A critique of “Cárteles No Existen, Los Narcotráfico Y Cultura En México”

by Oswaldo Zavala.
Zavala, Oswaldo. 2018. Cárteles No Existen, Los: Narcotráfico Y Cultura En México.
Kindle edition: Malpaso.
Spanish (Other versions are available)
Review by James Creechan, Toronto
Sept.3, 2018

Oswaldo Zavala’s recent book (Zavala 2018) is a collection of essays based on his dissertation.
Zavala added an introductory essay and introduced a polemical narrative rooted in the
audacious claim that literary and cultural representations of narco-culture demonstrate that
Mexican drug cartels DO NOT exist.
Before pursuing an advanced degree and academic career in the USA, Zavala was a journalist at
El Diario de Ciudad de Juárez and carries impeccable credentials as a frontline observer of
narco-Mexico. I’m familiar with his work and found it to be a creative reflection of the cultural
representations of millennial narco-Mexico. His cultural critiques ranged across fictional
literature, popular media (television, movies) and other artistic presentations (art, music) based
on narco themes. In this book, he has reworked earlier publications to support his assertion
that most common representations of narcotraffickers are risibly narrow but takes that claim
one step further to argue that cartels do not exist. In making his claim, he has left us with a
book of contradictions in the extreme. Zavala’s literary and cultural critiques of narco-Mexico
and narco-traffickers are creative contributions to a field not widely known (especially to English
readers) — but that broader claim about “cartels not existing” is flawed and incomplete
because it has actually been framed within a limited and narrow perspective.
Zavala’s polemical assertion begins with the title “Cárteles No Existen”. Using the title to make a
bold assertion reminds me of meeting David Caplovitz during my graduate years in Arizona. A
friend asked Caplovitz whether the title of his best-selling book “The Poor Pay More” about
food prices in New York (see (Glazer 1965) was deliberately misleading since it was a “case
study” with no comparative price references. Caplovitz, good naturedly, said he had intended to
call it “The Poor Pay a Lot” but had been over-ridden by an editor suggesting the book would
sell better with a polemic title. The Poor Pay a Lot was the more honest descriptive title but
might never had the wide distribution nor shocking impact of The Poor Pay More. Given the
high quality of Zavala’s writing, his insight, and his personal experience, I suspect that he
realizes that the contentious overall claim is specious, but I also suspect he accepted an oversell
by editors at Malpaso and/or recognized the value of including a published book on his
academic curriculum vita. Or perhaps it was an honest mistake because he was unable to break
free of the silo and understanding of narco-Mexico that bound by the horrific events and
history Ciudad Juarez and northeast Mexico.
Oswaldo Zavala deconstructs how drugs, violence and organized crime intermingle with cultural
expressions by drawing upon personal experience and his survey knowledge of narco novels
and media portrayals of narcoculture. He critically explores Mexico’s crime-culture interface,
and thematically links his creative essays using an overarching narrative that asserts that
“official accounts” of narco Mexico have been routinely reproduced to support an illusion that it
is powerful criminal organizations that are responsible for Mexico’s violence. In Zavala’s view,
the popular view of narco-Mexico has been replicated by journalists largely unaware of their
role: “an official history” that is based on the mythologization of narco cartels has dominated
public knowledge about narcotraffickers, victims, the “War on Drugs” and even the structure
and true purpose of criminal organizations.
Beyond providing interesting examples, there is little new in Zavala’s broad assertion that the
understanding of narcoculture is based on exaggerated accounts. For instance, many
observations about culture are not unlike those made earlier by Luis Astorga Almanza ((Astorga
Almanza 1995, Astorga 2000b, Astorga and MOST 2002a, b, Astorga 2002) and others. But
Zavala goes beyond making interesting observations about the mythologizing of cultural
expressions and asserts that the public representations of the “War on Drugs” and “criminal
organizations” are uncritical reproductions of what he argues is an “official narrative”. Thus, he
has made a large logical leap beyond his intellectual and experiential “silo” based on his
personal experiences in Ciudad Juarez. Furthermore, he also develops his argument by
selectively drawing on one narrative among many: specifically, he cites the ideas of journalist
Dawn Paley (Paley 2015) who argues that the War on Drugs “is a solution on a grand scale for
problems of capitalism, combining terror with public policy in an experimental neoliberal mix,
forcing the opening of closed social and territorial worlds that have been previously closed to
global capitalism”1 (loc 206 of 4150). Zavala buys into her argument that the War on Drugs in
northeast Mexico is fundamentally about exploitation of oil and gas resources that narco-traffic
is used as wedge to disrupt communities and dislocate people from valuable oil and gas fields,
and in doing so he has also chosen to use Los Zetas as his example of the prototypical Mexican
criminal organization.
As a longtime observer of narco Mexico, I can authenticate Zavala’s claim that recurring
archetypes of “narcos” and “narco victims” are simplistic, misleading and shallow2, but I also
believe that he badly over-reaches in claiming that cartels do not exist — especially since his
assertion is primarily based on a specific narrative proposed by Dawn Paley and other observers
of the corruption in northeast Mexican oil and gas fields and the involvement of Los Zetas. He
does not refer to other sources that have described a broader national and trans-national
history of the War on Drugs and multiple criminal organizations. Likewise, he does not cite
sources that have documented how Mexican Crime organizations HAVE worked closely with
business and government contacts to form a business nexus that has been frequently described
as a “holding company”. In fact, many books documenting government corruption provide
compelling evidence for the argument that organized criminal organizations do exist because of
the corruption and the support of Mexican government officials (Buscaglia 2010, Buscaglia et al.
2013). An English language 2015 book, “Eclipse of the Assasins” by Russell and Sylvia Bartley

