The weekly newsletter of the México Solidarity Project

December 9, 2020/ This week's issue/ Meizhu Lui, for the editorial team

Romancing the Gun

Among the weapons collected during México’s firearm exchange program.

In the US, we’ve had a long love affair with guns. They remain central to our history and culture, adored with unreasonable passion and jealously protected. We’ve grown up bombarded with images of good cowboys shooting bad Indians and soldiers and lawmen wiping out legions of every sort of faceless “gook” and alien. Guns have become, in effect, an extra appendage for our heroes.

Add the profit motive into the picture and we have a lethal combination. US weapons manufacturers and dealers all face a basic capitalist imperative: increase their sales and expand their market. And they constantly do just that, first by promoting the idea that the more lethal the weapon, the more desirable it must be. Look, a bump stock! You can add it to your gun and make it fire really fast, like a semi-automatic!

The US weapons industry is also always searching out new consumer sectors, like municipal police departments. Simple squad cars? So passé. Why not pick up a hand-me-down military armored tank to patrol the streets of Podunk City? Another growth opportunity: facilitating the sale of arms from European countries. The German gun manufacturer Sig Sauer has sited a subsidiary in New Hampshire, the “Live free or die” state.

All this makes for a successful business model. But the business is death.

To make matters worse, US officialdom exports our militarized crime-fighting model. We helped make militarization the solution to the “drug wars” in México. We sold massive amounts of weaponry to the Mexican military, with predictable results, as arms watchdog John Lindsay-Poland explains in our Voices interview this week.

The US public needs to take a cold hard look at what gun sales and the arms trade have done to people in México — and to ourselves. School shootings and other attacks on public places have left us living in fear. Our romance with guns has become far too deadly. We need to end it.

The shadow of gun violence past and present hangs over the people in México:  the national pain of the unsolved murders of 43 students in 2014, the 95 murders per day in 2019. Do you see a connection between the arms trade and the horrific statistics?

John Lindsay-Poland: Hundreds of thousands of weapons manufactured in the US, Israel, Austria, Italy, and Belgium are pouring into México. The police who disappeared the Ayotzinapa students had assault rifles from the United States, Germany, and Italy. The terrible growth of homicides, disappearances, forced displacement, and other violence in México directly correlates with this massive influx of firearms, primarily from the United States. Collusion between the state and criminal organizations and militarized strategies for fighting crime have deepened the violence.

Who’s buying all these weapons?

The legal trade is entirely between these manufacturers and the Mexican army, the only legally authorized importer and seller of firearms in México. The army then sells firearms to federal, state, and municipal police. In fact, México concentrates more control over the acquisition, production, licensing, registration, sale, distribution, and recovery of weapons into a single institution — the army — than any other country in the world.

The drug cartels appear to be as heavily armed as the military. How do they get their weapons?

The U.S. retail gun market offers military weaponry perfect for criminal groups in México that compete to control territory, “la plaza,” to increase their revenues. And border controls based on white supremacist ideas and structures focus on control of the South-to-North movements of people and goods, so it’s easy to buy assault weapons and other guns in Texas and Arizona — states that have few controls on firearms — and get them south across the border. These make up 70 percent of illicit firearms recovered in México.

The evidence that former Mexican army chief general Salvador Cienfuegos was collaborating with a criminal cartel strongly suggests that ties between the military (the legal procurers of weapons) and criminal organizations (the principal buyers of weapons) go from top to bottom. The new resources and authority that the current Mexican government has conferred on the army make it even more difficult to hold army officers implicated in such collusion accountable. 

What are human rights activists like those in your organization, Stop US Arms To México, advocating that US activists do?

We urge the United States, Europe, and Israel to stop all weapons exports to México until there are comprehensive controls in place that prevent these arms from going to state forces that violate human rights or collude with organized crime.

The United States has an important role in stopping illegal gun trafficking. The incoming Biden administration can take executive action to stop European imports of assault weapons into the United States, many of which find their way to México. Communities in México suffer more homicides from U.S.-sourced, trafficked guns than the entire United States does. These communities need to be visible and part of policy making in the United States. We need to hear the stories of the so many Mexicans — and migrants in México — who’ve paid the price for the ease with which military-grade weapons are bought and sold in the United States.

