On October 12, 2022, the 50th Cervantes International Arts Festival opened in Guanajuato, the capital of the Mexican state of Guanajuato, this year coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Mexico, Ningbo Song and Dance Theater performed "Mulan" on behalf of China to participate in the celebration of this historic moment with more than 2,500 other artistic performers from 33 other countries.
The large number of tourists throwing away food attracts dogs to flock to the streets to feed, and people are not surprised by this scene. Until one day, some sharp-eyed people suddenly found that the food in the mouth of a dog did not seem to be some kitchen waste, and the outline shape was more like a human stump and broken arm. Frightened, the police rushed to the police, who eventually found 53 woven bags containing wreckage in a courtyard not far away, just the tip of the iceberg of the annual tragedy perpetrated by drug traffickers in Guanajuato.
On 11 November, another gang of drug dealers broke into a bar in Guanajuato, killing nine people. In September and October, similar incidents occurred in bars in two other parts of the state, killing 10 people and 12 people, respectively. As the state with the highest crime rate in Mexico, Guanajuato has been the place where the conflict between Mexico's two major drug trafficking groups, "Sinaroa" and "Jalisco", has been the most intense.
In August, Jalisco's leader, Ricardo, was arrested, and that night his gang members committed several crimes of revenge in Jalisco, Guanajuato, Chihuahua, Baja California and elsewhere, burning cars and shops and attacking police, again causing dozens of casualties. Why is Mexico, which is a neighbor of the "lighthouse country", mixed up with the tragic situation of "Latin American Myanmar"? This really has a lot to do with the United States.
Where is Mexico?
Mexico is located in the southern part of North America, with a total area of 1.96 million square kilometers, a population of 128 million, and the capital of Mexico City. It is the fifth country in the Americas and the fourteenth largest in the world. It is bordered by the United States to the north, Guatemala and Belize to the south, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. With a GDP of $1.09 trillion in 2021 and $8,800 per capita, it is a middle-income country. The name Mexico comes from the ancient Mexican Sika Indians, meaning the country of the Mexica.
Early history
Mexico is one of the birthplaces of American Indian civilization, and traces of human activities appeared on the Mexican plateau about 21,000 years ago. In 3500 BC, people learned to grow corn, beans, pumpkins and peppers, which led to the agricultural revolution and development, laying the foundation for the future establishment of the city-state. In 1200 BC, the Olmec civilization was born in the rainforests of south-central Mexico, and there are still many heads, altars and steles carved from megaliths in the area around La Benta.
After the demise of the Olmec civilization in the 4th century BC, a mysterious Maya culture emerged on the Yucatan Peninsula, whose origins and disappearance remain a mystery, but they left behind the famous city of Teotihuacan and many magnificent palaces, temples and pyramids. The later Toltecs and Aztecs regarded the city of Teotihuacan as a sacred place, called "the place where the gods made man". After the 11th century, the Aztecs migrated south, and by the 15th century, the Aztec state had become a powerful slave empire with its capital in the city of Tenochtirant.
At the end of the 15th century, Columbus reached Mexico on his third voyage, beginning the period of Spanish colonial rule. The Spaniards captured the city of Tenochtirante in 1521 and re-established Mexico City from the ruins. These invaders brought infectious diseases never before in the Americas, such as smallpox, influenza, plague, measles, etc., which eventually killed about 8 million Indians. By the 18th century, Spain had completely conquered Mexico, and colonists had established extensive plantations and forced Indians to work as laborers. Spaniards born in these two hundred years no longer identify with their Spanish identity and consider themselves Americans. The native Spanish colonial officers rejected these people, and eventually these native-born whites fought the War of Independence with mestizos and Indians.
