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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | December 2007 
Mexico Police Drafted Into Oil State in Drug Fight
 Mica Rosenberg - Reuters
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Ciudad Del Carmen, Mexico - Some 200 heavily armed police landed in Mexico's oil-producing Gulf coast state of Campeche this week, a formerly quiet region that has become the latest front in a war on powerful drug gangs.
President Felipe Calderon has already deployed some 25,000 police and soldiers to combat violent cartels trafficking Colombian cocaine to U.S. streets and next year plans to boost the number of police nationally by 5,000.
The coastal town of Ciudad del Carmen is known more for its links to offshore oil fields than for the drug trade, which is far less visible around the Gulf coast than in violent towns along the U.S.-border, but authorities want to block the Gulf Cartel's growing presence in the area.
"It was always quiet here, there was never a lot of crime, so the authorities weren't around," 55-year-old hotel manager Jose de la Cruz said on Friday.
"That helped the drug dealers with their transport," said de la Cruz, whose hotel faces one of two new police roadblocks where suspicious cars are stopped and searched on the highway near the beachfront.
Eighty-eight federal police with bulletproof vests and automatic weapons were flown in on Friday on a commercial airliner.
After lining up on the tarmac for inspection, they joined 110 officers who arrived in the past few days and 70 already in town patrolling the humid city streets in pickup trucks.
STRATEGIC SPOT
State-run oil company Pemex operates offshore oil platforms near the town, straight down the Gulf of Mexico from U.S. ports in Galveston, Texas, making it a strategic spot for smugglers, Mexico's deputy security minister, Patricio Patino, told reporters.
A recent spate of high-profile violent crimes in the area has forced security forces to focus on Campeche.
In April, the head of the municipal police was murdered. Just one month later, his successor survived an assassination attempt.
About 2,350 people have died in drug violence in Mexico this year, mostly in fighting between the Gulf Cartel and a group of rivals from the state of Sinaloa.
But Mexican and U.S. officials say the increased security presence, the confiscation of close to 50 tons of cocaine and extradition of high-profile drug suspects to the United States have lifted drug prices on U.S streets and curbed violence.
"The best example that all this is working is that Washington says cocaine prices are going up," said Patino.
But police have paid a high price for those successes, he said. Eighteen federal agents and 130 local police have been killed this year in the anti-drug fight.
"It happens in every conflict, there will be losses on both sides," said one police inspector leading operations in Ciudad del Carmen.
"We are fighting organized criminals, but we are better organized," said the policeman, who declined to give his name.
Calderon said on Friday the crackdown had weakened drug gangs to the point they were desperate to try and buy off or intimidate politicians and police to restore their power.
He urged politicians and government officials to close ranks to stop powerful drug gangs intimidating or buying off candidates to control the outcome of elections. (Editing by Peter Cooney) |
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