You can learn more and join us at stopusarmstomexico.org.

The United States and México: Dark Promises

The avalanche of congratulations for Biden’s triumph — essential to show the worldwide rejection of the Joker who has occupied the White House for the last four years — ignored the basic lines of his political biography.

At least for Mexico, the problems in that bio make up a long and murky list: Biden accepted Peña Nieto’s fraud in 2012 (the purchase of votes). In very politically correct language, he and Obama violently deported 3 million Mexicans (for which Obama earned the title of Deporter in Chief) and opened the way to the ecological depredation of the country, giving Calderón and Peña free rein to support the extractive industries.

Mexico’s relationship with Biden will not be easy. The new White House will attempt to take the situation back to where it was in 2016 — only in a situation now imposed by the pandemic, which is to say, a situation far more precarious than in 2016. For México, Biden only promises an era of even greater tension. The most serious source of that tension: the pressure to get México to comply to the letter with the T-MEC, a frankly onerous treaty redone by the Democrats themselves.

But today's circumstances are not the same as in 2016. Washington finds itself in the dilemma of having to overcome three gigantic challenges: a gradual alliance between China and Russia, a Europe with which it has lost all communication, and its gradual loss of hegemony in Latin America. The Chinese challenge is no longer simply economic. The Pentagon does not seem to dislike the idea of embarking on the path of a new Cold War. This will consume President Biden's energies to such an extent that the Mexican government would have an escape to ease tensions with the new administration.

Then there is the domestic crisis of American society. The 2020 election showed the decisive weight of the Latino vote — particularly the Mexican vote — that decided the election in at least five crucial states. The US deportation policy must change. It is here, perhaps, where the Morena government can find a major opening for negotiation, but only if Biden takes a course he has shied away from until now. Morena must become an effective instrument of support for Mexican communities in the United States.

Recent news reports and commentaries, from progressive and mainstream media,
on life and struggles on both sides of the US-México border

Kurt Hackbarth, AMLO Isn’t Pro-Trump. He’s Proving a Point About Foreign Election Meddling, Jacobin. AMLO’s decision to hold off on congratulating Joe Biden on his presidential victory has ruffled feathers among establishment Democrats. But the United States stands to learn a lesson from remaining impartial in foreign elections.

Things aren’t perfect, concedes AMLO in a report on his second year in office, México News Daily. In a speech highlighting his administration’s achievements so far, President López Obrador argued that the nation now has a foundation for transformation.

Kendal Blust, AMLO Says He Will ‘Rescue’ Toll Booths From Protesters In Sonora, Fronteras. The protesters charge that López Obrador has turned his back on anti-corruption movements like theirs.

Dana Priest, Paloma de Dinechin, Nina Lakhani, and Veronica Espinosa, A murder in Veracruz: Slain journalist’s story a portrait of a violent, corrupt era in Mexico, Washington Post. At least 27 journalists have been killed in Veracruz since 2003. International press groups consider Veracruz the most dangerous place in the world to report the news.

Nacha Cattan, México’s AMLO Rises in Opinion Poll Despite Low Marks on Economy, Bloomberg. Some 44 percent of respondents now say they would vote for the Morena party, compared to only 18 percent for either the PAN or the PRI, in June's upcoming midterm elections.

Philipp Stadler, Argentina seeks wealth tax: millionaires have to pay one third of the Corona crisis costs, Scoop. Bolivia is also moving to put a wealth tax in place. Will México follow suit?

The Mexico Solidarity Project brings together activists from various socialist and left organizations and individuals committed to worker and global justice who see the 2018 election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador as president of México as a watershed moment. AMLO and his progressive Morena party aim to end generations of corruption, impoverishment, and subservience to US interests. Our Project supports not just Morena, but all Mexicans struggling for basic rights, and opposes US efforts to undermine organizing and México’s national sovereignty. 

Editorial committee: Meizhu Lui, Bruce Hobson, Bill Gallegos, Sam Pizzigati. We welcome your suggestions and feedback. Interested in getting involved? Drop us an email!

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