| | |  Editorials | May 2009 
Mexico: Failed State?
 Enrique Krauze - Letras Libres
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A widespread idea, especially in the US, is that Mexico is, or is on the verge of becoming, a "failed state". This is not only wrong but a caricature of reality.
It is true that Mexico has a serious problem now in the progress of the war, a just war, unleashed by the Calderon government against the well-armed, vicious and extremely wealthy drug lords of Mexico.
But Mexico is a country with very strong institutions, made even stronger by the birth of true democracy in 2000, when the 70-year one-party rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party ended.
We're a country that has overcome a number of serious crises: financial, governmental and electoral, and we have emerged stronger in every case because of our effective responses.
This war can only be won by reducing the range of the drug gangs and the flow of illegal guns from, and demand for drugs within, the US.
Mexico as a nation does not live in fear but we are deeply worried. The country will not collapse but Mexico and the US have to work together on these problems. There is no need for despair, but for action, in both countries.
A version of this commentary appeared in the New York Times. Translation by Hank Heifetz |
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