Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Emerging Paramilitary Groups in Mexico

Despite the efforts of former presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Caldéron the drug cartel war and related violence in Mexico still continues today. More than 1.6 million Mexicans left their homes because of drug violence from 2006 to 2011, according to a May 2011 survey of the Mexico City polling firm Parametría. They might consider themselves lucky, because they are not among the 70,000 Mexicans slain in the drug war, or not between the 25,000 enforced disappeared according to a leaked list of the Ministry of Interior. Civilians seem to be fed up with threats, kidnappings, robberies, extortion and the failing anti-violence policies for a long time. The new arising (unlawful) Mexican self-defense vigilantes are the latest result of this desperate situation. There is growing concern about various paramilitary groups that are operating in Mexico. I will try to zoom in on those concerns here and will discuss the various paramilitary groups that are present in Mexico.