The essence of the pax narca is that it arises from a voluntary or strategic agreement entered into by two or more cartels that are in warlike confrontation in a given geographic space, the control of which none of the warring parties has been able to consolidate. Faced with this impasse, the Cartels are faced with the dilemma of either increasing the level of lethality of the confrontations, which implies obstructing the drug trafficking routes and drastically reducing their income, or seeking an agreement that will allow them to survive economically and, with the passage of time, return to dispute territorial control.
An example of pax narca was the one that gave rise to the so-called Federation, which was born on the initiative of Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, known as “El Jefe de Jefes,” (with the acquiescence of the State) from an alliance or pact entered into in the last decade of the 20th century among the most powerful drug traffickers: The Arellano Felix brothers, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Ignacio Coronel, Amado Carrillo Fuentes “The Lord of the Skies,” Arturo Beltran Leyva, Ismael “Mayo” Zambada and Juan Jose Esparragoza “El Azul.” According to newspaper reports from that time and information released by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federation was created by “El Chapo,” Nacho Coronel, “El Mayo,” and “El Azul,” and this macro-criminal organization came to control more than half of the cocaine trafficking that went to the U.S.
At its peak, the Federation dominated illicit drug trafficking in most of the country. The criminal association kept criminal activity in order with no quarrels among those involved, until the break with the violent Tijuana Cartel of the Arellano Felix brothers. In colloquial terms, it consisted of not “heating up the plaza” and avoiding at all costs the intervention of state and federal authorities and, above all, the DEA.
The murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena and the U.S. onslaught, the death of Amado Carrillo Fuentes; the attack by the Arellano Felix family against “Chapo” in which Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo died and the subsequent arrest of Joaquin Guzman Loera; the confrontations between the Federation and the Gulf Cartel; the dispute for control of the strategic border strip controlled by the Juarez Cartel; the assassination of Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes “El Niño de Oro,” brother of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, ordered by “Chapo” (leader of the Juarez Cartel) and the response of this organization by assassinating “Chapo’s” brother Arturo Guzman “El Pollo,” determined the dissolution of the Federation and the end of the pax narca, plunging the country into a spiral of violence that to this day endures and continues to grow.
The pax narca cannot emerge without the acquiescence of the State, which will always assume an active role: 1) as arbiter of internal disputes between the various Cartels that have entered into the agreement; 2) by punitively pursuing the Cartel(s) that violate their commitments; 3) by cracking down on Cartels or groups that are not part of the agreement; and so on. In pragmatic terms, pax narca for the State means reducing crime indices of violence related to drug trafficking, that is, reestablishing governance in the regions where the Cartels have made their presence felt.
In the six-year term (2018-2024) headed by the former governor Rutilio Escandón Cadenas (REC), the state of Chiapas was immersed in an unprecedented spiral of violence. Homicides, forced disappearances, human trafficking and forced internal displacement reached unprecedented levels, as well as the incapacity and/or complicity of the authorities in charge of state and municipal public security and the prosecution of crimes reached intolerable extremes. The high levels of violence and insecurity have their origin in the dispute for territorial control in Chiapas between the Sinaloa Cartel (CDS), the Jalisco Cartel – New Generation (CJNG) and its appendages, the Chamula Cartel (CCH) and the Chiapas and Guatemala Cartel (CCYG).
According to the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP), between January 1 and September 30, 2024, 525 intentional homicides were registered in Chiapas, which reflects an increase of 49% compared to the 351 cases registered in the same period of 2023; also, according to the SESNSP, from December 1, 2018 to June 2024, 6,147 cases of homicides were registered before the State Prosecutor’s Office, of which 2,386 were intentional and 3,761 were culpable; 177 femicides; 78 kidnappings; 943 sexual abuses; 18,550 robberies (to homes, businesses, public roads and transportation); 319 extortions; 5,795 drug dealing; forcibly displaced, more than 40,000 people. The scale of violence that occurred during the six-year term headed by Rutilio Escandón made Chiapas one of the most violent states in Mexico, along with Tabasco, Zacatecas, State of Mexico and Guanajuato.