1
This is my translation of the Spanish description in Zavala’s introduction.
2
Zavala properly deconstructs the foolish archetypical image of the narcotrafficker such as that portrayed in
SEDENA’s museum of drug trafficking as country bumpkins with ‘boots, cowboy hats and addicted to narco
corridos’ (loc. 17 of 4150)
also documents the links between the Mexican government, the CIA and Mexican drug bosses
in elaborate detail, and a recent graphic book in Mexico called “Qué Tanto es Tanito” describes
18 corrupt governors and links to organized crime. (Rocha and Pulido Jiménez 2018, Bartley and
Bartley 2015).
Zavala argues the putative strategy to mislead and promote an official narrative is directly
traceable to the 1947 US National Security Act, and the subsequent murky cooperation
between the CIA and Mexico’s DFS (La Dirección Federal de Seguridad): in the first few pages of
his introductory essay, he claims that a perverse collaborative relationship is actually rooted in
a hemispheric strategy known as “la llamada Operación Condor, por medio de la cual el
gobierno de Estados Unidos desplegó una agresiva política intervencionista en el continente a
medios de la década de 1970” (loc 53, Kindle version). Here, Zavala has mistakenly argued that
the 1976 Operation Condor in Mexico’s Golden Triangle was one component of a specific CIA
umbrella operation, also called Operation Condor, that was implemented to disrupt
governments and foment instability in the Andes, Chile and South America. Zavala argues this in
the absence of evidence or support— and in direct contradiction to hundreds of documents
and a verifiable historical record that there is no connection. The War on Drugs in the Americas
was contemporaneous but otherwise not linked to the South American CIA interference.3
That Mexico became one of the US focal points4 the Drug War is demonstrably traceable to a
deliberate campaign of misinformation and an artificial “War on Drugs” introduced by the
Nixon White House and administration in 1971. John Ehrlichman, he of Watergate infamy, was
Nixon’s domestic policy advisor and 45 years afterwards bluntly explained how and why the
War on Drugs began:

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two
enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying?
We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but
by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with
heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those
communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their
meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know
we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” (Baum 2016)
The Richard Nixon White House specifically targeted Mexico through a faux criminalization and
advocacy of a folk devil mentality— not unlike Donald Trump did in deliberately fomenting fear
of Mexican rapists and criminals. There is documented evidence supporting an official narrative

