The Dirty War might be Back in México.

Wish us luck...

Status update from México: We are in a similar situation than almost 60 years ago. Our Government, regardless of the criticisms of corruption is enacting Laws, reconfiguring institutions and creating new ones to fight Organized Crime considered Guerrilla or Terrorist.

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Hence the answer, the procedures implemented to fight them, by request of the USA Government will be similar to those enacted by Former President Luis Echeverría Álvarez: similar to those of the Dirty War.

He faced the risk of USA intervention, he used to say a lot the CIA was behind several confrontations he had, not without merit, the CIA did implement sabotage, bought elections, killed Authorities, etc., against Commie Governments and México was considered a Pink One.

Like in those days, now there must be social unrest that publicly probably is not known, it has not been exposed as widespread, so it probably has not organized like in the 50s to 80s, when those Guerrillas were exterminated among others by the White Brigade and the Army.

There were private warlords, drug related and landlord paid, specially in the Southern States, and probably Cattle Ranchers in the North, small farmers in the Center which did their own work against Guerrillas and other subversives.

The White Brigade had a similar structure to the one now present in the recently created National Guard: A police force filled with soldiers, police, district attorneys, etc., and was ran directly by the Chief of the Spy agency, with input from other people in a secret body.

It was created to Fight Guerrillas because those Guerrillas regrouped after their almost disappearance and started kidnapping and killing Wealthy Businessman to get funds.

The differences between the White Brigade and the National Guard is in size and legality: the White brigade was relatively small, a few hundred individuals, it was an elite force, even if ruthless as hell, and worked extrajudicially: without warrants, with clandestine jails, illegal detentions, enforced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial killings, communications interventions and probably sabotage.

The National Guard has a new Legal framework with similar powers than the White Brigade, with the exceptions of torture, arbitrary detentions extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearance.

But if push comes to shove, it might adopt those illegal, crimes against humanities methods, specially if pressed further by the USA Government or social unrest coalesce and present a new threat to our current Government and its People.

And unfortunately fighting the heads of the cartels does require Special Teams which the National Guard must have now, but I have not read about them yet.

It is also true organized crime has undue influence on elections and who gets elected: they have control of some small, municipal, provincial heads of government, and as usual, police corporations and district attorneys.

It has been seen the assassination of several of them probably on disagreements or betrayals, even if only on impression to the local cartels.

Cartels in México are not the mythical behemoths, they are mostly local but connected, although almost 20yrs ago there was fragmentation of the so they said bigger ones.

But its evolution even before then was towards small gangs feeding on extortion, since they were created by Drug Lords as temporary militias, hence when unemployed required extra income.

In those senses they are like the Guerrillas, hence adopting the old procedures is not entirely off the mark, if not because it is turning México into a big surveilled country with a truly weak and new judiciary, so the population might be as defenseless against abuse as in the 1970s and 1980s.

And it also leads to consider any person a potential Terrorist, when considering Social Unrest, ties with Organized Crimes and violent rejection of Governmental measures alone considered Repressive, Illegal, Authoritarian, Despotic and Undemocratic, etc.

There are incentives for the Civilian Population to attempt violent change in the Government, specially after the new Laws enacted, hence it is now more likely to lead at some point to Repression against the discontent.

Even the single party ran Government, including the State ones is similar too to those years, and as it turns out, then as now might help to fight the Cartels, but can provoque what I narrated before.

So, in a way it seems a spiral of positive feedback putting us back into the 1970s.

And all, because the USA Government called the Mexican Cartels a Threat to the USA of a Terrorist kind.

Wish us luck, the Dirty War was brutal against many people, even if in proportion truly small scale…

And it creates the incentive again to buy Mexican Elections illegally financing an opposition candidate most likely from the National Action Party, the PAN.

Hence, even the old DGIPS, the General Directorate of Political and Social Investigations might be brought back in some form.

It all makes sense to me in the parallels of the times when I was young, and for reasons I am still elaborating, beyond what I read as an adult, for truly weird reason I knew since when I was a kid…

References.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigada_Blanca

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerra_sucia_en_México

Thanks.

Federico Soto del Alba.