( Spanish) — Republican Senator Lindsey Graham sparked controversy this week by suggesting, after the kidnapping of four Americans in Matamoros, that his country’s military intervene in Mexico to fight drug cartels, which he wants to be designated as terrorist organizations. Can the United States do that?
Although authorities have not publicly named any suspects in the kidnapping in which two of the four Americans died, the Gulf Cartel, which is believed to be responsible for the incident, issued a letter of apology on Thursday and the group handed over five of the its members to local authorities, according to images circulating online and a version of the letter obtained by from an official familiar with the ongoing investigation.
( cannot confirm the authenticity of the photos and has asked US and Mexican authorities for comment.)
With the actions of the cartels and the fentanyl crisis as a backdrop, Graham, from South Carolina, advocated the designation of these organizations as terrorists (a decision that does not depend on Congress, but on the Executive Branch) and because they authorize the US military “to deal with foreign terrorist organizations like this.” “Hopefully we can do it together with other countries where they exist, but if we have to do it alone, we’ll do it,” he said.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador categorically ruled out the response at a press conference. “We are not going to allow any foreign government to intervene, much less the armed forces of a foreign government to intervene in our territory,” said the Mexican president.
What does the law say?
Artiuro Sarukhán, former Mexican ambassador to the United States, flatly ruled out the Republican senator’s proposal, which he said contravenes the rules and would also not be efficient.
“What is not serious is the idea that the United States acts unilaterally in Mexico, because from the outset it is against international law and the paradigm of shared responsibility that should be the backbone of our diplomatic actions. It is absurd in principle, it is counterproductive “, said in an interview with in Spanish.
But in addition, he affirmed, a plan of this type “is not going to move the needle in a significant way.” “That is why the White House itself has already said that it does not intend to designate criminal groups as terrorist organizations, because it will not add much to what is already being done,” he said. The real change would be, in his opinion, that the “real capacity of Mexico to confront these criminal groups” be strengthened.
“That is what is going to have an impact, not militarization or the use of military instruments to combat groups that are anything but terrorist groups, however much they resort to violence to intimidate,” he added.
Gerónimo Gutiérrez, another of the former Mexican ambassadors to the United States, was also against it. “There is a lot to do, but this is not the correct tool to address the problems that the United States and Mexico have in common in terms of security. There are others that from my point of view are more effective and apart from being politically viable,” he said in an interview with Cnn in Spanish.
He opined that in moments of tension “what tends to be favored are extreme positions, whether on the side of Mexico or the United States, and that does not help either of the two countries.”
Both emphasized the political uses of the drug crisis. In this regard, Sarukhán said that although the fentanyl issue has been “rising in profile” for months, with greater demands from the United States government to that of Mexico, at this time a “perfect storm” of three factors was created. “First, because there is a group of Republicans in the House and in the Senate who have realized that with this, on the one hand, they can corner President (Joe) Biden for being weak on national security on the border with Mexico,” he explained. Secondly, this can generate revenue for them on the way to the 2024 elections and, thirdly, the fact that authorities from the DEA and the prosecution have stressed in appearances in Congress that “they consider that Mexico is not working with the United States in the way it should be doing to confront the epidemic of opioid abuse, including fentanyl in the United States.”
