This has to be one the best examples to illustrate the criminal dimension of globalisation –

 

 

Since the United States clamped down on cannabis cocaine being shipped into to America by boat, most of the product coming from South America goes via Mexico – which has lead to an astonishing growth in power of drugs cartels in Mexico – It’s not just the demand from the US for cocaine that’s driving the violence, it’s also the illegal supply of guns from the US back into Mexico too – 90% of the weapons used by the Mexican Drug Cartels comes from the United States. Some cities have truly become global hubs of international crime. To give you some idea of the scale of the market – it’s esitmated that the annual street value of drugs is somewhere between 13 and 48 bn dollars.

It is estimated that 45 000 people have died in Mexico’s ‘war on drugs’ since President Calderon launched a military campaign against the drug cartels 5 years ago in 2006. So great is the power of these criminal organisations that they sometimes execute policemen outside local police stations, and some people are getting themselves chipped so they can be tracked if they kidnapped and held to ransom by one of these gangs.

Human rights violations run in both directions – both the authorities and the drugs gangs allegedly  kidnap, beat and torture to extract information.

If you can find it – the Mexico section of  ‘tropic of cancer’ does a great job of illustrating the power of these Cartels

PS – Sorry about the blank posts earlier – I ‘time release’ posts and sometimes the get published before I’ve written them – that’s just the postmodern kinda guy I am…