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 Editorials | Issues | June 2008 
Mexico Insistent Its Tactics Against Cartels Will Succeed
 Dudley Althaus - Houston Chronicle
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| | Despite criticism from home, abroad, President Calderon's government will continue pressure. | | |
Mexico City — The Mexican government's 18-month campaign against the country's organized drug gangs has cost the gangsters who lead them some $5.5 billion and all but shut down one of the largest smuggling operations, officials said Friday.
Faced with U.S. Senate conditions put on a proposed aid package for Mexico's drug war and rising criticism at home, President Felipe Calderon and his top security aides have come out swinging, insisting they'll continue the crackdown and that they'll do it their way.
"This response will permit our system to strengthen our democracy," Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said in a nationally broadcast interview. "The gains have been very significant,"
Medina Mora said more than 55 tons of cocaine and some $270 million in cash have been seized since the campaign began in December 2006. Police have also seized more than 7,000 vehicles and nearly 300 airplanes.
Sinaloa seizures
And army and federal police operation that began in Sinaloa three weeks ago has hemmed in the so-called Federation of Sinaloa state, an alliance between Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and Ismael Zambada, a powerful but lesser known trafficker, said Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, a top anti-narcotics official.
More than $11 million in presumed drug proceeds have been confiscated in Sinaloa state since a crackdown began there three weeks ago, including $5 million seized by soldiers Thursday.
"This represents practically the paralyzation of their operations," Santiago Vasconcelos said of the seizures.
Death and drugs
Mexican officials blame a turf war between the two Sinaloa gangsters and their former underworld allies for most of the more than 1,300 gangland-style murders so far this year.
Underworld violence has claimed more than 4,000 lives since Calderon took office in December 2006, including those of some 450 policemen.
The Bush administration has requested some $550 million for a first installment of a three-year aid package to help Mexico and Central America combat drug traffickers. A congressional committee is negotiating the final details of the package, which both the U.S. House and Senate have approved.
But Senate conditions on the aid package — including an insistence that soldiers accused of human rights abuses face trials in civilian courts rather than military tribunals — have raised hackles across Mexico, where any whiff of U.S. imposition in internal matters sparks a bitter response.
The Senate conditions largely reflect concerns of U.S. and Mexican human rights groups, which have complained about the military's prominent role in the crackdown.
Calderon and other senior officials are adamant about the army's role.
"The participation of the army is indispensable, it's temporary and it's obviously designed to minimize the risks," Medina Mora said Friday. "We have no option."
dudley.althaus(at)chron.com |
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