NEWS > 08 February 2007

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Boston Globe - Boston,MA,USA
08 February 2007

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Drug violence raises fears in

MEXICO CITY -- Deadly assaults on two police stations by criminals wearing soldiers' uniforms have raised the pressure on Mexico's new president, Felipe Calder�n, to demonstrate that his much flaunted military-led crackdown on organized crime can stand up to the nation's powerful drug cartels.

The attacks in the resort city of Acapulco on Tuesday, killing five police investigators and two secretaries, also stirred fears that drug-related violence will chase away tourists, who are a major contributor to the Mexican economy.

Since taking office on Dec. 1, Calder�n has sent around 25,000 troops to hotspots in Mexico, including Acapulco, promising to "recover authority in territories challenged by crime." The cartels in these areas killed more than 2,000 people last year in their struggle to control cocaine-trafficking routes, domestic production of marijuana, heroin , and synthetic drugs, as well as the local consumer market.

Calder�n called an emergency meeting with his security Cabinet immediately after the Acapulco events, which both defied and mocked his efforts to show the gangs that they are not in control. A brief statement insisted that "the government will not retreat or give up in the face of the attacks by organized crime," and described the attacks as a reaction to the crackdown that is beginning to look like the defining issue of the new president's administration.

"Calder�n had to do something," said Bruce Bagley, an expert on drug trafficking in Latin America and a professor at the University of Miami . "Public perception is that it had spiraled beyond control."

The first stage of the operation kicked off on Dec. 12 in the central state of Michoac�n, the site of some of the most shocking recent violence, including five severed heads rolled onto a dance floor.

Next came the rowdy city of Tijuana, just over the border from San Diego, and after that the southern state of Guerrero, where Acapulco is located. Then the government's focus shifted to the so-called Golden Triangle where the northern states of Durango, Chihuahua, and Sinaloa meet, and where Joaqu� n "El Chapo" Guzm� n, the leader of one of the two drug cartels, is thought to be hiding.

Last month, the authorities flew journalists over Acapulco's legendary bay, ignoring the beaches and the cruise ships, but circling down for closer looks at the road blocks.

The local tourism industry was worried about Acapulco's reputation as a drug trafficking center even before the events of the past week, among them an incident in which two Canadian tourists were slightly injured by bullets fired in a hotel lobby.

Speaking yesterday of Tuesday's attacks on the police, Mayor Felix Salgado told business leaders, "I hope this does not affect the tourist image." It sounded like wishful thinking for an official who has received dozens of death threats from the gangs competing for control of the city. He is protected by a dozen bodyguards.

Meanwhile, federal forces were yesterday busy following the trail of the commandos. Raids on a safe house and dumped cars allegedly used by the assassins yielded a small arsenal of assault rifles, pistols, and grenades, along with military and federal police uniforms.

Calder�n's offensive against the cartels is less significant for its size than for having reduced the participation of entirely civilian police to the "symbolic," according to Bagley, the Miami-based analyst. The vast majority of the operatives involved are either soldiers or come from the largely army-trained federal police. Strategy is being drawn up in the Ministry of Defense.

Analysts agree that Calder�n was pushed into the arms of the generals because of the military's relatively clean reputation and better training. Corruption and lack of professionalism have long pervaded local and state police, making them as likely to aid a jailbreak or guard a kingpin's wedding party as to bring a trafficker to justice.

As part of the government clampdown, soldiers have been investigating local police forces for connections with the cartels. In Tijuana the army had barely arrived in town when they confiscated all the city police officers' guns.

In the Acapulco assaults on Tuesday, the commandos first disarmed their victims by claiming they were carrying out a weapons inspection. Then they opened fire -- and videotaped the massacres. Federal investigators working on the case later revealed that two of the police investigators killed were suspected of corruption.

Bagley said that while he recognizes Calder�n had little choice in shaping his offensive, the army is "corruptible too." Some analysts go further to warn of an unprecedented disaster if underpaid, unhappy, or simply greedy soldiers decide to go over to the traffickers.

Leading Mexico drug expert Lu� s Astorga points to the precedent set by the Zetas -- a group of hit men formed from military deserters in the late 1990s who became protagonists in the current violence.

"We could have the Zetas phenomenon multiplied," said Astorga, from Mexico's National Autonomous University. "It would take the war to a whole other level."

In a de facto admission that traffickers are not necessarily neutralized even when they are captured and slapped in high security federal jails, the Calder�n administration has begun to extradite kingpins to face trial in the United States.

Osiel C� rdenas, the main rival to Chapo Guzm�n, was among the first batch sent over the border on Jan. 19. He reputedly ran his business and his turf war from his Mexican prison cell.

So far, the crackdown has enjoyed a rare degree of political consensus. The extraditions sparked concern from some experts about their legality, but the debate has focused on whether they will prompt a backlash comparable to the war waged against the Colombian state by the "extraditables" in the early 1990s under the slogan "better a tomb in Colombia than a jail in the US."

Calder�n is increasing ly compared to Colombia's hard-line President �lvaro Uribe. Valid or not, the US administration has been fulsome in its praise of the way things are going, and President Bush told his Mexican counterpart so in a personal phone call last month.

Still, said Astorga, all three leaders should note the latest report from the US National Drug Intelligence Center, which suggests that all the resources plowed into the fight against cocaine have failed both to reduce demand in the United States or cut production in Colombia.

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Article sourced from

Boston Globe - Boston,MA,USA08 February 2007

Drug violence raises fears in

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Boston Globe - Boston,MA,USA
08 February 2007