Felipe Calderon’s war against drug cartels has been long and bloody… are we seeing headway?
By Micah Hanks
“Let’s be frank here, my friend.” My contact, a man presently living near Mexico city, was anything but dire in his assessment of the conditions in his country today. “Things are really, really screwed up down here at the moment, and there are some zones in the Republic that have become no man’s land.” My contact went on to name a few areas of concern, such as Monterrey, where the US embassy recently sent the families of diplomats out of the country in the wake of violent gang-related shootings. “They’re actually treating their embassy in the city the same way as in countries at war,” he told me. “And let’s not talk about Ciudad Juárez. It’s probably more dangerous there than Baghdad right now.”
Fortunately, in my contact’s own hometown, it seems President Felipe Calderon has dealt another blow against the Mexican drug cartels, with the recent arrest of the Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez, who is believed to have been involved in attempts at controlling the Beltran Leyva drugs cartel. Facundo Rosas, a senior federal police official, expressed optimism, telling the Mexican network Televisa that, “this operation closes a chapter in drug trafficking in Mexico.” This is the second significant drug-related arrest this year under President Calderon’s oversight.
Unfortunately, there is bad that comes with the good, as the fight against criminal activities such as those Valdez has been associated with have left much of Mexico resembling a war zone. According to a Reuters report, Calderon’s war against drug trafficking and gang violence has, to-date, resulted in 28,000 deaths since 2006. Many of these deaths in recent weeks have been politicians; Hidalgo mayor Marco Antonio Leal was murdered Sunday, with his 10-year-old daughter sustaining injuries from a gunshot wound in the attack. Additionally, a pair of car bombs were detonated in Ciudad Victoria two days earlier, remarkably, no one was injured in the blasts, which aimed to destroy a television station and a police headquarters; another police station in Tampico suffered such an attack that left two wounded. One other person was reportedly killed in a grenade blast that injured 20 on Saturday, taking place in the Tamaulipas border city of Reynosa.
Writing for TIME this morning, Tim Padgett and Dolly Mascareñas commented on the instability in the police forces themselves, further lending to the problem. “Besides the insatiable U.S. appetite for drugs, Mexico’s key problem remains… its corrupt and incompetent police.” Citing instances where large groups of police rioted in Juarez guilty of “accusing each other of being in the cartels’ pockets,” Padgett and Mascareñas wrote about recent legislative action President Calderon had taken, in an effort to make it more difficult for cartels to obtain U.S. manufactured firearms and, namely, hinder their ability to influence an already corrupted police force.
Saint Louis Today reported earlier today that close to 3,200 Mexican federal police officers have been fired as a result of Calderon’s modernization bill, aimed at overhauling the federal police force, which consists of nearly 35,000 officers. “An additional 465 federal officers have been charged with breaking the law,” the article reads, “and 1,020 others face disciplinary actions after failing screening tests.” With such sweeping regulation of the corrupted law enforcement system, will Calderon’s efforts manage to curb the corruption that has enabled aggressive opposition from the drug cartels? Reports indicate that some U.S. cities in close proximity to the Mexican border have even felt the heat of gang violence and the negative stigmas attached to the drug war being waged in the south. Obviously, the wide-reaching effects of Mexico’s dire situation may be felt for some time to come, both in Mexico and the United States; even Calderon’s legislative authority may encounter difficulties stabilizing the region, which, at present, more closely resembles a country embroiled in wartime conflict.
Image courtesy of the World Economic Forum via Flickr.
