1Strategy and Knowledge: a Difficult Couple for Universities, Commercialization and
Governments? Mexico, a Case for Reflection.
Jorge Serrano, National University of Mexico (Unam-Crim), MEXICO
jrsm@unam.mx

PART ISOME RELEVANT THEORETICAL QUESTIONS
a.Approaching our subject

Within the context of a world rapidly moving towards a global knowledge society, it seems clearthat scientific knowledge requires a carful strategy to positively contribute in such direction.
However, the relationship between knowledge and strategy –supposedly going usually in goodterms- it appears not so if we look at the role played in such regard by universities, governments
and commercialization –said couple being in this frame highly sensible indeed when it refers toregional development. The present study explores such complex issue. The first part, after setting
the approach to the subject and the conceptual meaning of strategy, focuses on reflecting aboutsome of the relevant and specific theoretical questions therein involved, concretely establishing, inthe one hand, some of the pertinent approach distinctions, and in the other, how these questions
mostly arise due to intervening factors such as governments strategics and intelligence action,
universities structure of teaching contents, and the large issue of commercialization.
The second part illustrates by contrast some of those aspects in the action program of thepresent Mexican six years government, therein considering two stages: (a) knowledge and strategy
at the starting (of such action program)?, and (b) knowledge and strategy in its moving?
The third part discusses knowledge and strategy in the ending of the program, exploring
analytically some causes of such situation, suggesting some aspects pointing towards possibleway(s) for solution., and making as a colophon short closing summing up remark in which we only
gather together some of the found linkings of strategy to the topics of the special session.
Allow me to approach my subject with an anecdotic line. At the very beginning when Prof.
Higano suggested me to join this session, once I gave a glance to the session profile as stated by
Prof. Tuzin, my first reaction was to thank both of them and withdraw their invitation on the
ground that my subject-matter in the present meeting was rather away from the general approachgiven to Tuzin’s special session on: “Academic knowledge commercialization, universities andregional economic development”. Yet rethinking about it, I found one aspect that may well fit in
the way universities and academic knowledge can relate to it, exploring by which possible
channels it passes through –one of them often being governments-, in order to come to the fields

2of commercialization and regional development. Moreover, to my view such aspect that I will
describe immediately, is likely to become more and more prominent in the frame of theknowledge-society we are rapidly getting into. Even more, to my perception I venture saying that
relatively there has not been as much attention to it as it deserves in the field of regional science.
Which is such aspect?
It refers precisely to the long and medium term strategics (designs, policies and programs ofgovernments, etc) established for both the use of scientific knowledge (mostly the one generated
in universities) and the development of regions, -and not the least, to which extent government
knowledge needs, can purely be seen as an object of commercialization. I realize this subject is not
too far from government intelligence, because usually for governments intelligence and strategy
are rather close fields. Indeed intelligence is a tough issue; and has been a difficult one to deal
with in the general academic work of many universities.
Yet strategy as such should not at all be so, since all transfer and application of science andtechnology to society implies some kind of strategics, -at least one of sorts, if I may say so.
However strategy should not be something “of sorts” mostly when we are focusing on long andmedium terms, -these being one of the main fields for strategy. Forget then about intelligence andlet us deal with strategy and strategics. To set the floor for our analysis let us start with: (1) a brief
section on the meaning of strategy and strategics and then, (2) go further into specifics: relating
the strategy-issue with some of the arising problems when we refer strategy to the aspects of our
special session.
b. A brief section on the meaning of strategy and strategics.
Even if the word “strategy” comes from the Greek word “strategOs” meaning army-leader, wordthat is a composed from “stratOs” –army- and “egOs” –leader (Random, 1986), actually it has inour view a wider yet precise meaning, as “the science and/or art of establishing large scale goals
AND planning, and directing the whole set of action-means, as well as concrete operations toachieve them”. (Serrano, 2012). Hence it implies not only large scale goals but also the use of allavailable resources through a large-scale and long-range planning, as well as direction ofoperations to ensure the achievement of those goals.
Strategics therefore implies certain kind of decisions that are clearly distinguished form othertypes, at least in three ways. (1) Magnitude: they are big decisions that affect an entire
organization or a large part of it or a major function, and that entail a significant degree ofinteraction with the world around it; (2) Time-scale: decisions set the direction for theorganization or entity over the medium to long term, but they will have a short-term impact aswell (the medium term starts with the decision to start!); (3) Commitment: strategic decisions
involve choices and committing resources in ways that cannot be reversed easily and cheaply.
Kaplan R. and Norton D., 2000). Henceforth it implies a continuous overall view and control of all
key factors required to the success of certain strategic design. For this reason there is always in3strategics an emphasized factor of totality. There is no good strategy nor strategist as long as they
are not focused on, and guided by, a full sense of totality, of wholeness. (Brugger, 1993).
For that reason strategics implies also the relevance of the structuring of the whole, namely,
the ordered and articulated construction of the relationship and ensuing interaction of its
elements, wherein the position and function of any of them is not changeable at will without
altering the composition of the whole. Considering what just said, it is clear that in strategic
thinking, the synthetic approach is obviously far above the analytical one.
Yet strategy in this strand of thinking in no way eliminates analysis since it supposes as anecessary step both internal and external analysis. Internal, to take into account both strength (S)and weakness (W) of the general field, and external also to take into account opportunities(O) and threats (T). It is the so called “SWOT analysis” (from Albert Humphrey of the Stanford
Research Institute International, of Stanford University, who proposed it between the 1960s and
70s, in order to examine why corporate planning had so many failures, using data from 500“Fortune” companies. (Humphrey A., 2005).
Note by the way that “tactics” on the other side, may or may not be a part of awhole strategy, since it refers to any maneuvers –usually skillful- for gaining advantages ofsuccess. The word as such comes from Greek “tassein” meaning to arrange, to place in order(Mateos, 1995). While strategy on its turn has come currently to mean the action by which someor all aspects of such science or art are implemented in the field of strategics. In a similar way the“strategist” is either the one who creates a strategic plan or program, or the actor who puts it into
practice. Yet we should observe that not rarely in common use the terms strategics and strategy
are interchangeable, -which is not too bad provided we understand in which way we are
employing them.
c. Specifics: relating the strategy-issue with some arising problems.
Let us come to specifics: which are some of the problems that arise when we relate
government strategies to the main topics of our special session? I have identified eight specific andin some way connected to theoretical problems. All of them relate, in some way or the other,strategy and government to our session topics. They are the following:1). What can happen when a government stands either fully or partially at the other side ofcommercialization of academic knowledge, wishing to employ it for its strategics, policies andprograms for regional development?; or –as the Mexican case I take for illustration will show it-,what happens when the government partially buys such knowledge through a commercialization
relationship but only as piecemeal for regional development programs, whereas at the same timeit lacks a long and medium term strategy?
2. In many countries nowadays there exists a clear tendency to establish or build up independentand rather specialized bodies like centers, think tanks, etc, not rarely ascribed to a government
ministry or to government commissions that focus on strategy, or intelligence, or both. And here

4
there arises a general question: what in such cases the role of the universities is supposed to be
like?
3. Still another far reaching question in globalization-dynamics arises. I mean, medium and longterm strategies for regions -be they micro, meso, or macro-, are they a matter that in principle will
leave off the area of universities and pass on to institutions, centers or think tanks especially paid
for that; or else the universities, particularly those of the state or so called public universities, shalltransfer their knowledge to those specialized institutions, moving it away in such case from acommercialization scheme, or else doing it through commercialization?
4. From the university side there arises as well a couple of closely related questions, namely, thequestion that general knowledge in universities finds itself in a crucial disjunctive: either suchknowledge flows to society, governments, or business entities through commercialization, or else
through what Goldstein H., E. Bergman and G. Meier call “engagement” (Goldstein, 2012). In bothcases however a clear cut strategy will be required. Moreover, at some deeper and fundamental
level they both should be integrated into a mutually complementing strategy. How to successfully
achieve this?
5. In a contemporary knowledge society, knowledge is to be seen as a large and ever expanding
storehouse containing great amounts of knowledge referred to the most diverse aspects of reality.
Two broad and relevant questions arise here: firstly, through which adequate means –which inprinciple go beyond commercialization- such knowledge –generated by universities and/or
specialized government think tanks- can and should be applied to the development of society andits regions?
6. Secondly, there comes also the correlative issue that no matter if it is throughcommercialization or engagement, it will need a large, medium and long term strategy design thatwill avoid the real dangers of its usage whenever there may arise clashes between important
application fields, like for insatance army and civil society; organized civil bodies or movements,
and government institutions, etc);
7. Therefore as a consequence, this implies not only a general and specific regulation –an aspect
usually present in social awareness-, but also the fact that at the same time, regulation to be in thebenefit of society and not of particular groups or persons, does imply a general and specificstrategy –which is rather poorly present in social awareness.
8. The question in its fundamentals refer to the nature of knowledge and the nature ofcommercialization. Knowledge is an intrinsic aspect of human condition, commercialization speaksof one of the several modes by which such knowledge and its applications are used in theexchange of goods and services. This makes that knowledge should not be seen just as a means toachieve an end that is commercialization, but commercialization is a means to the enjoyment ofknowledge ant its applications. And here strategic knowledge appears as a mediator between suchend and means, between knowledge and commercialization.
Certainly, we will not provide here clear-cut answers to such problems, -this is a matter for
future papers-, but indeed we wish to show some of the rather negative results that happen
whenever we do not take into account those kind of problems. To do that, we take Mexico as areal and pertinent case for reflection.

5PART IIMEXICO, A CASE FOR REFLECTION
a.Knowledge and strategy at the starting (of the program)?
The current Mexican government action program was seemingly born with an essential failure in
its roots. Namely, such government was, in view of the general public opinion, the result of anexcessive and crooked cheating. It was in such way seen by the majority of the population. So in its
beginning the frontal fighting of the new government administration against narco-crime wastaken as a sort of subterfuge or pretext to acquire legitimization. And the opposite candidate wasable to mobilize large masses, even by million(s) of people in his support. As a result, the elite
backing the questioned ‘winning’ team –and first of all its head, the current President of thecountry- were much afraid that the discontent might result in large protests spread in quite anumber of regions, not easy to be controlled. This would explain that the first public action of the
new President in his taking office (1st December, 2006), was to raise up to 19% the salaries of all
military forces, right at a time when no salary in the country was allowed to be raised over 4%.
Yet the question should be raised, to which extent such seemingly essential failure did prove to
be true, and to which extent it affected the way the fight against organized crime was conducted?
Said in other words closer to our paper framing: is there here a clash between two strategies thatwere not integrated in one, or was there no clear strategy at all, and to which extent the way
followed impinged in the key topics of our special session like commercialization, regional
development, universities, and academic knowledge? Let us explore it coming back to the Mexican
case.
Such first presidential public action was obviously seen as an ominous message. Was that fearin some way justified? Ten days later, the recent President, Felipe Calderon, launches the army tothe streets in an important region of the country, the state of Michoacan –the state wherein
Calderon was born- yet currently being headed by a governor of the opposition. For this action
called “Joint Michoacan Operation”, 6,500 troop members were mobilized “to make war” againstorganized delinquents as the President proclaimed. Soon later, the army spread over other states,
mostly Northern states. Indeed the number of soldiers scattered in roads and city streets
increased steadily, and so did the number of killed people. For instance in the first year, the official
cipher given of killed people was 2837 (some of them soldiers, yet the great majority civilians).
And it is not known the exact amount of military men spread over the country.
As the new government intended legitimization through his “war against organized crime” andthe opposition called for peaceful actions, the army on roads and streets kept fighting, which
resulted as well in bitter struggles between different drug cartels wishing to maintain or gain
control on important territorial and regions for their drug trafficking.
One key point here is that during his campaign the then candidate Calderon practically nevergave any kind of priority to crime fighting in his much publicized promised action programs. He
focused his campaign on labor issues, to the point that he called himself “the coming employment

6
President”. It could be argued that this was just his “trick”. However the way of his procedure as
President has been so dispersed and out of order, much of it apparently at random and with suchpoor results, that public opinion gradually urged the government to come out with some kind ofplanning about it, because so many innocent people were being killed.
At the same time the pressure against journalists non-pleasing to the government because of
their objective reports on the situation -often fed by academic knowledge-, or in some cases theirpress support to the opposition views, while at the same time the government was much
acquiescent with media that applauded his war, contributed to forming a public opinion thatbegan to seriously question such government acting.
Even some top military generals manifested much preoccupation about it. One of them –precisely
the Vice Minister of Defense, Tomas Angeles Dawahare-, stated that the military forces, including
the Marine Corps and the Aerial Division, were launched to that fight, to his knowledge, “without
any kind of stratregy”. Here we come to a crucial point of our paper, namely, that it becomes clear
through such facts and arguments that it was hard to admit that there existed a strategy at the
beginning, and/or a matured planning or program. More and more the interpretation followed the
opposite suspected direction. Namely, that willing to keep at bay any political move that could
eventually be a threat of what was seen as a crude political imposition, the new government
decided to check through military force such opposition, whereas at the same time was trying to
get legitimization by claiming to make frontal war against organized narco traffic crime.
Now, it was only when the government realized the poor results of such action, both in street
fighting and in public opinion much supported by university analysts and journalists, that suchgovernment started seeking academic knowledge for help. So it was a reactive kind of academic
knowledge he looked for. He never called universities to draw a medium or long strategic planningfor the struggle (and a planning that should give a clear priority to regional knowledge since thefighting focused always in regions rather than in general along the country). Certainly, in a numberof cases the government stood at the other end of commercialization, but only used it to get theimmediate knowledge required. Yet it was piecemeal knowledge for defensive struggle inparticular regions, more than for regional development properly. Most frequently he tried to workthrough specialized bodies and commissions installed in government institutions, and it was bythese that such piecemeal academic knowledge was in several occasions bought; yet still in otheroccasions it was requested away of commercialization, from a handful of public universities.
As a matter of fact, university knowledge was always much more used by several mass media, inorder to create public opinion. In these cases, however, it was only occasionally done through acommercialization scheme. The repeated fact is that academic knowledge from universities
followed often the path of “engagement” with civil society. On the other hand, the work of thegovernment followed much more a sort of an opposite direction, that is to say, it tried to foster
regulations that hindered the work of the annoying media, as for instance favoring only thosemedia close to the government, while introducing rules –even laws- to withdraw concessions to
non-sympathetic media, as when it rescued through new rules the high-tech 2.5 giga-bites bandfrom an enterprise more committed to information than to government wills (Reforma, 13-08-12).
But this most notable case did not happen at the beginning of the government program. So it istime for us to pass on to our second section of the present Part II.

7b. Knowledge and strategy in the moving? (of government program).
Given the scope of our paper, in this stage we will constrain ourselves to provide the reader with arather synthesized description of a handful of selected types of actions and impacts that themoving struggle between military forces and organized cartels as well as among cartels themselves,produced in society. Most of them are widely known in Mexico to the point that I can spare myselfof quoting for each case. I refer the reader to the short list quoted in the following bibliographicalnote (News, 2006-2012). In the text I will only give the precise date of occurrence wheneverconvenient. And it is said “types” in the sense they usually appeared repeatedly again and again
along the almost six years of struggle. We just don’t have the space for a more detailed analyzed
description.
Between the years 2006-2009 the struggle expanded to several other states no more located in
the North: in the East to Tamaulipas, Veracruz and Quintana Roo; in the West to Sonora andNayarit; in the South to Oaxaca, Chiapas and Guerrero; and in the central high plateau to theFederal District (where Mexico City is located), plus Morelos, Puebla and the state of Mexico.
Some ‘types’ of such expansion are the following.
In Mezquital town of Durango state, the Tepehuanes ethnic community completely deserted
their town and took refuge deeply into the mountains when the town was devastated by an armed
squad (28-12-2010). The action was known only several days afterwards. Something similar has
happened to other ethnic groups like Tarahumaras, Huicholes, Purepechas, Triquis and Tlapanecas.
In Ensenada city, of Baja California state, a farm was “discovered” in which marihuana wascustomarily being grown. The farm had an extension of 120 hectares (some 300 acres aprox).
Similar farms with lesser extension have existed in other states like Guerrero, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas,
etc. How possibly this can happen without knowledge and complicity of local, state and perhaps
federal political authorities?
The national newspaper “El Universal” denounced the finding of 14 bodies assassinated andabandoned in Veracruz state, and the governor, Javier Duarte, strongly denied the fact, yetuselessly because it was soon proven true, and the governor signaled out for complicity. Other
state governors have been singled out for complicity, fraud or kleptomania as well.
In several states assassination of journalists has occurred several times and nobody has beentrialed for that. In some cases the police and the army have been involved, in other cases thecartels. Impunity has been the hard and fast ‘rule’. Mexico has become –perhaps close to two or
three Middle East countries- the most dangerous country in the world for journalism profession.
The 21-09-2011 the National Police of Colombia confiscated inside that country more than 300
real states and enterprises headed by proxies of the Mexican biggest capo, Chapo Guzman. The
total value of such goods was over 250 million dollars. Something similar has been reported inother countries like Spain and Guatemala, connected to Mexico cartels.
Ciudad Juarez soon after 2006 has become the most violent city in the world and mostly against
women, -well over 1000, according to city dweller organizations. And nobody has been held
responsible so far. Yet it is not only women: the army for instance interrupted a teenager domestic

8celebration with bullets. 17 boys and girls were killed and as many wounded. Yet it is not the only
city; several in the state of Mexico have made of this state the second hardest against women.
In Monterrey, the most industrial city in the North of the country, soldiers shot two students of
the largest private university (the so called “Monterrey-Tech”) just in front of its main entrance.
Many protests were raised by the high class of the city and even by the Rector. The army first
denied the fact but after some evident proofs, they argued that the soldiers mistook the students
for criminals. In other undeniable cases, military authorities repeat the same “explanation”.
In the village of San Fernando, Tamaulipas, a rural storehouse has been found with 72 people
executed. A few months later, the 06-04-2011, in the same village another finding, this time 177
executed. They were hijacked previously from normal passenger buses. They were migrants fromCentral American countries trying to get into the U.S. as illegal workers. Cartels took themintending to recruit new members for their cartels, yet the migrants did not accept the deal. In
other cases their body organs are the booty.
Same month of April 2011, in Durango state clandestine graves –really pits- were unearthedwith over 200 corpses. These kind of findings repeated in several states of the country. Moreover,in the states of Coahuila, Morelos, Veracruz, and others, assassinated people were exposed in city
streets with written messages warning either other cartels or the army and the government to“learn” the lesson. In other cases heads of bodies were cut and spread on sidewalks. Even corpses
hanging above highways or in city avenues.
Nevertheless, drug traffic is not the only source of organized delinquency. University analysts
and journalists like Astorga (Astorga, 2008), Buscaglia (Buscaglia, 2011), Cacho (Cacho, 2011) or
Ravelo (Ravelo, 2007) have documented as many as 22 different types of such delinquency (likehijacking, drug traffic, mobile phone stealing, prostitution, kidnapping, body organs extraction forcommercialization, trailers and cars robbery, etc). Let me report at least two: (a) during 2008 there
were 46,000 (round numbers) cases of kidnapping; in 2011, 124,000, and in the six months of 2012,
24,000. Note that these are official numbers given by the Federal Police Director to TV-11 Newsthe 27th of past July. (b) A subtype of kidnapping is the one perpetrated against Central American
migrants crossing Mexico to the US. This kind started strongly in 2007 yet ever since it has been
growing fast, to the point that for 2011 the cypher had increased to a total of 11,000, according tosame source, on the 13-08-12.
Let me end this section by informing that civil society has not at all been passive in regard tosuch social disaster. First and foremost for our topic in this special session, it is important to
inform that many researchers and university analysts have, since the beginning, warned throughmass media as well as meetings and publications about their knowledge and researches on thesituation. Most notably among such university action has been the fact that the general Rector of
the National University of Mexico (UNAM), Jose Narro Robles, the 05-09-11 publicly handed overto the President of the country Felipe Calderon, an important study-proposal called “Security andJustice in Democracy”. It was fully based on research and discussion carried out in a
multidisciplinary way by said university analysts. Such proposal was shouldered by most of thevery important civil organizations of the country as well as of its regions. Nonetheless the
President thanked the proposal and did nothing about it.

9There have been, besides, many local and regional civil organizations active in their places
which were regularly backed by scientific knowledge generated in their regional public universities.
Some of those organizations are active in places like Ciudad Juarez, Cuernavaca, Guadalajara,
Mexico City or Michoacan. For instance in Michoacan on the 03-05-11, in a relatively small city
called Cheran, its well organized community disowned and repudiated the Mayor because he wascolluded with forestry illegality (they used the forest for hidden drug cultivation and clandestinewood traffic). The community took over ever since the local government and effectively isprotecting their forest resources.
I end this section informing that in September 2011, officially the government gave publicly his
account of homicides from 2007 to 2011 (the great majority of course due to such struggle),amounting to 47,527. Amnesty International and other institutions like the United Nations office in
Mexico speak of 60 or even 70 thousands, whereas several press reports now speak already of
75,000. Whereas, on the other hand, it has been officially admitted by the National Institute of
Statistics -INEGI- (MVS News, 22-08-12) that from December 2006 to December 2011 (5 years of
the present federal administration) there have been 95,679 homicides in all. As just said, not only
those perpetrated by organized delinquency, but such numbers speak of the general violence thathas been stimulated by a set of causes that we explore in our Part III.
PART IIIKNOWLEDGE AND STRATEGY AT THE ENDING? (of the present administration action program)
Right these days the present administration is nearly coming to its end (on the 30th of November).
It is time to ask analytically to which extent there have been present both scientific knowledge andstrategy in the government action regarding social security. With the disastrous results in terms ofboth homicides and affected victims (which are counted by several hundreds of thousands), it isclear for the general public opinion of the country that there was hardly any scientific knowledge
as an important input for a government strategy. It has been known that the government paid
some scholars and even universities (mostly private) to get via commercialization what I called
piecemeal knowledge for some of its actions in specific cases. But as formerly said, it has been
piecemeal knowledge for reactive intelligence, not for strategy.
Moreover as stated above, some of the top military men within the army, and even some ofthem holding top important positions within the government, in offices like the Ministry of
Defense, they have declared –one of them in an academic public forum- that they did not know,
neither at the time the President launched the military war in the very first days of his
administration, nor before the time he took office, of any strategy or at least planning of thelaunched war against organized crime. Some others stated that looking at the terrible results of
the war it is clear to them as military strategists, that the government got into such war “lacking of
any strategy”. Some of such main top military officials have been put in jail in July 2012 by the
President’s revenge –such is the generalized public opinion.
This is why all such evidence, composed not only of statements but most cogently by theimmense and intense spread of the hard facts, support the conclusion that scientific knowledge

10cannot be held responsible for something in which it did not participate at the beginning, nor was
taken into account whenever it made strong calls for both alerting on the whole issue and making
proposals for a better approach. We saw it prominently in the proposal of the UNAM Rector, as
well as in other proposals that arose from a few engaged public universities.
It is pertinent in this context to ask why the government did not recur to commercialization,
paying universities to get sound scientific knowledge about regions he will select, both to launch
his war and to obtain an integrated strategic planning from them. Probably the answer has to dowith the fact that at the very beginning his main purpose was to keep at bay the enormous active
political opposition that urged redressing the frauds by which the new administration was taking
office. Due also to such lack of scientific knowledge and strategics the government seemed neverto realize the extreme volatile character of cartels, really very skilled in constantly shifting fromone region to another. Nor he ever foresaw the easiness with which cartels could be fed-back withendless amounts of sophisticated weapons bought in a commercialization relationship with large
seller stores in the US. It was in fact much later when Calderon started loudly requesting the US
government to close the border to weapons-smuggling being passed over to those Mexican
regions widely controlled by cartels, but the US government did nothing relevant in this respect.
The result was that those regions became overloaded with high-tech weapons more powerful thanthose used by the army.
Now, as I try to go deep into the analysis of causes of the present general situation, I think that I
have to point to the following set of data that emerged from a research conducted by Buscaglia
and his team (Buscaglia, 2012). Such research was conducted in 108 countries along the main
geographical macro regions of the planet, regions that included developed as well as emerging andpoor developing countries. It became clear that organized crime is present in all of them.
Moreover, in 98% of them organized crime operates -to many people astonishment- in a rather
quiet mode. Yet it became clear that for them violence is not a comfortable companion, because it
does not fit well in their purpose. The large economic profits through illegal means that they wish
to obtain becomes jeopardized. It was only in very few countries where they have to engage intheir business through violent means.
And it is here where the question arises: what is then uniquely common among these few
countries? The answer is: they have a rather weak State, meaning by that a State that operates
through very weak institutions; be their judicial or financial systems, their banking or surveillancesystems, educational or punishing systems, etc. Moreover, such weakness is much more present inregional and local institutions of the State, wherein often commercialization becomes smuggling.
How can regional economic development be fostered by academic knowledge andcommercialization? But in those countries –among which lay Mexico and Central America as well
as Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan- to keep effective hold of corruption and complicity, as much asof impunity and political elites prone to such dirty practices, it becomes a task for ethical Odysseys,
for which not many Ulysses survive.
To such analysis it is necessary as well, to link the international dimension. First of all the
involvement or lack of it of other governments and international institutions. For instance, how
can one exert control over the huge amounts of illegal profits if the banking international systemopens his doors to money washing –as it was recently denounced by two democratic members of

11
the US Congress about HSBC bank network? Or to exert control of weapon traffic sold inside the
US country and being passed for narco key regions across the US border?, or to the broadinternational drug consumption?
In Mexico I can foresee the plausible danger of having collapsed regions, in as much as they do
not have efficient institutions at the local and regional levels, whereas the federal level does notprovide them either. Yet it is clear from all that has been exposed here, that such danger will bemuch probable in as much as there will not be a sustained and serious usage of scientificknowledge converted into medium and long term strategic planning. A strategy that incorporates
the urgent strengthening of the main institutions by which the State fulfills its raison d’etre,
namely, that its members accomplish their lives in a peaceful and just surrounding.
A closing note.
Just a last summing-up reflection. If effective strategy is not present: (1) academic knowledge canbecome piecemeal knowledge applied to questionable objectives; (2) regional development
academic knowledge is under the risk to be used through commercialization for personal or group
particular (often questionable) advantages, which are likely to make poor contribution for thedevelopment of regions; (3) there are two kinds of universities when it comes to handling theirscientific knowledge, either via commercialization or engagement, yet both require a clear andlong lasting term strategy to benefit regions and society; (4) whenever governments lack clear
strategy, universities can anyway produce useful academic knowledge for the benefit of organized
and civil society.

The decision was taken to combat by using the violent means that are a privilege of the state –themacro-cartels and organized crime generally. (Describir regions, su falta de knowledge y deinvolucramiento de university knowledge; la volatilidad del modo de su acción regional, etc.
Tampoco hubo comercialización del conocimiento; éste fue un caso no de tender hacia “regional
economic development” sino hacia “regional economic destruction of existing structures ofdevelopment (efforts): Mich, NL, Mor, Gfro, Oax, Tamps, Chih…
En el caso de México la pregunta no fue si se comercializaba o no el conocimiento de lasuniversidades sino por qué el gobierno: (a) no pensó en tratar comercialmente (comprar/pagar) a
universidades para que se generara previamente conocimiento estratégico requerido al caso, (b)tampoco hizo un plan serio para usar el que ya había, -aun sin pagarlo. Se orientó básicamente a
pagar/comprar inteligencia sin estrategia: fue una inteligencia reactiva a las acciones de loscárteles.
(OJO: por aquí empezar caso Grals. Ángeles…, o en secs sgtes?)
B. Knowledge and strategy in the moving?

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The scheme in Mexican government has been one of picking up single university academic
individuals, either to request from them a punctual report on a particular issue, of else,
incorporate them into transient bodies or groups, generally dispersely, according to the sector of
the government that gather those bodies.
C. Knowledge and strategy in the ending?
OJO: aquí Grals cárcel ahora)
Ojo: Secuestros en el país y cárteles que controlan la industria del secuestro. P. e. en 2011 hubo
124 mil (#s redondos). Los 4 cárteles que controlan son: el del Golfo, de los Zetas, la Familia
Michoacana y la Barredora. Lo informó el Dir. de la Policía Federal, el 260712 en TV 11 Prestigio
Informativo.
OJO: Cárteles que controlan la industria del secuestro. Los cuatro principales son, el del Golfo, losZetas, la Familia Michoacana y la Barredora. En 2011 hubo 124 mil secuestrados (num redondos),
en 2008, 46 mil, en 2012 van ya 24 mil. (Informó el Director de la Policía Federal el día 260712 ennoticiero TV11).
. Según el Secretario general de la OEA, José Miguel Inzulza, crimen, desigualdad social y falta deconsensos políticos, son el ppal riesgo de la democracia de la región Latam. En Uno Noticias el
260712.
. Nombre de los Grales: Tomás Ángeles Dawahare, Roberto …(apellido extraño, buscar), Ricardo
Escorcia, Rubén Pérez Ramírez (gral brigadier; éste (o el sgte?) es ‘cuate’ de pena nieto). MVS
Noticias 240712
Iván Reyna Muñoz que es mayor del ejército, declaró que de oídas estuvo Ángeles vinculado con
los Beltrán Leyva, y después él mismo se quejó en CNDH de la presión que le pusieron para que
declarara eso (lo informó Ángeles en MVS Noticias 240712 entrevistado por C. Aristegui). También
se informó que Ángeles había participado en mesa redonda de un Foro en Qro y que fue invitado
por César Camacho -del equipo de campaña del candidato pena nieto- organizador del debate. AllíÁngeles dijo que el gob fch se había lanzado desde que empezó sin estrategia alguna, ni de fch nidel ejército.
. Alberto Herrera Aragón representante de Amnistia Internacional en Mex, declara hoy que lasfuerzas militares han cometido muchos abusos contra los derechos humanos, y que es inaceptableque eso se juzgue en tribunales militares. Para eso ayer, dijo, escribió a la Suprema corte deJusticia de la Nación reclamando esto y dando como ejemplo claro, entre otros, el del Sr. Gustavo
Acosta de Monterrey, cuya casa la allanó la Marina, le mató allí mismo a un hijo con bala en la
frente, envió a don Gustavo y esposa a un hospital pues del susto se sintieron mal (él es diabético
y la señora tiene muy alta presión sanguínea); y cuando la casa estuvo vacía le sembró armas yespolvoreó droga. Gustavo presentó su denuncia ante el Delegado de la PGR en N.L; después éstele informó que la retire porque no hay acción penal alguna que ejercer, y basó su dicho en el dichode la Marina, ni siquiera inspeccionó nunca la casa. En Noticias MVS el 030812.
. En Noticias MVS 020812: “40 ataques armados a medios informativos van ya”.
. 0712 en Noticias MVS: 46.9% obtuvo HSBC de ganancias en el año a pesar de la multa de 349
millones de pesos por estar lavando 7 mil millones de dólares.

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