| | |  Editorials | Issues | December 2009 
Mexico Deals a Blow to a Cartel but Warns of Continued Drug-Related Violence
 Elisabeth Malkin - New York Times
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December 18, 2009
| | Soldiers raided an apartment complex and killed one of Mexico’s top kingpins in a two-hour gun battle on Wednesday in Cuernavaca, Mexico. (Eduardo Verdugo/Associated Press) | |
Mexico City — Even by the gruesome standards of Mexico’s drug lords, Arturo Beltrán Leyva’s capacity for violent revenge was especially brazen, officials in both the United States and Mexico say. His enforcement arm, called the Fuerzas Armadas de Arturo, or the Armed Forces of Arturo, is considered one of Mexico’s most ruthless, according to the State Department.
Since September, he had been carrying out brutal retaliatory attacks against rivals, dumping decapitated heads and tortured bodies across two Mexican states, leaving notes from “el jefe de jefes,” the boss of bosses.
But on Wednesday, Mr. Beltrán Leyva, one of Mexico’s three most wanted drug kingpins, was killed during a battle with about 400 special forces troops from the navy and the army, who surrounded a complex in Cuernavaca, where he had an apartment.
And although President Felipe Calderón on Thursday called the operation “a convincing blow” against the drug cartels, his government also warned that drug-related violence might not abate and could even get worse.
Mr. Beltrán Leyva, 48, who was also wanted in the United States, was the highest-level drug lord to be killed since Mr. Calderón began his offensive against powerful drug gangs in 2006.
Six other people suspected of being drug gunmen, included one who committed suicide, and one sailor died in the firefight, the Mexican authorities said.
Mr. Beltrán Leyva’s death is a public relations victory for Mr. Calderón, who is facing criticism from the opposition over what they say is a lack of progress in his crackdown on drugs. Despite thousands of arrests and the capture of several gang leaders, drug violence keeps increasing.
Speaking from Copenhagen, where he is attending the United Nations climate talks, Mr. Calderón called Mr. Beltrán Leyva’s death “a convincing blow against one of the most dangerous criminal organizations in Mexico and on the continent.”
But Attorney General Arturo Chávez Chávez said that violence would continue. “Getting the leader of a cartel is a very strong blow and this will surely force restructuring,” Mr. Chávez Chávez said. “Violence inside the cartel can’t be ruled out until the chain of command is defined.”
Jorge Chabat, a security expert at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics, in Mexico City, said that Mr. Beltran Leyva’s death was a step in the government’s long-term strategy of fragmenting the cartels’ power to limit their activity.
But not everyone agreed that the strategy was working.
“The truth is that this is a type of thousand-headed hydra,” said José Luis Pińeiro, a researcher at the Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico City. “You cut off one and another one emerges, but the government believes that this tactic of dismembering cartels is effective.”
Still, the swift and effective operation on Wednesday sent a message, said Guillermo Zepeda, a security expert with the Cidac research group. “By getting the most visible leaders, you send the message that you are ending the impunity of the big capos,” he said. “I think that these surgical strikes are the ones that are really worth the trouble.”
Mr. Beltrán Leyva’s organization had expanded its control over states in the central part of the country, including lucrative smuggling through the Mexico City airport, according to Mexican and American officials.
Mexican authorities have said that the gang bribed several senior antidrug agents. Investigators believe that Mr. Beltrán Leyva ordered the murder of an acting federal police chief in May 2008, after the chief fired the police chief at the airport to break up the smuggling operation there, Mr. Zepeda said.
Antonio Betancourt contributed reporting. |
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