3
I had always believed that the two names were accidently linked. But when Zavala claimed they were part of the
same operation, I wrote the National Security Archivists at GWU and asked for clarification. I received the
following reply “ Dear James Creechan, …I asked our experts on Chile, Argentina, and Mexico your question about
any relationship between the two Operation Condors. Their unanimous response was there is no relation or
connection between the Mexican Operation Condor against narcotics and the Chilean / South American Operation
Condor. Mary Curry, Ph.D., Public Service Coordinator / Research Associate

4
The global history of the War on Drugs and the CIA is most fully documented in the Politics of Heroin (McCoy
2003)
that US policy resulted — arguably by accident — in the creation of powerful drug bosses when
financed Mexican military operations with helicopters and weapons. Mexican “cartels”
emerged as formal organizations following the displacement of regional caciques from the
Golden Triangle in Mexico’s Western Sierra. Most historically based narratives of Mexican drug
organizations track the lineage of cartels back to one key event — Operation Condor5 — and
although there are different interpretations of what happened afterwards, most accounts
describe the waxing and waning power of regionally based organizations as they merged,
expanded, fragmented and collapsed over four decades. And most of those accounts recognize
that businesses and government officials played a central role. The accepted narrative focuses
on the trajectory and role of Amado Carillo Fuentes (El Señor de los Cielos) who was trusted
agent of displaced drug barons in Guadalajara. By the mid 1990’s, his skillful consolidation of
different criminal groups and skill at fostering trusted contacts within government and the
military saw Ciudad Juarez emerge as the focal point of a powerful criminal organization. There
are different interpretations about the structure and dynamics of that organization, but many
observers began to use a narrative describing it as a cartel or “holding company” with horizonal
and vertical power structures, and they recognize its transnational reach.
Prior to 1996, the power6 of Mexican drug organizations was largely unknown in the English
speaking world except through observers such as Elaine Shannon and her classic book
“Desperados” that documented Enrique Camarena’s torture and execution (Shannon 1988), or
through Terrence Poppa’s underappreciated biography of Chihuahua drug smuggler Pablo
Acosta ((Poppa 1990, 1998), or perhaps by having read Charles Bowden’s informative article in
Gentlemen’s Quarterly (Bowden 1997). Attention to Mexican drug organizations grew
exponentially after Vicente Fox won the Presidency and it peaked after Joaquin “El Chapo”
Guzman Loera escaped from Puente Grande Maximum Security prison in 2001. Following that
first prison escape, Ciudad Juarez and other cities along northern border erupted in a wave of
violence and Guzman Loera and Mexican cartels were fingered as being responsible.
The literature describing Mexican cartels expanded exponentially when journalists such Jorge
Fernández Menéndez published Spanish language best sellers ((Fernández Menéndez 2001,
Fernández Menéndez and Ronquillo 2006), and when Ricardo Ravelo and other journalists
regularly published reports about the violence and growing influence of criminal organizations.
(Ravelo 2005, 2006, 2007a, b, Ravelo and Editorial 2009). That first wave of books came from
Mexican journalists, but it did not take long for academic voices to contribute to a national
debate. Most notably, Luis Astorga Amanza produced several influential accounts of narco
Mexico, security and the history of drug organizations (Astorga Almanza 2005, 2007, Astorga et
al. 2010, Astorga Almanza 2015). The awareness about Mexican Drug Organizations — Cartels
— arguably peaked with the publication of two notable Spanish language books by Anabel
Hernandez (Hernandez 2010, Hernández 2013) and Guillermo Valdés (Valdés Castellanos 2013),

