|
|
|
Last Updated: Aug 27, 2008 - 11:16:45 AM |
In
attendance were the Mayor of Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard, and Mexico’s
thirty-one state governors. Those in attendance, represented most of
the nation’s political parties, were still able to display a stunning
show of relative harmony and cooperation in the face of dangerously
mounting violence brought about by growing street gangs and more
violent drug cartels throughout Mexico. A seventy-five-point package of
security measures was unanimously adopted and will be implemented over
the next three years. The package includes initiatives aimed at purging
police corruption, constructing several new maximum-security prisons,
and creating a database for mobile phones that the government will use
to track down criminals using them.
Violence Everywhere
The unprecedented level of violence resorted to by Mexico’s drug
gangs has reached a fevered pitch. On August 16, masked gunmen murdered
thirteen people in a village in Chihuahua, a state that has witnessed
1,026 deaths so far this year. The number of gang-related deaths for
all of Mexico so far this year stands at 2,682, already surpassing the
2007 total of 2,673. The escalating violence represents an ugly
offensive by Mexican drug gangs retaliating against the government’s
increased determination to combat drug trafficking and the drug-related
violence that has plagued the country in recent years. Since 2007,
Calderón has ordered 36,000 troops to be deployed against the gangs
throughout Mexico’s thirty-one states, with only modest results.
Complicating the situation, Mexico’s various police forces are
saturated with corruption, and its tolerance of violence, systemic.
Various drug cartels have taken advantage of this, bribing the
authorities – particularly the intelligence service – to side with them
by waging war on their rivals. According to a congressional Research
Service Report, authorities in Nuevo Laredo municipal officials have
been known to kidnap competitors of the Gulf cartel, while members of
the Sinaloa cartel enjoy police protection. According to the same
report, in December 2005, the Mexican Attorney General’s office (PGR)
reported that one-fifth of its officials were under investigation for
criminal activity. This culture of corruption was starkly revealed by
the Fernando Martí case, where a fourteen-year-old boy was kidnapped
last June 4 by drug gang members masquerading as policemen. His body
was found on August 1 in the trunk of an abandoned car. Subsequent
investigation uncovered the involvement of fourteen members of the
Federal District Judicial Police in the killing.
No Respite from the War’s Escalation
The chronic lack of integrity displayed by the police has further
weakened Mexicans’ plummeting confidence in their government’s ability
to cope with drug gangs. A poll taken in early June showed that 53
percent of the population believed that drug gangs were winning their
war against federal forces, while a mere 24 percent thought that the
government had the matter under control. Some 3,000 people from Ciudad
Juárez - of mostly middle-class families – crossing illegally into the
United States, do so out of fear of violence. Particularly hard hit by
gang violence, Ciudad Juárez has registered 800 homicides so far this
year—tripling the 2007 figure—as well as a spurt of bank and car
robberies. The University of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute
recently reported that there has also been an increase in acts of
extortion and kidnappings that have specifically targeted the business
community.
In spite of Calderón’s intensified war against Mexico’s drug barons and
the early phase in the implementation of Washington’s predictably
under-funded Merida Initiative, the death toll continues to mount and
there is no indication that the future will be any brighter than the
past. This spotlights the inherent problems embedded in the Mexican
government’s strategy, such as unrestrained venality in the police
force as well as in the tainted bureaucracies at the municipal, state,
and federal levels. On July 31, the government announced a shake-up in
the PGR, with the departure of Noé Ramírez, the head of Mexico’s secret
anti-organized-crime unit, Siedo, and three of the PGR’s deputy
attorneys. This announcement followed a meeting during which the head
of the PGR, Eduardo Medina-Mora, and public security minister, Genaro
García Luna, blamed each other for their inability to coordinate and
harness their respective intelligence-gathering units. This
manifestation of ineptitude reinforced the need for Calderón’s call for
the government to agree on public security policies and to improve
coordination among the federal, state and municipal administrations in
order to advance the nation’s uphill fight against crime.
A united campaign against the drug gangs, this time with Calderón and
Ebrard de facto at the helm, has been necessary for a long time, but
may be too much to ask for, especially amid the current escalating
levels of violence with its skyrocketing death tolls reported from many
Mexican cities. A coordinated and innovative bipartisan approach on the
part of all government levels, rather than any further militarization,
or going easy on the purveyor of crime, may prove to be the ultimate
key to stemming the country’s current surge in violence. Added to this
is the population’s flagging confidence in the bona fides of the
country’s security forces. With the August 21 summit, Calderon and his
colleagues may have made an initial move (albeit, a tiny one) in the
right direction.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
Top of Page
|
|
|
|