In 1813, the rebel army convened a National Assembly in Chilpancingo, adopted the Declaration of Independence, and promulgated a constitution the following year, declaring independence, and establishing a republican state. After that, the rebel army was suppressed by the colonial army, and the movement was temporarily frustrated. In 1820, a bourgeois revolution broke out in Spain, and various forces in Mexico took the opportunity to rebel and force the Spanish governor to recognize Mexican independence. In 1821, the native military officer Iturbide declared Mexico's independence, and the following year, Iturbide tried to claim that the emperor was overthrown by the people. In 1824, Mexico promulgated a constitution proclaiming a federal republic.
American invasion
After independence, the United States had only 13 states covering an area of only 800,000 square kilometers, sandwiched between British-controlled Canada and Spanish-controlled Mexico, which put a lot of pressure on the Americans, who began to find ways to expand their territory. In 1783 and 1803, through negotiations and purchases with Britain and France, the United States expanded its territory to 4.9 million square kilometers.
The United States wanted to try to challenge the British invasion of Canada in the north, but was burned the White House, since the north does not work, go south, the United States has repeatedly clashed with the Spanish colonial government in Texas and California, and many Americans took the opportunity to enter the Texas area. In 1819, Spain was so busy suppressing the uprising that it had no choice but to sign the Adams-Onis Treaty with the United States and sell Florida to the United States in exchange for the United States recognizing the area between California and Texas as belonging to Spain.
After Mexico's independence, little attention was paid to the remote northern regions. Large numbers of Americans emigrated to Texas and became the majority of the population. By the time Mexico realized this too late, the Texas Americans disobeyed Mexican administration and began exchanging fire with Mexican troops. With the help of the United States, Texas defeated the Mexican army and declared independence, forming the prototype of the westward expansion of the United States. In 1845, Texas announced that it would join the United States, using the Rio Grande as the border between the United States and Mexico and building forts along the coast, which made Mexico very angry. In 1946, Mexico attacked U.S. patrols and the Mexican-American War broke out. Although it could not defeat the British, the United States was more than enough to clean up Mexico, and in September 1847, American troops captured Mexico City, and Mexico surrendered.
In 1848, the United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, and 2.3 million square kilometers of California and Texas officially became US territory, and the United States paid a symbolic payment of $18 million for the purchase of land. In 1853, the United States bought 77,000 square kilometers of land from Mexico for the last time for $10 million, known as the "Gazden Purchase". Most of the territory of the United States is determined. The United States gradually eased relations with Mexico, and the Monroe Doctrine made the United States regard the whole of America as its sphere of influence, not to be interfered with. In 1860, after the French invasion of Mexico, it was warned by the Americans to declare war and finally force France to withdraw.
The root causes of the drug epidemic
After entering the 20th century, the United States controlled Mexico in disguise through capital export, and the two sides also formed a stable relationship, but the United States began to reorganize itself. In 1919, the United States enacted Prohibition, and domestic breweries were closed. But alcohol is not something you say people can't drink, and the alcohol trade goes into the underground black market. As prices rose, gang bosses on the black market set their sights on Mexico to the south.
During the 13 years of Prohibition, countless smuggled liquor flowed into the United States from Mexico, and the huge profits from smuggling opened up a variety of smuggling routes, and the long border was full of tunnels. When Prohibition was lifted, these tunnels became a way to transport another, more lucrative item, and some people naturally set their sights on the business: heroin and the CIA.
After World War II, invincible Americans became mentally empty and lonely and needed something to relieve stress, and drugs became popular. The United States, which has made it the world's largest consumer of drugs, attracts about 60 percent of the world's drug flow to the United States. Drug cultivation is strictly prohibited in the United States, but the cake is too big for anyone to withstand the temptation. At this time, Mexico's superior conditions were once again demonstrated, and by smuggling drugs to the United States, many Mexican people became rich, and these people gradually developed into future drug lords. Farmers no longer grow crops such as sugar cane and corn, but have switched to poppies, and these drug dealers urgently need to be supplied with weapons to prevent local government siege. After the beginning of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union supported agents around the world, which gave the CIA a good opportunity to contact drug traffickers.
