About the violence of the war on drugs
A burnt out car in Jalisco, Mexico, after attacks by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in retaliation for the killing of El Mencho
The following is a statement by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Mexico (PCM) concerning the recent violent events that followed the killing of drug lord and head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, “El Mencho”, in Jalisco.
On the morning of Sunday, February 22, a Mexican state operation was launched in Tapalpa, Jalisco, which resulted in the arrest and death of Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, as well as other drug lords and hitmen. The confrontation also resulted in casualties and injuries among the Mexican Army and the National Guard. Officially, the operation was carried out with US cooperation in intelligence matters, including the activation of the newly created Joint Task Force Against Cartels, established by the Trump administration.
As soon as the cartel detected the military operation, it launched a series of attacks, primarily targeting government banks, stores, and shopping centers, as well as blocking highways and roads and setting cars and buses on fire. The violence unleashed this Sunday was not confined to the area where Oseguera was located, but spread to Guadalajara, the country's third largest city, and Puerto Vallarta, as well as 20 other states, mainly Jalisco, Nayarit, Guanajuato, Michoacán, and Hidalgo. This led to the paralysis of many work, educational, and transit activities on Sunday and Monday. These actions are similar to those carried out by the Sinaloa Cartel in October 2019 when the Mexican state captured Ovidio Guzmán, known as the Culiacanazo , which at that time led then-President López Obrador to negotiate the drug lord's release in exchange for an end to the violence.
This is another episode in the wave of terror that the people of Mexico have been experiencing since the so-called War on Drugs began almost 20 years ago under the government of Felipe Calderón, with hundreds of thousands of dead and missing persons, kidnappings and disappearances, death camps like Teuchitlán, clandestine graves, where the greatest share of suffering is for the working class.
In light of these events, we note the following:
First, drug trafficking in Mexico was born, grew, and developed under the auspices of the United States. During World War II, the United States encouraged the cultivation of opiates in our country to meet its military needs, relying on the support and corruption of politicians, military personnel, and police officers during the decades of PRI governments. For decades, US intelligence agencies, primarily the CIA and the DEA, coexisted with, negotiated with, armed, and supported various drug cartels in Colombia and Mexico. This was part of their anti-communist and counterinsurgency crusade in the Americas, particularly during the Reagan administration, to obtain additional resources for the fight against insurgency in Central America and Colombia. There is no indication of any attempt by the US to prevent drug trafficking from flowing freely across its borders, flooding illegal markets with narcotics.
Secondly, the Mexican state is closely linked to the development of drug trafficking and cartels, as well as their successive reorganization processes. In particular, the involvement of the Army, counterinsurgency and intelligence agencies, such as the now-defunct DFS and CISEN, and police forces at all three levels, is extensively documented. Examples include the cases of General Gutiérrez Rebollo, José Antonio Zorrilla, Genaro García Luna, and the Zetas cartel, formed by former military personnel. The vast amount of illicit money flows seamlessly into the financial system, shamelessly integrating into the mechanisms of capital in our country, which launders it through agribusiness, the real estate and construction industries, and also political life, where none of the bourgeois parties that have held executive power are exempt from this, specifically the PRI, the PAN, and also MORENA.
Third, it cannot be forgotten that the various cartels have been used as shock troops against the peasant and indigenous movement in our country. They have also been used by the Mexican state for the kidnapping and disappearance of comrade Enrique López, a member of the Central Committee of the Mexican Communist Party (PCM), and for the murders of Raymundo Velázquez Flores, Samuel Vargas, and Miguel Ángel Solano, PCM leaders in Guerrero, as well as against hundreds of other social activists.
The current operation is framed by a series of corrosive pressures on national sovereignty established during Trump's second term, such as the increased deployment of personnel from various U.S. agencies along the border with Mexico, overflights by aircraft and drones over Mexican coasts and territory, the extradition of prisoners from Mexican jails without due process, and the sinking of barges in Mexican maritime borders. This intensified with the Trump Administration's designation of Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations, as well as the implementation of the New National Security Doctrine. However, the U.S. claim of combating drug trafficking is a hypocritical pretext when, within its own borders, there is no fight against the major drug distribution networks, nor any monitoring of the vast sums of money generated, and when, moreover, it makes deals with the Sinaloa Cartel, adding its members to its list of protected witnesses. Also in Mexico, history shows that when the State pursues one cartel, it does so to favor others, and the painful case of Ayotzinapa demonstrated the entanglement between law enforcement and drug cartels.
The spectacular nature of the operation decapitates the CJNG, but it doesn't dismantle it or eliminate its military and economic power, nor that of other cartels, which could open new cycles of violence that the people will suffer. We cannot overlook the diverse sectors of the economy in which drug trafficking operates, not only criminal activities such as drug trafficking and sales, extortion, prostitution, migrant smuggling, and protection rackets, but also its increasing presence in the national economy, control of roads and ports, fuel theft, the importation of precursors for fentanyl production, and the export of steel. There is no way to hide its entanglement with the government apparatus at all levels, and, as we have already pointed out, with every bourgeois party without exception.
The Communist Party of Mexico considers drug trafficking, that is, the drug industry, a cancer, and its eradication a necessity. However, we are under no illusions that this is possible within the framework of capitalism, as it is inherent to it. We believe that the fight against crime must be independent of the United States, which has no genuine interests and, at this moment, is part of Donald Trump's strategy to attempt a new regional dominance in the context of his rivalries with capitalist China.
Workers of the world, unite!