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 Editorials | June 2007 
Mexico Under Assault
 azcentral.com
Almost unnoticed in this country, violent drug wars rivaling the brutal Colombian battles of the 1980s have returned to the Western Hemisphere.
And this time they have arrived at the doorstep of the United States, in the northern border states of Mexico.
Lawlessness spawned by the drug trade is one matter. The nations of the Americas have fought those battles for more than a generation. But guerilla warfare - often with automatic weapons and explosives smuggled from this country into Mexico - brings a level of mayhem that should awaken officials in Washington, D.C., as much as it has captured the attention of their counterparts in Mexico City.
Events in Mexico are nothing short of shocking.
Earlier this month, at least 50 heavily armed gangsters literally took over the small Sonoran town of Cananea, murdering seven people, including five local police officers. The drug gang eventually retreated to the countryside, shooting it out with police and Mexican army units along the way. In all, 22 people, including 15 of the drug gang members, died in the hours-long fight.
The gangs have been targeting high-ranking police officers and journalists, too.
On May 19, Monterrey police Cmdr. Mario Sanchez was shot dead in a well-to-do suburb. The leader of a drug-investigations team was killed in Hermosillo. And, almost at the same time, a criminal-investigations chief in Tabasco was murdered.
To his great credit, Mexican President Felipe Calderón is fighting back, ordering 30,000 federal troops into drug-cartel hotspots like Michoacán, Acapulco and areas along the U.S. border, especially in the regions bordering Arizona.
That decision to send in army troops has drawn criticism from human-rights activists, who claim to have evidence of murders and rapes committed by soldiers, and who contend the presence of the army only escalates the violence.
Crimes committed by soldiers are not to be dismissed, certainly. But in many Mexican towns, the well-armed, ruthless cartels have literally chased away (or murdered) the local police.
To wish away the army is to wish away the last vestiges of civil order, ceding the towns and villages to the brutal control of warlords.
In some areas of northern Mexico, it is that bad. One bright spot in the escalating Mexican drug wars is that Mexican and U.S. law-enforcement agencies are cooperating now at unprecedented levels.
Both sides see what may be coming: a Colombia-level conflict that ignores national borders.
The evidence is clear that the danger is growing. |
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