Guest Column
Laws of supply and demand cause friction between the U.S. and Mexico
- By Fred Rosen
- The Herald Mexico
Trafficking and violence go together like peanuts and margaritas, and when they ignite they are as (North) American as, well, peanuts and margaritas.
How many movies have been inspired by the violent, trafficking life of Al “Scarface” Capone? And when the market for illicit drugs is squarely centered in small towns in Red-State America, and the market for undocumented workers can be found in every corner of Corporate America, why are our favorite traffickers immigrants like Capone and Al Pacino's Cuban-American “Scarface” of the 1980s? Is trafficking our vision of the American Dream?
U.S. drug enforcement officials say there are 1.4 million methamphetamine addicts in the United States, with addiction growing most rapidly in the south and the midwest. Methamphetamine can be home cooked — in kitchens and in cars — starting with a common cold remedy called pseudoephedrine.
The problem is that home cooks have a habit of blowing themselves up and setting fire to their neighbors' houses, so a number of states, beginning with Oklahoma in 2004, have prohibited the easy over-the-counter sale of pseudoephedrine. But in Oklahoma, as soon as the in-state material became harder to get, a higher quality, more expensive product began arriving from Mexico. The drug cartels, a local official told the New York Times last month, “have always supplied marijuana, cocaine and heroin. When we took away the local meth lab, they simply added methamphetamine to the truck.”
So what's this got to do with the escalating violence on Mexico's northern border?
First there is a strong, simultaneous U.S. demand for and prohibition of drugs (and migrant workers).
Second, responding to “market signals,” a number of businessmen have moved in to supply the demand.
Third, because the supply is extra-legal, conflicts among the suppliers cannot be resolved by any of the trade-regulation apparatuses of the U.S. and/or Mexico. The lack of any legal arbiter has produced gangland struggles for turf and control of markets.
Fourth, as both demand and prohibition escalate, U.S.-Mexico tensions have become more inflamed than at any time in recent memory.
About a week and a half ago, individuals wearing Mexican Army uniforms and driving a light, military-style armored vehicle with a mounted machine gun, faced off with Texas policemen on the U.S. side of the border near El Paso. There was reportedly no exchange of gunfire, but the “soldiers,” in the apparent employ of a drug trafficking ring, helped a group of suspected traffickers escape pursuit and safely cross the border into Mexico.
Needless to say, the incident sparked angry exchanges between U.S. and Mexican authorities about the identity of the “soldiers,” and whose responsibility it is to police the border. U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza initiated the exchange with a formal note — accompanied by an informal public announcement that the note had been sent — to the Mexican government, demanding an investigation of the incident. Garza also announced that he would shortly send a second note complaining about the growing gang-related violence in border towns and the ongoing attacks against U.S. Border Patrol agents.
Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez, echoing President Vicente Fox, insisted that security along the border was the responsibility of both countries, but he promised a full investigation into the incident. He also criticized the lack of progress made in the December 30 shooting of an 18-year-old Mexican immigrant by a Border Patrol agent near San Diego.
The head of the Border Patrol, David Aguilar, has warned that his agents are equipped to use “lethal force” against any incursion of armed commandos defending drug shipments, whether those commandos are elements of the Mexican Army or civilians. He has also said that Border Patrol agents now faced new types of violence.
In an intifada-like escalation of the hostilities along the border, young Mexicans now throw stones, frequently wrapped in cloth, dipped in gasoline and set on fire, at Border Patrol agents. Last August rock throwers from inside U.S. territory forced a Border Patrol helicopter to make an emergency landing.
The U.S. crackdown, of course, has led not only to greater violence, but also to greater ingenuity. Acting on a tip last week, U.S. authorities discovered a professionally engineered half-mile tunnel leading from a warehouse near the Tijuana International Airport to an unoccupied industrial building about 20 miles from downtown San Diego. Since the discovery, officials on both sides of the border have removed about two tons of marijuana.
The Border Patrol has reported the discovery of 21 such tunnels — some of them a good deal more primitive — over the past four years. We can assume that a good deal more exist: ports of entry for drugs and people moving north and — the subject of a future column — small arms moving south.
- Contact Fred Rosn at: frosen@cablevision.net.mx
- The Feb 6, 2006 article The Herald Mexico/Universal at: http://www2.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impreso/web_columnas_sup.detalle?var=28429
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