5
Admittedly, authors are entitled to a few mistakes of fact and no book will be perfect or without controversy. But
in this case, Zavala’s mistake of fact is important because it underpins his most compelling justification for the
claiming that “Cartels Don’t Exist” — that existing accounts about Narco Mexico and Cartels are tainted by an
official State Narrative that has dominated our understanding of narco Mexico.
6
Most, if not all attention was directed to Andes drug trafficking organizations – especially to Pablo Escobar and
the Medellin cartel.
and when the English speaking world had access to two books on Mexican drug organizations
by journalists Ioan Grillo (Grillo 2011) and Malcolm Beith (Beith 2010). After 2012, magazines
and periodicals such as Proceso, Letras Libres and Nexos featured comprehensive reports and
analyses of criminal organizations in Mexico (e.g. (RodrÌguez Castañeda and Campos Garza
2011, Nexos and Escalante Gonzalbo 2012, Nexos 2013, 2014a, b).
The material described in the previous paragraphs represent a significant component of the
“canonical literature” that Zavala refers to as an official narrative7 of the War on Drugs and the
one that Zavala argues is deeply flawed. He also argues the official narrative has been based on
inaccurate information disseminated to journalists, researchers and academics who have
reinforced a mythologized narrative. Zavala expresses a specific disdain and distrust for anyone
with any direct connection to a government agency or institutions and specifically targets
Guillermo Valdés(Valdés Castellanos 2013) for bitter criticism since he is an ex-director of CISEN
— Mexico’s intelligence agency with close ties to the CIA. Zavala also dismisses the work of
Anabel Hernandez (Hernandez 2010) presumably because she cites and includes government
documents that justify her account of the role of Joaquin Guzman Loera.
Oswaldo Zavala’s overall argument, taken to its logical conclusion, argues that no account of
the War on Drugs or Mexican Cartels is a true and accurate history of narco Mexico. He argues,
without evidence, that widely accepted descriptions of the War on Drugs downplay the role or
motive of government officials and authorities in the Mexico’s criminal organizations8. He
would have a reader believe that there have never been drug organizations worthy of the
nomenclature cartel, and that the Mexican State and powerful forces have duped and
gaslighted observers for fifty-six years by somehow encouraging scholars and observers to
narrowly repeat ONLY “official accounts of events”. To put it mildly, his assertion that cartels do
not exist is easily contradicted by evidence in easily accessible books, journals, newspapers and
magazines. Zavala’s claim demands much more evidence and proof than he provides, and one
that would be best explored by more than a narrative commitment to a narrative based on an
events in Mexican oil fields and the operation of one criminal organization.
But Zavala does offer an interesting — albeit questionable— strategy to support his argument
that cartels do not exist. He chooses to deconstruct literary accounts and media
representations of narco Mexico, and doing so, leaves the impression that fiction, culture and
media are more honest and putatively more accurate representations than are journalistic or
academic accounts. According to Zavala, his cultural accounts of narco Mexico are less tainted
by the “official narrative “and more accurately portray the true level of government
entanglement and encouragement of crime.
In my view, Zavala has neglected to fully describe what he means by an official narrative until he
returns to that theme in the book’s final two essays. And paradoxically, he turns to the

