Watching America: On Mexican Border Security

Risks of Militarizing the Border

Full article translated by Patricia Simoni

Original Article (Spanish)

"Militarization of points along the border by the Mexican government and police reinforcement ordered by U.S. authorities across the Rio Grande are not necessarily correct steps in the fight against drug traffic, representing, instead, bilateral, ambiguous security. After all, the border between the two countries is only one realm of organized criminal activity, a place to gather and express in particularly violent ways the symptoms of a process of social and institutional decomposition much greater than the space on either side of the border, itself. The passage of drugs, arms, and criminals over the common border is, in effect, the culmination of processes that gestate and develop over time, processes that require attention from both governments in geographic areas far from their common boundary, with spheres of action much broader than police and military.

... In summary, measures announced yesterday by Washington, as well as the satisfaction expressed by the Mexican government, have put in place a flawed security strategy - shared, though it is - to focus on fighting superficial expressions of the complex and deep-rooted problem of drug trafficking. If the goal is eradication of the base of [drug trafficking] and other crimes, then the governments of Calderón and Obama should not focus on police and military pursuit, which so far have proved inefficient. Instead, they should address the social, economic, and institutional factors that foster these crimes; undertake effective policies to combat addictions, in order to reduce the demand for illicit drugs; combat the corruption eroding the institutional structure of both countries and, in Mexico, develop and apply a coherent strategy to fight misery, to alleviate poverty, and to reduce lacerating social inequality."