armed conflict current armed conflicts article

Human rights protection mechanisms have independently demonstrated human rights violations against the civilian population in this framework of the war on drugs. Not since the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917/1920) had there been a situation of prolonged armed violence-informally known in the period in question as the “war on drugs”-of such dimensions. Personnel from Secretaría de Marina (SEMAR – Mexican Navy) were involved in 389 confrontations between 20, while members of the now disbanded Federal Police and its successor the National Guard (mainly consisting of military personnel) have reported 1,751 clashes and, from the time it became operational in July 2019 until 30 December 2020, the National Guard reported 156 incidents. Official data reveal that, between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 2020, members of the Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional (SEDENA – Secretariat of National Defence) engaged in 4,995 armed clashes with “civilian aggressors”. In order to preserve and expand their businesses, these criminal groups turned to arms. The most extreme manifestation of the drug policy came in December 2006 when the then president, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, deployed thousands of military personnel to confront and dismantle drug-trafficking organisations and thus to recover state control of the territories concerned.

Over the years, the measures taken to confront drug-trafficking organisations have toughened, using the full punitive power of the state by means of criminalisation of activities related with harvest, production, and marketing, the establishment of a regime of exception in criminal matters and a criminal law of the enemy, and the use of soldiers and marines to combat those engaged in these illegal activities. The national authorities have been using the armed forces to destroy drug crops since the end of the 1960s, first in three northern states (Durango, Chihuahua, and Sinaloa) and later in the rest of the country. Mexico has been one of the most violent fronts of the global prohibitionist drug policy that is mainly promoted by the United States of America.

Armed conflict current armed conflicts article