7
I used the search function of Kindle to count how many times Zavala made reference to the “official account” or
narrative or discourse. He did so 146 times.
8
He makes this argument in spite of the fact that many of the important books from that period actually focus on
the important and murky role of government officials who cooperated and/or directed the operations of cartels.
Almost all of the books by the late George Grayson describe the connections to government officials and
“madrinas”. See (Grayson 2008, 2009, 2014)
observations of Luis Astorga, Charles Bowden and Julian Cardona to defend his argument
(Bowden and Cardona 2008, Bowden 2010b, Bowden 2010a). Other than the final chapters,
Zavala offers only passing and relatively undefined elaborations of what he variously calls the
“official discourse”, “the official narrative” or the “official account”. One person whom he
frequently cites is Luis Astorga who has often argued that the concept of cartel is badly used:
definitely, Luis Astorga offers a convincing Baudrillarian argument that the term“cartel” is
misleading and has become a convenient instrument to justify state intervention. Cartel is over-
used by journalists and the public — but I find it very difficult to believe that Luis Astorga would
also argue that Drug Organizations (AKA cartels) have never operated in Mexico and that they
do not exist today in some form or other. His body of work ((Astorga Almanza 1996, 2003, 2007,
2015, Astorga Almanza and Shirk 2010, Astorga Almanza 2010, Astorga 2001, 1999, 2005,
Astorga and MOST 2002a, Astorga 2010, Astorga 2000a, United Nations Educational 2002)
makes it very difficult for me to accept that he accepts Zavala’s over-reaching claim that
“Cárteles No Existen”. Astorga writes that many drug organizations in Mexico are little more
than street gangs engaged in narcomenudeo, and he has also written that corrupt officials are
found everywhere in the drug trade. I also suspect that he accepts that groups such as the CJNG
(Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación) or its subgroups like Los Menchos are independent and
dangerous powers in direct conflict with the State. To summarize, there are many reasonable
justifications for questioning existing narratives about Narco Mexico— but it is a serious over-
reach to conclude they therefore do not exist because journalistic narratives are putatively
linked to some putative official account.
In taking his argument to an extreme, Zavala has otherwise flawed what is an excellent
collection of essays on the literary and cultural representations of narco Mexico. There is
absolutely no doubt that Zavala has a deep knowledge of the literature and media
representations of narco Mexico, and he has identified several books that are worth tracking
down. I have been monitoring narco Mexico for three decades and first became deeply
engrossed in those themes following a sabbatical year at El Colegio de Mexico, and then during
a 15 year period when I was a visiting professor at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa in
Culiacán (at FEIyPP).
When I first travelled to Sinaloa, I frequented bookstores and spoke to Mexican academics in
search of material to enlighten me about drugs and criminal organizations. Literally, there was
nothing available with the exception of novels by a few Sinaloan authors Elmer Mendoza
(Mendoza 2001)and Leonidas Alfaro(Alfaro B 1997), and then eventually an international best
seller “La Reina del Sur” (Pérez-Reverte 2002) that was written after spending time in Sinaloa
with Mendoza, Alfaro and other Sinaloan public intellectuals. The fiction of these men
represented my first systematic introduction to the world of narco-Mexico, and I fully
understand why Zavala can argue that literature and cultural representations of Narco Mexico
are important. But his argument that it is best to focus on those literary and cultural narratives
of narco Mexico fails to take into account their fundamental weakness as archival sources and
guides to policy. These are fictional accounts and do not purport to tell the entire truth. In fact,
truth is likely excluded for self-preservation OR simply to further the plot. An author of fiction
may recognize what is factual and recognize where truth has been stretched or overridden—
but the reader is not privy to that knowledge. Fictional works and cultural representations
inspire creativity and deep reflection, but they must not be taken as anything more than a
generalized description and fictional narrative.
As a sociologist, I recognize the limits of fiction as an archival source, but nevertheless enjoy
reading and watching and I learn from that material. I also recognize that the narrative of narco
Mexico looks different when I examine the reports of those who have done systematic research
and painstakingly shared their insight in non-fictional form. Even though he is from Culiacan
and has a community connection, Luis Astorga’s seminal research is based almost entirely on
the use of official archives ((Astorga Almanza 1996, 2003) and those became valuable sources
to me as I progressed in my personal search for more information about narco Mexico. Astorga
tapped into existing archival accounts to write about drugs and Mexico – “official sources” —
whereas authors like Mendoza and Alfaro have tapped directly into folk-tales, personal
experiences and cultural traditions. Which is more truthful and accurate? Is that a question that
should be asked?
Zavala chooses to emphasize and depend on the fictional. But in my view, he has also failed to
adequately describe and evaluate the weaknesses and flaws of official accounts – or their
strenthgs. He simply takes the stance to discredit many existing books, journal accounts or
newspaper reports. Personally, I would never argue that information drawn official sources,
books, newspapers and journals is perfect and should be accepted without question. But I also
believe that those sources can be read critically within context. Truth is found in “official
accounts”, but only after reading them critically and within a broader context.
A broader truth is often found by looking for “comparative reference” points wherever
possible, and avoidance of a “silo” mentality that limits narratives and observations to a
narrower environment. I suspect that Zavala may have been too quick to adopt his polemic
argument because he is constricted by limiting his observations to Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua,
literary circles, and the academic environment of post-modern culture in the USA. One example
from his book illustrates this argument. As he concludes his book, Zavala argues that
descriptions of the assassination of Mexican journalist Miroslava Breach illustrate that too-
quick dependence on “the official narrative” since journalists almost immediately jumped to a
conclusion that she was murdered by cartels. (loc 3779,3786,3792, 3806). Zavala correctly
contradicts those initial reports and tells us that Miroslava Breach was not assassinated by
cartels, but “por su trabajo de investigación periodística que le permitió documentar el
enriquecimiento ilicito de exgobernador César Duarte…”. Zavala is accurate— Breach was
assassinated by government officials. But this does not mean that he can use this one example
generalize and argue that cartels don’t exist. Miroslava’s murder is not the only case where a
Mexican journalist has been murdered9. About the same time, the famous Mexican author and
journalist Javier Valdez Cardenas (Valdez Cardenas 2009, Valdez 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, Rio
Doce 2017) was also gunned down by sicarios outside of the offices at Rio Doce Seminario —

