Narcoland

 Calderón’s time in office has left Mexico ablaze. There is only one victor in his so-called war on drugs: Joaquín Loera Guzmán, El Chapo, who remains free, and more powerful and ubiquitous than ever. The US Drug Enforcement Administration says that during Calderón’s six-year term, Guzmán became the most powerful drug trafficker in history, while his enemies were decimated. El Chapo’s empire is Calderón’s chief legacy.

Now it is December 2012, and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is back in power in Mexico. Many of the politicians and businessmen [involved] are figures who still hold positions of power, both in public office and private enterprise. As long as they remain in place, Mexico will continue to be Narcoland.

Anabel Hernandez, photo: Verso Books

Anibel Hernádez’s Los senores del narco has finally been published in an English translation (said by some to be not as good as it could be) as Narcoland (Verso Books, US 26.95)- It’s a shame it wasn’t available until now, as it would have prevented… or at least given pause to… the image painted in the English-language press both that the “drug war” was for real, and that the money being spent on it was to prop up their own war industry, and not for the benefit of anyone here… except Chapo and his minions in the government and high finance.