The United States sells arms through the CIA to the warlords it supports to make the CIA involved in the global drug trading network, and in some war-torn areas with currency disorders, many warlords skip the link of currency trading and begin to directly exchange drugs from the CIA, while the CIA transfers drugs to drug cartels for profit. The CIA not only plays a role in the international drug market, but also uses its military aircraft and employees' special equipment to directly traffic drugs without inspection at customs. It can be said that the epidemic of drugs in Latin America today and the phenomenon of drug lords covering the sky with one hand are inextricably blamed by the United States. The 2014 film "Killing the Messenger" is based on the real events of an American journalist who was brutally killed in the CIA for drug trafficking.
Drug epidemic
In order to encourage farmers to cooperate, drug dealers often give benefits to farmers, care about their lives more than the government, and invest in local education and medical care, and the price of poppies is much higher than crops, so many farmers are willing to cooperate with drug dealers to support their families. And drug dealers have their own rhetoric, such as Mexico's "godfather of drug lords" Gallardo, on the grounds of the history of the United States and Mexico, because domestic politicians can not solve Mexico's problems to make drug dealers fall into the abyss of crime, "fighting poverty is the best way to eliminate drugs." Missteps in Mexico's economic policies combined with the impact of the United States on Mexican agriculture have left many farmers without enough to grow corn, forcing them to grow drugs to make ends meet.
Gallardo
In 1982, the United States launched a massive anti-drug war against Colombia, and the air and sea channels of Colombian drug lords were almost completely cut off. As a last resort, Colombia's number one drug lord Escobar found Gallardo to cooperate in smuggling drugs through the US-Mexico border, which made the Mexican drug trade more rampant, giving birth to a large number of Escobar's "little fans", and Mexico's number one drug lord Guzmán was one of them. Guzmán learned from Escobar everywhere and eventually established his own drug empire "Xinaloa" by summing up experience. In the late '80s, Mexico had overtaken Colombia as the largest source of drugs in the United States.
Escobar
More than 3 million people in about 500 cities in Mexico are involved in drug smuggling, with an annual transaction volume of more than $20 billion, accounting for about 2% of Mexico's GDP, and becoming one of the pillars of the Mexican economy. The rise of drugs and traffickers has brought serious unrest to Mexican society, with Juarez City on the U.S.-Mexico border named "the most dangerous city in the Western Hemisphere" for its high murder rate, with 132 people killed per 100,000 people. And drug traffickers are becoming more and more sophisticated in weapons, and even have the ability to start wars, and the Mexican government has repeatedly joined hands with the United States to launch encirclement and suppression, but to no avail.
In 1989, after Gallardo's arrest, Guzman took over part of his territory and became the biggest drug lord. In 1993, Guzmán was arrested in Guatemala and extradited to Mexico, where he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. In 2001, Guzman managed to escape from prison. After escaping from prison, Guzman broke the agreement between drug dealers to "not invade each other", triggering a "drug war" that killed tens of thousands of people. He had a well-armed commando team of thousands of men under his command, often fighting Mexican President Cardón's government forces.
Guzmán was arrested again in 2014, but in 2015 he escaped twice through a tunnel. It is not difficult to see that there are a large number of Guzman's "undercover" agents in the Mexican judiciary. Guzman was caught for the third time in 2016, this time extradited to the United States to be sentenced to life in prison. Guzmán was arrested, but his Sinaloa group remained unaffected and remains the largest drug cartel in South America.
Mexico's drug problem is rooted in the United States, there is demand to have a market, without the United States, the largest demander, there would be no huge drug trade in Latin America, "Guzman" is inexhaustible. But sadly, the United States is secretive about this, and the anti-drug operation is also thunderous and rainy, and the complexity of the interests is far beyond people's imagination. Under these circumstances, Mexico's road to drug control will be extremely difficult, and public order will never be peaceful.