Narco Estado: Drug Violence in Mexico

Relatives mourn a slain drug lord. Violence related to drug cartels in Mexico are wrecking havoc to the society. Photo: Teun Voeten

Narcotic nihilism is not news in Mexico. And as Teun Voeten, reknown war photographer reveals in the book Narco Estado: Drug Violence in Mexico, this problem has morphed into a social sore.  

At the end of 2006, newly elected president Felipe Calderon declared war against the powerful cartels that smuggle Colombian cocaine and domestically produced crystal meth and marihuana into the USA. Approximately 50.000 people, according to conservative estimates, have died in the ensuing drug violence, more casualties as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

Complicating the violence is the fact that that cartels wage war on two fronts: against the authorities, and amongst themselves about lucrative smuggling routes. The latter is more ruthless. Torture, beheadings, mass killings, public executions and drive-by shootings have become normal. Cartels outcompete each other in sadism and fierceness. The popular culture is more of glorification of violence. Corruption has infiltrated all levels of society, from the lowest ranking police cop up to the highest circles in the federal government. Affluent Mexicans escape the violence by fleeing to the USA.

Ciudad Juarez, with four bordercrossings into the USA of crucial strategic importance, has become Ground Zero in the Drugs War. With 3600 murders in 2010, Juarez was the most dangerous city in the world. 98 % of the killings go unresolved. Police and forensic services rush from one crime scene to the next and  often do no more than make brief reports, that are left to accumlate dust. The ensuing vacuum of lawlesness favors the emergence and thriving of pesudogangsters.

Drug violence in Mexico has global ramifications, and presents a chilling look into the future, where organized crime successfully has taken over the monopoly of violence. The cartels, predatory ultra capitalist organizations, operate with total impunity, made possible by indifference, incompetence and corruption on the part of the state.

Voeten’s assignments between 2009 and 2011 focused on the drug related violence that is destabilizing Mexico. He visited the epicenter of the violence, Ciudad Juarez, as well as other hot spots including Culiacan and Michoacan. Not only did he portray the bloody violence there, but he also painted an intrusive picture of a disintegrated society, the interventions made by the authorities and a struggling population that tries to keep its dignity against all odds.

With introductory essays by El Paso based anthropologist Howard Campbell as well as Culiacan based writer Javier Valdez Cardenas, this hard-hitting photobook attempts to explain why the drug violence in Mexico deserves greater attention. For it cannot be taken lightly as a fringe criminal problem, since it is eroding the very fundaments of human civilization.