December 31, 2007
Drug
War Militarization in Mexico Advances into 2008
Frontera
NorteSur
Concerned that violent drug traffickers had infiltrated
the police force, Mexican soldiers disarmed 149 local policemen assigned to the municipality of Rosarito, Baja California,
on December 28. Besides stripping local policemen of their weapons, the Baja California State Office of the Attorney General
ordered all of its Rosarito personnel reassigned to other posts including Tijuana and Ensenada.
"We recognize that
the enemy is within and that's why we are purging the ranks," said Daniel de la Rosa, public safety director of the state
in northwestern Mexico. "We need to have police who are trustworthy."
Reminiscent of the Mexican army's temporary disarming
of Tijuana municipal police at the beginning of 2007, the Rosarito action came after a December 18 attack against the city's
police chief, Jorge Eduardo Montero, left the official's bodyguard dead. Rosarito Mayor Hugo Torres, [who just recently took
office on December 1], has also denounced death threats lodged against him.
In Baja California, persistent violence
during 2007 including hundreds of kidnappings, forced disappearances and robberies of businessmen and tourists, stoked
calls for stepped-up federal military intervention in the fight against organized crime. At the state and local levels, new
law enforcement administrators are bringing in Israeli anti-kidnapping instructors, restructuring key police units and adding
new armament.
Still, as the Rosarito events demonstrate, the Mexican army remains the linchpin in the battle against
drug traffickers and organized criminal elements. In 2007, the Calderon administration deployed upwards of 25,000 soldiers
and federal police (frequently soldiers on loan) in the drug war. As the year drew to a close, Mexico City could claim some
historic successes in the battle, including the record seizures of nearly 35 tons of cocaine at the ports of Manzanillo and
Tampico. According to the US Embassy in Mexico, Mexican authorities seized money, drugs, airplanes, vehicles and airplanes
valued at hundreds of millions of dollars during the course of the year.
Narco-violence also broke records in 2007,
with 2,561 murders attributed to organized crime registered in the January-November time frame – a 14.2 percent leap
over 2006 homicide numbers for the same months. In addition to large numbers of policemen, the victims included 42 soldiers
and five marines. On Friday, December 28, seven policemen were slain in the central state of Zacatecas by suspected drug gang
gunmen.
The Zacatecas killings are the latest example of how previously quiet areas of the country are now hot spots
in the war for control of the lucrative Mexican drug business. Indeed, virtually the entire country is afflicted by violence,
with the Pacific Coast state of Colima considered the only relative exception. In border cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad
Juarez, drug-related murders are so common as to practically warrant their own section in local newspapers.
Reliance
on the armed forces as the frontline agency in the drug war is likely to deepen in 2008. Patricio Patiņo Arias, an Undersecretary for
Strategy and Police Intelligence with Mexico's federal Ministry of Public Security, announced December 28 in Culiacan, Sinaloa,
that 2,500 soldiers and federal police will be deployed in a new operation in the state beginning the first week of January.
——————————
Sources:
La Jornada, December 28 and 29, 2007. Articles by Gustavo Castillo Garcia and the Reuters news agency. Frontera, December
26, 27, 28, 29, 2007. Articles by Ana Cecilia Ramirez, Fausto Ovalle and news agencies. El Universal, December 17 and 28,
2007. Articles by Julieta Martinez and Javier Cabrera Martinez. Proceso/Apro, December 28, 2007.
——————————
Frontera
NorteSur (FNS)
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico
——————————
(Reprinted with authorization from Frontera NorteSur,
a free, on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news source. FNS can be found at http://frontera.nmsu.edu/)
Translation FNS
