At the end of 2006, newly elected president Felipe Calderon declared the war against the powerful cartels that smuggle Colombian cocaine and domestically produced crystal meth and marihuana into the USA. Approximately 50.000 people, according to conservative estimates, have died in the ensuing drug violence, more casualties as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. The cycle of violence has spun out of control, since the cartels are involved in a war on two fronts: One against the authorities, the other amongst themselves about lucrative smuggling routes. The last battle is even more ruthless. Torture, beheadings, mass killings, public executions and drive-by shootings have become normal. Cartels try to compete with each other in sadism and fierceness. Glorification of extreme violence penetrates popular culture. People who can afford it, try to escape the violence by fleeing to the USA. Corruption has infiltrated all levels of society, from the lowest ranking police cop till the highest circles in the federal government.
Ciudad Juarez, with four bordercrossings into the USA of crucial strategic importance, has become Ground Zero in the Drugs War. With 3600 murders in 2010, Juarez was the most dangerous city in the world. 98 % of the killings are never resolved. Police and forensic services rush from one crime scene to the next and often do no more as make a brief report. On top of this, small criminals and wanna-be gangsters operate in this vacuum of lawlessness and impunity.
The drug violence in Mexico is not some isolated phenomenon with no global ramifications, but presents a chilling look in the future, where organized crime successfully has taken over the monopoly of violence. The cartels, predatory ultra capitalist organizations, operate with total impunity, made possible by indifference, incompetence and corruption on the part of the state. Author Charles Bowden sums up the situation as follows: “This is not some breakdown of the social order. This is the new order.
Teun Voeten, 2012
Photojournalist and anthropologist Teun Voeten (the Netherlands, 1961) studied Cultural Anthropology at Leiden University. Voeten covered wars all over the word for various magazines. Currently, he is writing a PhD thesis on extreme drug violence in Mexico. His book on this conflict called Narco Estado, will be released during BredaPhoto.
EXHIBITION
Narco Estado
September 13 – October 21, 2012
Chassé XXL (Chassé Park)
Breda
The Netherlands
BOOK
Narco Estado
Drug Violence in Mexico
by Teun Voeten
Lannoo Publishers
Publication September 2012
ISBN: 978 94 014 0407 5