9
See (19 2018) “México sigue siendo el país más peligroso para ejercer el periodismo en América Latina y los
niveles de violencia a los que se enfrentan quienes buscan informar son solo comparables con aquellos países en
situación de guerra declarada, como Siria. Así, en 2017 documentamos 507 agresiones contra periodistas y 12
asesinatos. A lo largo del sexenio de Enrique Peña Nieto se han registrado 1,986 agresiones.
“
not by the government, but by killers sent by narco boss Edgar “El Licenciado” Valdez Villareal
(Monjardín , Castillo García and Valdez Cardenas 2017, Castillo 2017, Hernandez Lopez 2018,
Editorial 2018). Valdez Villareal was reportedly angered by a special edition of Rio Doce
Seminario (Doce 2017) describing his prominent role in a plaza war between him and the sons
of El Chapo Guzman. All evidence in Sinaloa points to the involvement of a powerful criminal
organization in that murder, and those accounts of this murder are also reproduced in the
popular culture, local press and in official documents. Miroslava Breach was murdered by a
corrupt ex-governor, but Javier Valdez was murdered by a criminal organization that openly
operated in opposition to the State. The danger of “silo” thinking such as that demonstrated by
Zavala is that case studies are used to make unjustifiable generalizations that are easily
contradicted when other examples are included. Zavala’s focus on Ciudad Juarez and
Chihuahua means that he is an expert about that area, but may be unaware of what is
happening elsewhere
Zavala (and others) are absolutely right when they argue that journalists and academics too
easily accept and repeat official account of events. But Mexico is also home to many honest
journalists and hardworking respected scholars on the look-out for truth, and they remain
guided by a moral compass dedicated to telling the truth (Javier Valdez and Miroslava Breach
are just two among many). There are too many to name, but they exist and they produce
amazing work. On the other hand, there are also journalists and “scholars” who are known
chayoteros10 — hacks who are well-paid by the State to present the “official story” at all costs11.
It is not enough to use literature and cultural representations of Narco Mexico to further the
understanding of violence. There is also important truth to be found in good journalism and
honest research and the official story does indicate that there ARE powerful criminal
organizations operating in Mexico. Should they be called a cartel, or should they be called
something else? That argument over the name cannot supplant the reality that those
organizations exist and that they have dominated Mexican politics for the past three sexenios.

10
See https://josecardenas.com/2017/03/los-periodistas-chayoteros/ . Also - chayotero”, y si es
así, más le vale cobrar bien, porque por lo que se avecina, tendrá que poner “tierra de pormedio”, dada la
incomodidad con la que posiblemente tendría que lidiar ante un Gobierno diferente al que sirve vilmente,
como en este momento.

11
https://www.forbes.com.mx/de-chayos-chacaleos-y-otras-expresiones/
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