José Carlos Hernández-Gutiérrez

The phenomenon of organized crime in Mexico is not new. However, it is no less true that, for a few years now, violence caused by or related to criminal organizations has been registering higher levels than ever. This has caused, from different spheres, to wonder if indeed the problem facing the country can still be called organized crime. Can non-state armed actors in Mexico qualify as terrorists? Have they evolved into some form of insurgency? The author of these pages, after conducting a bibliographic review on the variants of terrorism and insurgency used by some authors to refer to the Mexican case, affirms that Mexican criminal organizations are not terrorists or insurgents, but rather profit-making organizations that make a tactical use of terrorism and / or insurgency to achieve economic benefits or the goals of their organizations.

2021, Los desafíos de la globalización: respuestas desde América Latina y la Unión Europea

By Martin Ewi, Liesl Louw-Vaudran, Willem Els, Richard Chelin, Yussuf Adam and Elisa Samuel Boerekamp

Collaborative research between the Institute for Security Studies and the Judicial Training Institute of Mozambique revealed that people in Cabo Delgado see the discovery and poor governance of natural resources as a cause of the insurgency. The study also found few links between the insurgency and organised crime, and that regional rather than ethnic differences play a major role in the conflict.

 Key findings: The discovery and poor governance of natural resources such as rubies and liquefied natural gas have escalated terrorism. Regional inequities, not ethnicity, are a major grievance in Cabo Delgado. Despite resentment of the elite, who are blamed for the region’s poverty, there is no evidence that people are voluntarily joining the insurgency en masse. The criminal justice sector lacks basic resources and skills to prosecute the growing number of terrorist suspects. People in Cabo Delgado are more concerned about the threat of the Mashababos (Alu-Sunnah wal Jama'ah) than the Islamic State. Recommendations Government of Mozambique: Partner with local organisations to address legitimate grievances Develop a national strategy covering all aspects of the crisis Effectively manage the amnesty programme Establish a centralised national inter-agency counter-terrorism unit, and prioritise coordination and intelligence-led military operations Strengthen the criminal justice system to prosecute terrorism, organised crime and corruption Set up a commission of inquiry into the drivers of violent extremism Strengthen intelligence sharing with neighbouring countries SADC and Mozambique’s neighbours: Assist Mozambique to tighten border security Regularly share intelligence Mosques, Islamic centres and local markets are believed to be meeting points and areas of recruitment and radicalisation. Respondents fear that the violence could easily spread to other parts of Mozambique and countries in Southern Africa. Evidence of a nexus between terrorism and organised crime is weak.  Since the deployment of foreign forces, mass recruitment has stopped as Al Sunnah evolves into a professional, well-trained group, practising guerrilla warfare.

Pretoria, South Africa, Institute for Security Studies, 2022. 52p.

By Hal Brands.

In late 2007, the U.S. and Mexican governments unveiled the Merida Initiative. A 3-year, $1.4 billion counternarcotics assistance program, the Merida Initiative is designed to combat the drug-fueled violence that has ravaged Mexico of late. The initiative aims to strengthen the Mexican police and military, permitting them to take the offensive in the fight against Mexico’s powerful cartels. As currently designed, however, the Merida Initiative is unlikely to have a meaningful, long-term impact in restraining the drug trade and drug-related violence. Focussing largely on security, enforcement, and interdiction issues, it pays comparatively little attention to the deeper structural problems that fuel these destructive phenomena. These problems, ranging from official corruption to U.S. domestic drug consumption, have so far frustrated Mexican attempts to rein in the cartels, and will likely hinder the effectiveness of the Merida Initiative as well. To make U.S. counternarcotics policy fully effective, it will be imperative to forge a more holistic, better-integrated approach to the “war on drugs.”

Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2008. 68p.

By Geoffrey Till.

The 21st century has seen the growth of a number of nontraditional threats to international stability on which, trade, and thus U.S. peace and security, depends, and for the moment at least a reduced likelihood of continental scale warfighting operations, and something of a de-emphasis on major involvement in counterinsurgency operations. These nontraditional threats are, however, very real and should command a higher priority than they have done in the past, even in a period of budgetary constraint. The military have cost-effective contributions to make in countering the manufacture and distribution of illicit drugs, and in many cases can do so without serious detriment to their main warfighting role. Successfully completing this mission, however, will require the military to rethink their integration with the nonmilitary aspects of a whole-of-government approach, and almost certainly, their institutional preference for speedy victories in short wars.

Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2020. 81p.