Violence increased exponentially at the beginning of the last six-year term, starting in July 2021, when Ramón Gilberto Rivera Estrada, head of the Sinaloa Cartel (CDS), was assassinated. From that date on, criminal actions increased, especially in the border area of La Frailesca and in the region of Los Altos de Chiapas. The open actions of organized crime groups flaunting high-powered weapons and territorial control of several municipalities (through checkpoints, blockades or mobilization of communities), constituted a challenge for federal state authorities. The firepower demonstrated by the Cartels was reflected in the myriad events that resulted in a considerable number of multiple homicides, extortions, forced disappearances and forced internal displacement.
On December 8, 2024, the Chiapas government headed by Governor Eduardo Ramírez Aguilar launched the Pakal Immediate Reaction Force (FRIP), an elite unit aimed at combating organized crime in the state. According to information released by the governor’s office, the FRIP, in collaboration with state and federal security forces and the State Attorney General’s Office (FGE), has reduced crime rates and arrested more than 600 people in one month of operations.
The much celebrated “achievements in security” that Eduardo Ramírez has obtained in his two months in office are obscured by the lack of legal actions against the former governor Rutilio Escandón and the officials who were in charge of the state’s Public Security and the administration of justice during his six-year term or part of it. As long as the administration headed by ERA continues without investigating and sanctioning the actions and omissions incurred by REC, the then head of the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection (SSyPC) Gabriela Zepeda Soto, as well as the former State Attorney General Olaf Gómez Hernández and the current Attorney General Jorge Luis Llaven Abarca, its strategy of Zero corruption, Zero tolerance and Zero impunity, will not go beyond being a punitive instrument aimed at persecuting political opponents, officials and uncomfortable former officials; and human rights defenders such as Mario Gómez López and social organizations.
In Chiapas, it is a known fact spread by some media and spoken under the breath in the corridors of the Attorney General of the State’s office (FGE), that the penetration of the CJNG in the state coincided with the first two years of the six-year term of REC, the period in which Jorge Luis Llaven Abarca served as Attorney General of the state; also, it is public that Gabriela Zepeda Soto belongs to the power group headed by Jorge Luis Llaven Abarca. In addition to the publications (bit. ly/4hLE72W) the most evident proof of the nexus is the countless number of public officials who in the current six-year term have moved from the SSyPC (Secretary of Security and Civil Protection to the FGE Attorney General, which suggests that there is a pact of impunity that protects the officials who in the six-year term of REC were in charge of public security and the prosecution of crimes.
Without minimizing the achievements of the state’s law enforcement agencies, there are some indications that lead us to determine that, in the state of Chiapas, the contending Cartels along with the state authorities have agreed to a pax narca; here are some clues 1) The lack of arrest of the leaders of the criminal organizations; 2) The known fact that the current State Attorney General Jorge Luis Llaven Abarca, opened the doors to the CJNG (bit. ly/4jGV54b); 3) The version that was spread at the time by Mexican Army and the media (bit. ly/40ZYSlz), about the relationship that Governor ERA had with the CDS; 4) The minimal seizure of high-powered weapons that Cartel members boasted; 5) The meager seizure of drugs; 6) The lack of armed opposition (even though the Cartels have great firepower and hundreds of members) that the Cartels have presented to the Pakal group; 7) The evident media staging of several public security operations; 8) The apprehension to date of some presidents, councilmen and trustees of irrelevant municipalities; 9) The arrest of dozens of municipal police officers and of countless drug dealers.
The elements outlined above are indications of the concretization of a pax narca, which at least includes: 1) A non-aggression agreement between State forces and Cartel members; 2) The partition of the territory into routes through which the Cartels will continue to transport all kinds of illicit goods and migrants; 3) The prohibition of Cartel members from committing common and high impact crimes to the detriment of the population; 4) The reestablishment of governability.
The pax narca will remain in effect as long as the Cartels and the authorities respect their agreements, a new Cartel does not emerge to challenge the status quo, or new internal and external political conditions arise that break the agreement. To a certain extent, the pax narca between the Cartels and the State is a criminal version of Adam Smith’s economic principle of laissez faire, laissez passer.
JUDICIAL BEHAVIOR
With the final list of candidates for the election of Ministers, Councilors, Magistrates and Judges of the Judicial Power of the Federation, the electoral period will begin in March. The elections to be held on June 1, 2025, will test the rules of fairness of the campaigns established by the National Electoral Institute. We will see to what extent the burdens of the Mexican political system, where the candidate with the most economic resources is almost always the winner, can be overcome.
Original article published by Leonel Rivero in Desinformémonos on February 11, 2025.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.