The recent murder of three people with ties to the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, presumably by gunmen in a drug cartel, has drawn the attention of top U.S. officials. Last week, key cabinet members of the Obama administration met with Mexican president Felipe Calderon to discuss the worsening drug-related violence on the U.S./Mexico border. Anthropology and Latino Studies professor Alejandro Lugo, the author of an award-winning book about working class border life and death in Ciudad Juárez, discusses the causes of, and potential solutions to, the violence that threatens both nations. News Bureau Life Sciences Editor Diana Yates compiled the questions.
When did this latest wave of violence on the border begin and why?
The drug-related violence affecting working class people - both men and women, and particularly young women and girls - in Ciudad Juárez has continued almost non-stop at least since 1993. The violence has intensified since late 2006 as a result of President Calderon's declaration of war against the cartels. There have been more than 5,000 deaths in this border city alone (out of a total of 18,000 nationally) in addition to the kidnappings and extortions that also target the middle class.
The government's offensive, which since 2008 has been partially financed by the U.S. through the Mérida Initiative, has led to intense clashes in drug-trafficking hot spots like Juárez. These clashes pit the military and federal, state and local police officers against the drug cartels, even as the cartels fight each other. The cartels are competing with one another for border routes to the illicit drugs' destination: the USA.
How does the U.S. contribute to the problem of drug-related violence on the border?
The short answer is simple but very powerful: The highest demand for the drugs that keep the cartels in business comes from the United States. And as the illicit drugs travel north from Mexico to the U.S., dollars and weapons travel in the opposite direction. In other words, American society offers an expansive consumers' market for illegal drugs, and the U.S. government thus far has not focused on reducing (let alone stopping) the flow of dollars and weapons southward. American guns are being used to kill people south of the border, and American dollars dominate the drug economy in Mexico.
In your award-winning book, "Fragmented Lives, Assembled Parts: Culture, Capitalism, and Conquest," you describe the lives of those who work in the foreign-owned factories on the Mexican side of the border. What role, if any, do these factories, called "maquiladoras," play in the stability or instability of the border regions?
After more than 40 years of the maquiladoras' existence (since 1965), nobody can imagine either the U.S.-Mexico border or the rest of Mexico (after NAFTA) without them. They have become part and parcel not only of Mexico's economy but also of everyday life. In this regard, the hiring of thousands of otherwise underemployed or unemployed workers certainly offers them some measure of economic stability. The bad news is that for the majority of Mexican factory workers, that stability is unreliable due to the meager wages they earn. I believe that if the multinational corporations offered a real living wage to these hundreds of thousands of rank and file workers, those looking for decent paying jobs would not be lured by the alternative informal economies, including the illicit one associated with drug-trafficking.
What initiatives or policies would, in your opinion, lessen the violence currently threatening the social and economic stability of the region?
As it is well known, the drug cartels are both global and local. Lessening the strength of cartels in the western hemisphere will require multinational and international collaborations throughout the Americas.
Unfortunately, progress against the drug cartels in Colombia worsens the problem in Mexico, due to the latter's proximity to the U.S. The solution will not be achieved without close collaboration between Mexico and the U.S., and specific cultural, political, and historical knowledge about each locale (city, state, or region) on both sides of the border is vital to success. This kind of highly reliable information can be obtained by actively seeking out the views and perspectives of the affected communities. This would include obtaining testimonies from local citizens and reports from journalists, while also incorporating the legal, cultural, political, historical and economic expertise of scholars from American and Mexican universities and other research institutions. These resources should inform mutually respectful, cross-national policy-making.
Lastly, while reducing and eradicating drug use in Mexico and the U.S. are important goals, the problem of corruption on both sides of the border also must be addressed. It is absolutely essential that there be rigorous and legal investigation of any link between the illicit economy and the licit one.