Read Online To Die in Mexico: Dispatches From Inside the Drug War by John Gibler - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: John Gibler
Tags: General, Social Science, Mexico, History, Latin America, Political Science, Criminology, Law Enforcement, Violence in Society, International Relations, Globalization, Customs & Traditions
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phenomenon.
Campbell also provides very helpful descriptions—worth quoting at length—of two central and little understood drug war categories: cartels and their special breed of territorial control. Drug cartels, he writes, should be thought of as “shifting, contingent, temporal alliances of traffickers whose territories and memberships evolve and change because of conflicts, imprisonment, deaths, changing political circumstances, etc., and whose fortunes and strengths wax or wane or die out over time. . . . Moreover, many of the functions of a cartel are in fact carried out by cells, which are groups of outsourced growers, packagers, drivers, warehouse guards, gunmen, street sellers, etc., who have little or no connection to the larger drug organization . . . and whose services are bought and paid for with cash or drugs.”
To grasp the phenomenal success of Mexican drug-trafficking organizations in moving their product, gathering cash payments, and depositing billions of U.S. dollars in illicit cash into the legal economy in spite of a multinational war against them, one must establish a clear understanding of the concept of the plaza . Campbell’s succinct, general description of this fundamental drug war concept is excellent.
“Transportation routes and territories controlled by specific cartels in collusion with police, military, and government officials,” writes Campbell, “are known as plazas . Control of a plaza gives the drug lord and police commander of an area the power to charge less-powerful traffickers tolls, known as pisos . Generally, one main cartel dominates a plaza at any given time, although this control is often contested or subverted by internal conflict, may be disputed among several groups, and is subject to rapid change. Attempts by rival cartels to ship drugs through a plaza or take over a plaza controlled by their enemies [have] led to much of the recent violence in Mexico. The cartel that has the most power in a particular plaza receives police or military protections for its drug shipments. Authorities provide official documentation for loaded airplanes, freight trucks, and cars and allow traffickers to pass freely through airports and landing strips, freeway toll roads and desert highways, and checkpoints and border crossings.
“Typically, a cartel purchases the loyalty of the head of the federal police or the military commander in a particular district. This official provides officers or soldiers to physically protect drug loads in transit or in storage facilities, and in some cases to serve as bodyguards to high-level cartel members. Police on the cartel payroll intimidate, kidnap, or murder opponents of the organization, although they may also extort larger payments from the cartel with which they are associated. Additionally cartel members establish relationships [or] connections with state governors or mayors of major cities, high-ranking officials in federal law enforcement, military and naval officers and commanders and other powerful politicians and bureaucrats. These national connections facilitate the use of transportation routes and control of a given plaza . In addition to large-scale international smuggling, cartels distribute huge quantities of drugs for domestic consumption.”
In the logic of the drug war, to die in Mexico is to be guilty of your own death. But, the bare facts—when they can be rescued from oblivion—shatter the sordid drug war myths of cops and robbers, of Robin Hood drug lords, of an honest United States of America and a corrupt Mexico. Through the stories of the dead and those who resist the laws of silence, we may begin to approach an understanding of the killings and look for a way out.
TWO
Let the atrocious images haunt us. Even if they are only tokens and cannot possibly encompass most of the reality to which they refer; they still perform a vital function. The images say: This is what human beings are capable of doing—may volunteer to
Campbell also provides very helpful descriptions—worth quoting at length—of two central and little understood drug war categories: cartels and their special breed of territorial control. Drug cartels, he writes, should be thought of as “shifting, contingent, temporal alliances of traffickers whose territories and memberships evolve and change because of conflicts, imprisonment, deaths, changing political circumstances, etc., and whose fortunes and strengths wax or wane or die out over time. . . . Moreover, many of the functions of a cartel are in fact carried out by cells, which are groups of outsourced growers, packagers, drivers, warehouse guards, gunmen, street sellers, etc., who have little or no connection to the larger drug organization . . . and whose services are bought and paid for with cash or drugs.”
To grasp the phenomenal success of Mexican drug-trafficking organizations in moving their product, gathering cash payments, and depositing billions of U.S. dollars in illicit cash into the legal economy in spite of a multinational war against them, one must establish a clear understanding of the concept of the plaza . Campbell’s succinct, general description of this fundamental drug war concept is excellent.
“Transportation routes and territories controlled by specific cartels in collusion with police, military, and government officials,” writes Campbell, “are known as plazas . Control of a plaza gives the drug lord and police commander of an area the power to charge less-powerful traffickers tolls, known as pisos . Generally, one main cartel dominates a plaza at any given time, although this control is often contested or subverted by internal conflict, may be disputed among several groups, and is subject to rapid change. Attempts by rival cartels to ship drugs through a plaza or take over a plaza controlled by their enemies [have] led to much of the recent violence in Mexico. The cartel that has the most power in a particular plaza receives police or military protections for its drug shipments. Authorities provide official documentation for loaded airplanes, freight trucks, and cars and allow traffickers to pass freely through airports and landing strips, freeway toll roads and desert highways, and checkpoints and border crossings.
“Typically, a cartel purchases the loyalty of the head of the federal police or the military commander in a particular district. This official provides officers or soldiers to physically protect drug loads in transit or in storage facilities, and in some cases to serve as bodyguards to high-level cartel members. Police on the cartel payroll intimidate, kidnap, or murder opponents of the organization, although they may also extort larger payments from the cartel with which they are associated. Additionally cartel members establish relationships [or] connections with state governors or mayors of major cities, high-ranking officials in federal law enforcement, military and naval officers and commanders and other powerful politicians and bureaucrats. These national connections facilitate the use of transportation routes and control of a given plaza . In addition to large-scale international smuggling, cartels distribute huge quantities of drugs for domestic consumption.”
In the logic of the drug war, to die in Mexico is to be guilty of your own death. But, the bare facts—when they can be rescued from oblivion—shatter the sordid drug war myths of cops and robbers, of Robin Hood drug lords, of an honest United States of America and a corrupt Mexico. Through the stories of the dead and those who resist the laws of silence, we may begin to approach an understanding of the killings and look for a way out.
TWO
Let the atrocious images haunt us. Even if they are only tokens and cannot possibly encompass most of the reality to which they refer; they still perform a vital function. The images say: This is what human beings are capable of doing—may volunteer to
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