| | |  Editorials | Issues | May 2009 
Mexico's Calderon Says Army Not Permanent
 Julian Cardona & Lizbeth Diaz - Reuters
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| | Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Thursday declared that Juarez has become the ground zero in the fight against drug cartels that have created instability and unleashed waves of deadly violence. (Jesus Nava/El Paso Times) | |
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico - President Felipe Calderon last week urged Mexico's most violent drug-ridden city to clean up its corrupt police department, warning the deployment of thousands of troops on its streets was not permanent.
Calderon sent 10,000 troops and federal police to Ciudad Juarez, located across the border from El Paso, Texas, in March to stop a surge in killings between rival gangs.
The troops' arrival brought about a temporary dip in murders but now violence is increasing again.
"We all know that (the army's presence) cannot and should not be permanent. So I call on local authorities to accelerate this process" of cleansing the police, Calderon told soldiers in a heavily guarded visit to Ciudad Juarez.
Calderon's government says Mexico may need to keep troops on streets across the country for several more years, but rooting out police corruption is urgent since corrupt police openly aid gangs, undermining army operations.
Mexico's most-wanted man Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman is fighting the dominant Juarez cartel and its wing of corrupt police, La Linea (The Line), for control of Ciudad Juarez, which sits on a prized smuggling route into Texas.
Calderon has staked his presidency on crushing the gangs that killed 6,300 people last year. The violence worries Washington, spilling into border cities like Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona.
President Barack Obama praised Calderon's drug fight in a visit to Mexico last month. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Congress recently border violence was calming, but questioned how long the reduction would last.
Three U.S. citizens were found tortured to death over the weekend in the border city Tijuana across from southern California, prosecutor Fermin Gomez told reporters on Thursday.
Police believe the two men and a woman, all in their 20s, were working for drug gangs, Gomez said.
Mexico's drug war death toll is around 2,300 people so far this year, slightly higher than the same point in 2008, even as the army makes historic seizures of weapons and cash and arrests top cartel leaders.
(Reporting by Julian Cardona in Ciudad Juarez and Lizbeth Diaz in Tijuana, editing by Alan Elsner) |
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