US PMCs in Latin America

 

Mercenaries are not at all a new phenomena in Latin America. Already in the 16th century Latin America was invaded with mercenaries. The Spanish and Portuguese Conquistadors were a special breed of men: brutal, ruthless adventurers who would stop at nothing to carve out wealth and fame for themselves and an empire for Spain. In most cases, the conquistadors were not soldiers from the national armies of these invading countries, but mercenaries who set out on these conquests to build their fortunes with the spoils of war. They had to buy their armor, sword, and horses. However, in some cases the national military of a country would descend upon a native country and wage war with them and then claim the land as theirs. The most famous example of this is Hernan Cortes and his army, which was funded by the nation of Spain in their quest to bring the Aztecs down. Men like Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro left their bloody mark on the New World.

US Private Military Companies (PMCs)

A US PMC is a company that is contracted to deliver military services to the Ministry of Defense (Pentagon) or in some cases the Ministry of State. In essence we're talking about mercenaries, while there can be discussion about the exact definition. The contractors are mostly former well-trained US militaries. They could be advisers, trainers, pilots, service personnel, security guards, reconnaissance or intelligence workers and so on.

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. 

US Firearms Trafficking to Mexico

After the Newtown, CT school shooting December 14th 2012, discussions about gun control blaze again the US. The sale of handguns and semi-automatic rifles and assault weapons immediately sky rocketed as it usually does after every mass killing. The US has already many more weapons per person than any other country in the world. For West European, Latin American and Asian countries with strict gun control this is an amazing phenomena and hard to understand. In their experience more guns simply means more killings! Unfortunately it is not very likely that US federal or state laws regarding gun control are going to change very much in the near future, despite Obama's efforts.
One has to fear that ever more guns will be sold to US citizens and that therefore more new and used guns will be trafficked into Latin America.

The Irregularities of the Mexico 2012 July 1st General Elections

The Mexico July 1st 2012 elections had a turnout of 63.1%, which is slightly more than 2006 (59%) and about the same as in 2000. After the first count Enrique Peña Nieto (PRI-party) had 18,727,398 votes (39.10%) and won the elections. Andrés Manuel López Obrador (PRD-party) had 3,192,281 (6.67%) votes less: 15,535,117 (32.43%). López Obrador did not recognize Peña Nieto's victory, claiming there had been widespread irregularities. López accused the PRI of spending more than their allotted electoral budget, biased media coverage (Televisa) and vote buying. So how serious are these allegations and what's López Obrador's chance in this rearguard action about the presidency?

Mexico, the 1994 Peso Crisis and its Democratization Process

Now this year the G20 summit has been held June 18-19 2012 in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Mexico can call itself the 14th economy in the world (2011 IMF GDP figures). While Argentina may be facing a second Peso crisis in the near future - as discussed here - Mexico recovered quite well from its 1994 peso crisis. Meanwhile The Economist did remove Argentina's official figures from their indicators page this year, because it said these figures became unreliable. And because of the expropriation of YPF, as discussed in this blogpost, the WSJ asked itself: "Why not expel a thieving Buenos Aires from the G-20?". Mexico recovered economically quite well from its 1994 Peso crisis and is still doing well. It is worth to take a closer look to this Mexican story.