Intersections Between the Dirty War and the War on Drugs in Northwestern Mexico (1965-1985)

2019-2020

My project, “Intersections Between the Dirty War and the War on Drugs in Northwestern Mexico (1965-1985),” addresses the interplay between guerrillas, drug traffickers, and counterinsurgency agents in the Golden Quadrilateral, a region comprised by the states of Sinaloa, Sonora, Chihuahua, and Durango, which simultaneously became the epicenter of guerrilla movements and the economic hub of drug industry in the mid-sixties. The convergence of the dirty war and the war on drugs not only led to massive human rights abuses, but also fostered the formation of the deep state, the expansion of criminal governance, and the establishment of a permanent de facto state of siege in some parts of the countryside. My project contributes to explaining the causal connections between the secret wars of the 1970s and the undemocratic and violent path that Mexico has followed in the twenty-first century.