrible increase in violent crimes in Mexico paint a picture of a country in gross duress. In attempting to do simply what all other national jurisdictions do, control a universal societal problem of drug trafficking and addictions, there has been a schism between intention and result, one that has destroyed an enormous number of lives, leaving Mexican society reeling in fear and disbelief.Over 55,000 people have been killed as a result of ongoing drug violence that has occurred over the past five years. If a civil war had struck the country, there might not be as many casualties of conflicting ideologies clashing in deadly opposition against one another. Rival cartels battling one another, as well as seemingly impotent government forces have managed to diminish their society in unimaginable ways.
People have become hardened to committing atrocities beyond the imagination of most people. Committing viciously horrendous acts of violence against one another, spurred on by competition and the wealth that accrues to those whose drug-marketing network is the widest and most all-encompassing.
Politicians, police, members of the military, judges, and ordinary people have been murdered as well as cartel members. Any politicians, police, military, judges who attempt to confront the problem and apply laws in an attempt to ameliorate the situation, to bring offenders to justice, become victims themselves.
The suffering is told in the manner in which murder victims are found. Casually dumped at the side of the road, obvious signs of torture having been applied before death. Bodies without heads, without digits, missing hands; personal identification not quite possible. The fear in some areas of the country is endemic and with good reason.
Police discovered 49 decapitated bodies in northern Mexico a few days ago, merely the latest in what has become fairly routine discoveries of brutal massacres where mutilated corpses have been left very visibly, very deliberately in public places to tell a shocking story all their own.
Bribes and corruption are also epidemic. The Mexican police and the military are susceptible, just as are politicians, to looking the other way, to aiding and assisting. Perhaps the reasoning goes - better to be paid than murdered. Cartel bribes and intimidation make a mockery of the police and the military coping with the dreadful issue of a country turning itself against itself.
And now, Mexican soldiers have detained retired general, Tomas Angeles Dauahare and General Roberto Dawe Gonzalex, turning them in to the country's organized crime unit for suspected links to organized crime. These two represent the country's former deputy defence minister and an elite army general.
President Felipe Calderon's administration is reeling at this turn of events. If proven accurate the charges would represent the most serious instances of military corruption yet revealed. There are many parallels between Mexico and Afghanistan in the drug trade and rampant corruption in both countries.
Solutions continue to elude.
Labels: Conflict, Corruption, Crime, Mexico
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, May 17, 2012
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