Monday, May 19, 2008

Mexicans Must Live in Fear as a Price to Pay for Peace

By Carlos Luken

I recently traveled to several Mexican cities and found that most have lost their once attractive relaxed and carefree atmosphere, only to replace it with a feeling of trepidation or fear.

When traveling by car, visitors sense the tension upon entering Mexico and passing the first border station.  Immigration and customs officials searching for guns, drug money or contraband, order them to comply with secondary inspection procedures that are largely unfamiliar to most travelers.

The tension is heightened to fear as visitors encounter military troop-carrying vehicles with heavily armed soldiers patrolling the city.  Or when they face one of many makeshift barricades where soldiers, uniformed policemen or plainclothes individuals, carrying machine guns, stop them to inspect their vehicles.

Once they reach their destination they are alarmed to see heavily armed guards with bulletproof vests protecting most banks, hotels or establishments where money is handled.  They are warned to be careful when venturing into streets for fear of being mugged, robbed or kidnapped.  They take notice of accounts of robberies in shops and packed restaurants.

Unfortunately this is part of modern Mexico.  It’s a strange atmosphere, certainly not auspicious or inviting.  But Mexico is a country facing reality, and officials are intent on liberating citizens from living in fear and violence by ridding the streets of crime in an all out effort to crush organized gangs and their criminal activities.

President Felipe Calderon has personally spearheaded the country’s counteroffensive against organized crime.  Going against political practice, he refused to downplay the emergency and publicly recognized that drug cartels have declared war on Mexico’s institutions, citizens and sovereignty.  He has since ordered a simultaneously coordinated assault against cartels and kidnappers by bringing together local, state and federal police forces with the Mexican Army.

The results are beginning to trickle in, as a steadily rising number of cartel bosses and thug’s are being hunted down or captured and sometimes killed during raging gun battles.  Some kidnappings have been averted, and those that haven’t are solved summarily as military intelligence has hooked up with an ever-growing web of neighborhood watch programs that have yielded valuable data and led to many arrests and the liberating of victims.

The first and foremost casualties caused in this war on crime are civilian awareness, fear and despair due to the climate of violence – as government forces slowly make headway, organized crime counters and boldly attacks anew.  Many cities have witnessed skirmishes and gun battles in their streets, and unfortunately some have yielded innocent victims caught in the crossfire. 

Like every other, this war has many casualties; in retaliation cartels have targeted police officers and judicial officials.  Nationwide hundreds have been sadistically assassinated, some along with their families.  But Calderon has refused to back down.

Calderon’s strategy is simple and straightforward – to meet the crisis he has publicly promoted the transformation of Mexico’s administration of justice.  His plan includes going against conventions and endorsing stricter procedures.  He raised eyebrows of civil rights’ activists for recommending that police and prosecutors be permitted to hold assumed cartel members and other organized crime suspects for up to 80 days without filing charges, in order to fully investigate and resolve their cases.  Perhaps his more controversial move to date has been the deployment of the Mexican Army to support (or, as some say, direct) crime fighting strategies and actions.

Another critical part of the government’s counteroffensive is centered inward by eradicating police agencies of many of their corrupt elements.  Nationwide thousands of corrupt police officers have been exposed, expelled or incarcerated; a national data bank was implemented in order to refuse work opportunities to the ousted individuals in any local, state or federal police or private security force.

At times organized crime gangs escalate their attacks allegedly to terrorize the population and have them pressure Calderon’s administration into easing off.  To date Calderon’s campaign has been bitterly accepted and supported by the population as a wide-ranging and necessary sacrifice to rid the country of violence and return to peace.

It’s easy to criticize Mexico’s violent environment; few realize that the hostilities are in direct response to anti-crime measures being executed nationwide by the government. Living in fear in order to live in peace seems to be an unfortunate choice that Mexicans had to make.  But many feel it’s the only responsible solution to eradicate a nationwide ill that is killing the country’s future.

And if these sacrifices can be made by a country that produces and is used as a conduit to transport drugs, shouldn’t consumer countries follow the example?

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Carlos Luken, a MexiData.info columnist, is a Mexico-based businessman and consultant.