It's expensive to protect organized criminal networks. Mexican gangs have escalated kidnappings across social classes to raise the funds for their armed campaign. An LA Times article details the new "virtual" and "express" kidnapping schemes, as well as the increasingly fatal outcome for victims.
It's hard to know what the international community should do in a situation like this. Train the Mexican police? Send in reinforcements to help hunt, capture or kill the insurgents the druglords and frontmen in their dens? Support the vigilantes emerging allegedly to take on the responsibility of protecting "innocents" (however defined)?
Unfortunately there is no tried and true strategy for engaging proactively in factional conflict - that is, violent conflict waged by warlords, druglords and brigands to protect lucrative trade networks or criminal activities, as opposed to violent conflicts based on ideology or identity. But that doesn't mean doing nothing.
Why not put human security at the heart of social philanthropy and third party intervention? What Mexicans (not Mexico) need right now is a trust fund for paying ransoms. The international community could donate to this fund, protecting the life savings of average Mexicans and protecting against predatory lenders for those who don't have the 10,000 it takes to bail out Uncle Raul. Virtual kidnapping consists of threatening to kidnap a family member unless the ransom is paid by a certain deadline. But risking kidnapping means risking death, according to recent events in Mexico.
For those who might argue that this strategy would only perpetuate the cycle of kidnapping and retribution, Empedocles says - so what? That cycle is only worrisome for the state, because it provides funds to druglords in their continued pursuit of violent struggle. But the context of that struggle has been perpetuated by state complicity. Why should people pay the price? Perhaps the more important point is that failing to help Mexicans pay these ransoms will not alleviate the problems that led to this phenomenon. Third party actors should prioritize that which is worrisome for normal Mexicans - the immediate prospect of losing yourself or your loved one in this game of pawns.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Paying Ransoms in Mexico
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4 comments:
OK, fascinating idea, but wouldn't it actually increase kidnappings by a) ensuring that kidnapping would "work" and b) lowering the threshold of visciousness for kidnappers - they don't have to really "mean" it in order to do it, because no one has to really get hurt in order for them to collect the easy money. So people may resort to this who might previously have been constrained by basic moral norms...?
Well, kidnapping already 'works'. In other words, the base poverty of the average Mexican family doesn't protect against the threat of kidnapping. Anyone is fair game - poor people, rich people, middle income people, and all social classes are targeted.
What it DOES mean is that kidnappers might not be willing to negotiate down the ransom price. (For example, a young woman was able to negotiate her uncle's ransom from 100,000 to 10,000, convincing his captors that the family simply didn't have that kind of money.)
As for lowering moral thresh-holds, I'm pitting murder against profit. The culture of violence is an aspect of all organized crime, but kidnapping in this context is almost purely a profit scheme. During "virtual" kidnappings, people aren't actually kidnapped at all if they pay up before the deadline.
What if it were possible to shift "real" kidnappings to "virtual" kidnappings - a short term strategy, and one that directly funds criminal networks while it protects human life. I suppose my question out to the world would be...then what?
My learned colleague, Empedocles writes:
What if it were possible to shift "real" kidnappings to "virtual" kidnappings - a short term strategy, and one that directly funds criminal networks while it protects human life. I suppose my question out to the world would be...then what?
Then what? Why, then I should turn from scribing pro bono diatribes on international law and disorder, and start writing "virtual" ransom notes for fun and profit.
Its really sad! Govt. should take some strict measures to stop it.
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