III. Armed conflict in Mexico

Chapter:

3. Armed conflict and peace processes in the Americas

Source:

SIPRI Yearbook 2020

Author(s):

Marina Caparini

Mexico experienced a record number of people murdered in 2019—nearly 35 000 people, or an average of 95 people per day.¹ Approximately 9400 people were killed as a result of political violence in 2019, predominantly as violence against civilians (7400) and secondarily in battles involving armed groups (1900).² New figures estimate that over 61 000 people have disappeared in Mexico since 1964, the majority since 2006 when Mexico began a crackdown on narcotrafficking and pursued it with a militarized approach.³ The administrations of Felipe Calderón (2007–12) and Enrique Peña Nieto (2013–18) implemented the ‘kingpin strategy’ of arresting or killing the leaders of major organized crime cartels. Driven by record homicides rates in Mexico and drug-related deaths in the United States, this strategy was reaffirmed by the Nieto administration in 2018 in a joint Mexican–US initiative to investigate the financial infrastructure of the drug cartels and target their leaders through the offer of large monetary rewards for information leading to their capture.⁴ However, mounting evidence indicates that the kingpin strategy has directly increased rather than decreased violence by triggering often violent reprisals and creating leadership vacuums that result in the splintering and fragmentation of cartels and the emergence of small, extremely violent armed groups.⁵ The elevated level of cartel-related violence in 2019 led the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project to warn that Mexico is at ‘high risk’ of the cartel ‘criminal market developing into insurgency’.⁶