| | |  Editorials | Opinions | November 2008 
Drug Wars Ongoing Problem for Mexico
 Diane Francis - Financial Post
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 |  | It is not irrational to think that this could be an escalation precisely because Calderon has fought so courageously against drug traffickers that operate as almost a parallel state. |  | | | |
Terror and a grim warning about future instability struck our NAFTA partner, Mexico, on the day Barack Obama became Presidentelect of the United States.
There was no press attention in Canada, and hardly any in the United States, about the crash during rush hour in downtown Mexico City of a Lear jet carrying the second-highest official in the Mexican government, Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino, along with key drug interdiction officials. Thirteen people died in the plane and on the ground, and 40 were injured.
Another passenger was former assistant attorney-general Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, who had a multi-million-dollar price put on his head by the cartels because of his work against the drug trade during the administration of Vicente Fox.
It appears to be a message that the drug cartels will stop at nothing as they continue to corrupt and ruin the country as they did in Colombia.
In the past year, Mexico's drug-related murder rate became four times' higher than the casualty rate in Iraq among Americans. Some 4,000 people have been killed and the all-out war waged by Sr. Mourino, 37, resulted in assassinations of police chiefs, mayors and soldiers.
Clearly, this has grave implications for all NAFTA partners, notably the United States, which will see increased drug trafficking and illegal immigration as Mexico starts a possible descent into a kleptocracy.
The plane's black box is being examined in the United States, not Mexico, and reports are that one of its engines fell off as the jet approached Mexico City's airport. The crash site could not have been more high-profile and created a firebomb in the heart of the city.
An investigator said one of the engines fell off before the crash and that "this clearly proves what we had believed, that there was an abrupt loss of control."
The tragedy plunges the government of President Felipe Calderon into a crisis. There are problems with declining oil income and revenue for the government from oil, as well as the drug war.
A friend of mine, Rosanna Fuentes-Berain, who is a prominent Mexican author and newspaper editor, said in an interview with me of this tragedy: "The Calderon presidency will be tested by how he reacts to an unfortunate event that will take at least a month for experts to establish if indeed it was an accident or an intentional attack."
"In a country where, in the current year, 4,000 people have been murdered, it is not irrational to think that this could be an escalation precisely because Calderon has fought so courageously against drug traffickers that operate as almost a parallel state."
"Transparency and scientific evidence beyond any reasonable doubt are to be at the heart of how this case is presented to the citizens. Mexicans have very low levels of confidence in their politicians. This is a society that has had more than its share of lies coming from politicians."
An American police source, who asked to remain anonymous, said a gun and spent cartridges were found in the wreckage, indicating that perhaps the pilot was assassinated.
Not surprisingly, the peso and Mexican stock markets tumbled in part because of the U. S. downturn, but also undoubtedly due to worries about the stability of NAFTA's southernmost partner.
dfrancis(at)nationalpost.com |
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