Drug Trafficking and Genocide in Mexico

[Magda Hassan]

From an email from Tosh

Drug Trafficking and Genocide in Mexico

by Kathleen M. Acklin

According to a recent article in the Mexican daily El Universal, 4,001 drug war-related deaths occurred in the first seven months of 2009. These deaths are directly attributable to drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) operating in Mexico. Many of these deaths, especially those of women and children, have been of collateral victims—innocents who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, one might ask whether there is any right place in northern Mexico—especially in Chihuahua, which borders the biggest DTO customer, the United States, and accounts for 1,626 (40.6 percent) of the DTO-related deaths.
How is this genocide? After all this is not a government carrying out torture and murder in order to wipe out an ethnic or religious group. The killings are being carried out by criminals, either for financial gain, to control territory, or to terrorize the population. These are valid questions, of course, and to address these points, it is important to understand what constitutes genocide and who can and does perpetrate this horrific crime.
According to Article 6 of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Statute, genocide involves, acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The definition of genocide victim has been expanded to include groups identifiable through political affiliation or economic class. Similarly, besides motives such as dealing with a perceived threat to the government or its policies, destroying those one hates, and pursuing an ideological transformation of society, another common motive for genocide is to achieve financial or material gain. It is important to note that the perpetrator need not be a state's government or its military, but may be an international organization, such as a United Nations peacekeeping force, or a terrorist or insurgent organization.
To determine whether the violence in Mexico constitutes genocide there are three components to identify and define:
the perpetrator(s);
the perpetrators’ motive(s); and
the victims.
In the case of Mexico, the genocide perpetrators are drug trafficking organizations that are often classified as criminal insurgencies—much like the FARC in Colombia and their predecessors, the Medellin and Cali cartels. Based on their activities, including kidnapping, rape, torture, beheading, and, of course, murder, Mexican DTOs can also be classified as terrorist organizations. Their motives are clearly financial gain and control over territory. Consequently, Mexican DTOs, based on their motives and the widely-accepted definition of genocide perpetrator outlined above, clearly belong in the category of genocide perpetrator. But, what about the victims—can these murdered men, women, and children be considered victims of genocide? If the above-stated expanded definition of genocide victim is applied, then without a doubt the casualties of the drug war in Mexico are also victims of genocide. Why? The reason is that these victims derive almost exclusively from the lower economic strata of Mexican society. In other words, they are poor indigenous or mestizo people. Consequently, the victims of Mexico’s drug war, on the bases of both their ethnicity and their economic class, fit within the definition of genocide victims.


QUESTIONS


FARC and COL cartels perpetrated atrocities and genocide. Why did we recognize this and help the GOC, but we do not do the same in Mexico?


If this is genocide, why isn’t the U.S. taking action? Bosnia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, etc.
Could it be because we (or powerful and/or large groups in the U.S.) are complicit with (or dependent on) the perpetrators?
We sell them guns
We buy their drugs
[size=12]Kathleen M Acklin NDIC Latin American Specialist (202) 231.3410
















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