Ongoing violence in Sinaloa

10/23/2024 (written by ecary) – Since July 25th, over 260 people have been killed in Sinaloa, making this period one of the deadliest waves of violence in the state’s history. This omnipresent danger and lack of security is causing major disruptions to the lives of Sinaloa citizens. Former President Andres Manuel López Obrador’s militarized approach using National Guard troops has done little to diffuse the cartel in-fighting, but current President Claudia Sheinbaum promises to increase intelligence gathering capacity and professionalize state authorities to better address violence like that which is plaguing Sinaloa at the moment. Despite its role in providing both the arms and the demand that gives rise to drug cartels, the U.S. remains formally uninvolved and has gone to great lengths to distance itself from the current violence in Sinaloa.

Background

The state of Sinaloa, separated from the US border by the state of Sonora on the northwest coastline of mainland Mexico, has been a major hub for Mexican drug trafficking for multiple decades. Since the downfall of the Guadalajara cartel in the 1980s, two emerging drug lords, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, “El Chapo,” and Ismael Zambada, “El Mayo,” established the Sinaloa cartel. Today, leadership of the Sinaloa cartel is in contention between co-founder El Mayo and the sons of El Chapo, “Los Chapitos”. Violence has escalated dramatically since El Mayo’s July 25th arrest in the US.

Citizens of Culiacán dressed in white for peace demonstrations protesting the incessant violence in Sinaloa.
Source: Irene Sanchez, La Jornada

In the city of Culiacán alone, the death toll reached 140 in a single 30 day period. Dead bodies are becoming a commonplace sight on the streets of this once economically bustling town. Intolerable violence forces businesses to close, schools to shut down, and a voluntary curfew to take hold. Parents stopped bringing their children to school, opting instead to keep them locked indoors to avoid encounters with the numerous narco-blockades along Highway 15 (a major highway that crosses the state of Sinaloa and connects it with the U.S. border with Sonora) and frequent vehicle arson incidents in the streets. As civilians continue to be caught in the crossfire between these Sinaloa cartel factions and Mexican authorities, Sinaloa residents are forced to stay home, sacrificing their financial livelihoods and the education of their children in hopes of preserving their own survival and security. At the end of September, hundreds of citizens donned white attire in a symbol of peace and surrender marching through Culiacán with signs reading “We will reclaim our streets”. These demonstrations are the most powerful tool within reach for these civilians victimized by cartel violence and unprotected by a government that is failing to ensure public security.

Government response from Mexico

Former President Andres Manuel López Obrador denounced the cartel’s violent and destabilizing actions in Sinaloa and publicly blamed the U.S. for inciting the chaos. His tangible response was a mass deployment of Mexico’s National Guard to the state, where nearly 5,000 soldiers are now stationed.

National Guardsmen arriving in the town of Jesus Maria, 30 miles outside Culiacan, where one of El Chapo’s sons was detained last year. — National Guardsmen arriving in the town of Jesus Maria, 30 miles outside Culiacán, where one of El Chapo’s sons was detained last year.
Photo taken by Martin Urista, Associated Press. Source: Los Angeles Times

Ever since Felipe Calderon’s 2006 “war on drugs”, federal armed forces have commonly been deployed in Mexico to combat organized crime groups that have surpassed local police force capabilities. When AMLO took office, he disbanded the federal police force accustomed to this type of cartel confrontation and created the new National Guard in 2019. AMLO’s recent reforms, approved by Congress on September 25th, shifted the National Guard from the public security to the defense ministry. This signals a loss of civilian control over domestic public security and a heightening of military power, continuing AMLO’s trend of eroding checks and balances on Mexican political and military structures in his final month in office. In the case of Sinaloa, the increasing National Guard presence has done little to bring peace to the visibly desperate and helpless residents. Many fear that bringing even more arms to the region will only exacerbate the preexisting tensions and produce more casualties.

Recently inaugurated current president Claudia Sheinbaumhas thus far retained AMLO’s National Guard footprint in Sinaloa, but recently announced a security strategy building off of her work on the smaller scale of Mexico City. While mayor of Mexico City, she executed an effective citizen security reform with three key tenets: 1) professionalizing the police, 2) increasing officer salaries, and 3) investment in intelligence gathering tools and investigative training. In efforts to apply and expand this strategy nationally, she plans to 1) address root causes and create alternative youth opportunities, 2) professionalize the National Guard via consolidation and improved training, 3) introduce a Subsecretary of Intelligence and Police Investigation, and 4) improve coordination between national and state authorities. Her successful security record in the capital bodes well for the national level application as she seeks to diffuse the current Sinaloa crisis and prevent future bouts of violence across Mexico.

Government response from the United States

Despite U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, intentionally distancing the U.S. from any involvement in the spiraling violence in Sinaloa, many Mexicans join AMLO in openly blaming the U.S. for instigating and failing to mitigate the escalating conflict. As mentioned, it was a U.S. arrest that triggered the initial outbreak of factional fighting within the Sinaloa cartel. El Mayo claims he was kidnapped and forced onto the plane headed for El Paso, Texas by Los Chapitos in July.

Beyond that specific trigger, the U.S. demand for drugs and funneling of guns into cartel hands enables these organized crime syndicates to wreak such havoc in their communities. Supplying the American drug addiction is believed to be a far more reliable and lucrative business than most lines of work accessible to average Mexican citizens. This is why the town of Culiacán has a thriving “legal economy permeated by an illegal economy” according to University of Sinaloa professor Carlos Ayala. Yet when violence inevitably breaks out, as it has in Sinaloa, the weak and dangerous foundation upon which that superficially thriving economy is built crumbles. This is evident in Culiacán’s $25 million per day economic losses reported by the Chamber of Commerce. Residents are incapable of and unwilling to go about their daily lives as consumers and business owners with such high risk at every corner. Without significant adjustment to current policies and actions on both sides of the border, innocent lives will continue to be lost in Sinaloa.