Monday, January 14, 2008

Crime and Counteroffensives in Baja California, Mexico

By Barnard R. Thompson

In early January 2008 an Associated Press story on crime in Baja California ran, with the initial AP headline “Crime Fears Empty Mexico Beaches,” that went on to detail, “Assaults on American tourists have brought hard times to hotels and restaurants that dot Mexican beaches just south of the border from San Diego.”  A piece that told of nothing really new to area residents, regular visitors and the cognoscenti – except maybe that tourists too are under assault, but an eye opener to a multitude of distant readers as the story was picked up in scores if not hundreds of newspapers worldwide.

Few are unaware of the reports on continuing crime problems in Mexico, especially with respect to organized crime – most often a Mexican euphemism for drug cartels, traffickers and their hit men.  But then, be they organized or disorganized felons they are aided and abetted by supply and demand counterparts in the United States who sell and/or deliver countless weapons to waiting criminals in Mexico; and the apparent insatiable appetite for illegal drugs north of the border.

According to a report on gangland killings, “A Study of the Executions, First Year of Government,” which was done by the Federal Preventative Police (PFP), from December 1, 2006 to November 30, 2007 there were 2,794 “executions” in Mexico.  Yet this total was down 23 percent compared to the same months in the preceding year.

The northwestern state of Baja California, contiguous with California, has long been a hotbed of drug related criminal activities, above all in the Tijuana area since the infamous Arrellano Félix brothers and their cartel emerged some 25 to 30 years ago.  However today (as undoubtedly has long been the case) there are drug lords, cartel activities and related interests quite evidently present in trafficking, user and intermediary nations worldwide.

Still, in Baja California drug related crime, coldblooded murders and assassinations, along with shootouts between hired guns of the cartels – or with the military and police, were what made headlines for years.  Then again, there have been ever rising reports of kidnappings, muggings and other misdeeds that in the past at least targeted mostly Mexicans.

According to Jesús Alberto Capella Ibarra, the former president of the Baja California Citizens’ Public Security Council and since December Tijuana’s Public Safety/Security Secretary, in spite of police and military crime fighting and counterattacks there were 14,000 more crimes reported in Baja California in 2007 than in 2006.  As well, over and above the increases in homicide, assault, robbery and rape, he noted that the upsurge in kidnappings is of special concern as they rose from 200 in 2006 to 240 in 2007.

But his kidnapping figures are almost certainly low, insofar as many such crimes go unreported – this often because families and friends of the abducted suspect Mexican police of being involved.

Additionally, Capella said that eight out of every 19 crimes that occur in Baja California are perpetrated in the Municipality (county) of Tijuana.

The most recent escalation in gangster activities in Tijuana was worsened by the lack of crime control and political concern during the 2004 to 2007 administration of former mayor Jorge Hank Rhon.  This as the problem was exacerbated due to enmity between the eccentric Institutional Revolutionary Party mayor and an obstinate National Action Party state government.

In part a consequence of proximity, crime has also risen fairly recently along transportation routes to, and in, neighboring Rosarito Beach.  On December 18 this made international headlines when armed gunmen, estimated at more than ten who were using assault weapons, attacked the beach community’s police station in an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the new security director, Jorge Eduardo Montero Alvarez (Captain Montero is a 23-year Mexican Army veteran), killing one of his bodyguards and wounding another, along with two civilians.

Subsequently the 140 officer Rosarito Beach police force was suspended and their weapons seized by the Mexican military for ballistic checks and registry verification.  In the interim state and federal police took over law enforcement duties, in what Rosarito Beach mayor, Hugo Torres, told The San Diego Union-Tribune “… is a coordinated effort among city, state and federal agencies to ensure the integrity of police forces under each of the five new municipal administrations that came to office [December 1, 2007].  The other cities are Tijuana, Tecate, Ensenada and Mexicali.” (December 29, 2007)

According to a Mexico City newspaper report (El Universal, January 12, 2008), the military command in Baja California has since opened two formal investigations that rope in at least 13 of the Rosarito Beach police officers, all suspected of having been part of the attack against Montero in one way or another.

On January 9, 2008, receipt of a consensus agreement was published by the Permanent Commission of the Mexican Congress, the result of committee work recommending additional aid to Baja California due to the ongoing and inherited war against crime, drug lords and homicidal gangs.  The bicameral 37-member Permanent Commission is the body that runs legislative affairs during Mexico’s congressional recess periods.

The call for deliberation by the Mexican Congress as a whole (that is scheduled to reconvene on February 1), begins with the request for the executive branch of government to “take into consideration the public insecurity situation that Baja California is going through in the allotting of resources from the Public Security Fund.”  This “so that actions on security matters in Baja California may be strengthened and so that extraordinary resources from the Security Fund can be provided in order to deal with organized crime activities in a better manner, with the support of the [federal] government….”

As to Rosarito Beach, it continues: “… also so that investigations of the attempt against Jorge Eduardo Montero Alvarez, the head of the Public Security Directorate of Rosarito Beach, in Baja California, can be expedited….”

Further on the multipage recommendation states that “… organized crime groups have stolen the tranquility of Baja California’s people.”  And it calls for determined and coordinated action by the federal and state governments “in order to strengthen the abilities of state and municipal security agencies, to increase the number and quality of public security officials, [and to] improve weaponry and equipment, but too a much more professional and effective intelligence system is needed that will allow expedient and efficient actions.”

During a January 10 visit to Ensenada, Baja California Governor José Guadalupe Osuna Millán told the media that MP$244 million [US$22.3 million] will be given to Baja California from the federal Public Security Fund.  This is in addition to MP$156 million [US$14.3 million] in public security funds for the state’s five municipalities, all this over and above money that is already budgeted.

Moreover, in early January an additional 1,000 federal law enforcement officers were reassigned to Baja California, with some 500 detailed to the greater Tijuana area.  The reassignment order was reportedly given by President Felipe Calderón in response to a request for more assistance from Osuna.

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Barnard Thompson, editor of MexiData.info, has spent 50 years in Mexico and Latin America, providing multinational clients with actionable intelligence; country and political risk reporting and analysis; and business, lobbying, and problem resolution services.  He can be reached via e-mail at mexidata@ix.netcom.com.