Pubdate: Thu, 27 Feb 2014
Source: Record, The (Kitchener, CN ON)
Copyright: 2014 Metroland Media Group Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.therecord.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/225
Author: Joshua Keating
Note: Joshua Keating is a staff writer at the online magazine Slate 
focusing on international news, social science and related topics. He 
was previously an editor at Foreign Policy magazine.

Drug lord's arrest could lead to more violence in Mexico

The arrest of the powerful and elusive Sinaloa Cartel boss Joaquin 
(El Chapo) Guzman will, for at least a short time, be a major notch 
in the belt for the government of Enrique Pena Nieto, who promised to 
reduce Mexico's drug violence after the carnage that took place under 
his predecessor, Felipe Calderon.

During Calderon's tenure, nearly 60,000 Mexicans lost their lives in 
drug-related violence.

Pena Nieto has promised to focus more attention on the economic 
causes of drug violence rather than just breaking the cartels, but he 
still likely relishes the sight of men like Guzman - or Zetas boss 
Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, who was arrested last summer - in handcuffs.

The government also points to the murder rate, which had begun to 
level off in 2012 and now appears to be declining. There are also 
visible improvements in places like Ciudad Juarez, the U.S. border 
city that was once ground zero for gang violence but is showing signs 
of improvement. Mexicans are now far less likely to report daily 
experiences with drug violence.

But the country is hardly out of the woods. According to the 
government's statistics, the 18 per cent drop in murders in 2013 was 
accompanied by a 35 per cent increase in kidnapping. And Molly 
Molloy, a research librarian and a specialist on Latin America and 
the U.S.-Mexico border at the New Mexico State University Library, 
argues that the declining murder rate is the result of the country's 
statistical agencies classifying fewer killings as "intentional 
homicides," coupled with the fact that "the epicentres of extreme 
violence have dispersed around the country, making it more difficult 
to know how many people are dying." She argues there's no evidence to 
suggest the total number of murders has declined at all, though 
different regions have seen changes in the level of violence.

With street prices of cocaine, heroin and marijuana continuing to 
fall in the United States at the same time the number of seizures is 
increasing, there also doesn't seem to have been much of an impact on supply.

It also seems plausible that Guzman's capture could lead to an uptick 
in violence. The Sinaloas have reached an extraordinary level of 
dominance, largely edging out their rivals for control of the 
smuggling corridors of Tijuana and Juarez. They are thought to 
control most of the Pacific coast and central Mexico as well as 
having assets in every continent on earth.

According to a Bloomberg investigation last year, they supply 
"heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine" in Chicago.

This dominance wasn't easy to come by. In particular, the battle with 
the Zetas for control of Juarez may have cost 10,000 lives between 
2010 and 2013. If Juarez is more peaceful today, it's probably partly 
because the Sinaloas have fewer serious rivals to fight with.

But with Guzman now out of the picture - assuming the authorities can 
actually hold on to him this time - one of the world's most lucrative 
criminal empires may be vulnerable to competition again, not to 
mention the likelihood of intra cartel violence as rival leaders seek 
to maintain control over supply routes. And keep in mind, the 
Sinaloas actually have a reputation for being less brutally violent 
than their rivals the Zetas, or Michoacan's Knights Templar.

Guzman may be the biggest arrest yet in the eight years of the drug 
war. But putting famous men in handcuffs every few months hasn't had 
much success as a strategy so far.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom