Angel of Death in Michoacan, Mexico
Over the past couple decades video games have emerged as powerful propaganda tools in service of the military-industrial complex. Ghost Recon Wildlands developed by France’s Ubisoft is the latest and greatest propaganda piece in service of the interminable “War on Drugs,” now in its fifth decade since President Nixon declared it in 1971. Set in a Bolivia turned into a narco-state by a fictional Mexican drug gang called the “Santa Blanca” (Holy White) Cartel, gamers assume the role of the U.S. Army special forces as they parachute into the mountains and jungles of the South American nation to liquidate the cartel. The cartel’s capo, awkwardly named “El Sueno” (Dream), is a devotee of Santa Muerte who serves as the spiritual patroness of cocaine traffickers.
While the game’s chief developers have bent over backwards in recent interviews to claim Bolivia was chosen for its “beautiful topography” and that Santa Muerte is much more than just a narcosaint, it couldn’t be more obvious that Ghost Recon Wildlands is but a slightly fictionalized version of the U.S.-led drug war in Mexico designed to win over the hearts and minds of a new generation of gamers who are either ignorant of the never-ending narco-battles in Mexico and other parts of Latin America or who haven’t been convinced of the need to carry it on to the half-century mark.
Ubisoft developers opted to set the game in Bolivia not primarily because of topography but because of the country’s exit from the War on Drugs. Since 2008, leftist president Evo Morales has refused to cooperate with the DEA, so in the eyes of Drug War strategists in Washington, reflected in the offices of Ubisoft in Paris, Bolivia is a rogue state ripe for the taking by Mexican drug cartels. The Bolivian government has lodged an official complaint with France over its depiction in the game, which of course will only boost its sales since there is no such thing as bad publicity, especially in the gaming world.
Beyond Bolivia, Ghost Recon Wildlands takes the image of Mexican folk saint, Santa Muerte to new heights as a narcosaint. The top Santa Muerte leader in the game is a character called “El Cardenal” (the cardinal), a defrocked Catholic priest, who is obviously based on the real-life figure of David Romo, the self-proclaimed “archbishop” of Santa Muerte devotion. Romo, who appears prominently in my book Devoted to Death, founded the first legally recognized Santa Muerte church in 2003 in Mexico City, which had its legal status annulled after less than two years of operation under pressure from the Catholic Church. A harsh critic of both the Church and its political ally, the conservative PAN (National Action Party), Romo was arrested and convicted in 2011 for being part of a kidnapping ring in Mexico City that targeted elderly victims. He’s currently serving a 66-year sentence while his wife runs the struggling house of worship.
Another prominent character connected to Saint Death whose notorious nickname Ubisoft didn’t even bother to change is “El Pozolero” (the stewmaker) who also appears in my book. Santiago Meza Lopez was a Tijuana-based cartel hitman who claim to have dissolved some 300 of his boss’s males enemies in vats of acid. A warped sense of chivalry spared female victims from the deadly liquid as Meza Lopez preferred to kill women in more “humane” ways.
As the leading expert on Santa Muerte, the fastest growing new religious movement in the Western Hemisphere, I’m the first to recognize the role she plays as real-life narco-saint to some Mexican cartel members. However, the real Santa Muerte also has a robust following among all levels of Mexican law enforcement, especially municipal police officers who are on the front lines of the drug war. So in reality Santa Muerte is patroness of the Mexican Drug War in its totality, providing spiritual protection to both the cartel sicario and the local cop. This reality, of course, is obscured in Ghost Recon Wildlands where the saint of death is an evil malefactress who only protects members of the Santa Blanca Cartel. In short, by vilifying both Bolivia and Santa Muerte while turning gamers into members of U.S. Army special forces, Ghost Recon Wildlands proves a powerful medium for perpetuating the interminable War on Drugs.