In a startling response to rising drug violence, the citizens of Mexico are about to launch nationwide protests against their government and specifically their President, Felipe Calderon.
The final straw was the murder of Juan Sicilia, son of well-known author, Javier Sicilia. Javier was out of the country during the murder but upon his return issued a scathing call for protests.
We are sick and tired of you politicians… because in your struggle for power you have torn asunder the fabric of the nation. You have been incapable of creating the consensus that the nation needs to find unity.
At first, this seems a call-to-action, a push to finally crush the cartels with every resource; permission to do whatever is necessary to break the cartels. It is not.
Sicilia makes the case that the war on drugs needs to end. Negotiations should be held because Mexico has no interest in protecting the United States, the nation “”that is not helping us at all.”
Sicilia’s lash-out at the U.S. may be a response to the Obama administration’s program of allowing American guns to get into the hands of Mexican cartels in a misguided attempt to catch them holding those guns. Or perhaps, the inability of the U.S. to control its own borders. Either way, Sicilia is leading the Mexican people in a protest to tell their government that the only recourse they have is to give in to the Cartels; to negotiate.
This decision is a sea-change. Mexican citizens are clearing the way to turn Mexico into nothing more than a narco-state run by groups of drug-dealing thugs with no interest in the success of their people or an economy. All sense of national pride will disappear and Mexico will become a country with no culture, no national pride and no hope.
Currently, the groups are fighting each other more than the government, which has reduced their effectiveness. That will slowly change as territories are become fixed, connected to the primary loyalties of village or neighborhood. Eventually, a fully formed open source insurgency will emerge and the government might find itself only in command of the capital.
At that point, Mexico will be a hollow state. A government in name only. [1]
There are implications for Americans. An influx of desperate former-Mexicans and a National security nightmare.
First, if the government fails or cedes power to the outlaws, Mexican citizens will find it necessary to emigrate to .. anywhere but there. The Caribbean or the United States.
Secondly, the lax border security on the U.S.-Mexican border will entice the newly-powerful cartels to take on the current weak leadership in the United States. Empowered by their newfound ability to get a sovereign government to bow to them, the drug lords will certainly believe they can get Californians, New Mexicans and Nevadans to wave a white flag.
Sources:
[1] “The Ongoing Medico Guerrilla War” – https://speedygonzalezesdeladea.blogspot.com/2008/07/ongoing-mexico-guerrilla-war.html
