Mex Drug War-Cut Throats Every Nite Worth It?

Today, website www.watchingmexico.com publishes string of articles
from Mexican and international media that together raise the question
of whether the thousands of deaths Mexico is suffering to wage the
drug war is worth it, a question that publishers of WatchingMexico.com
have not resolved.

In full, we publish here former President Vicente Fox’s blistering
attack on his successor’s near total mobilization against the drug
cartels, with horrific consequences for underlings and bystanders.

What is crucial is that Fox and current President Calderon come from
the same National Action Party, which wrenched Mexico free in the year
2000 from 80 straight years of rule by the corrupt Institutional
Revolutionary Party, or PRI. Unfortunately, PRI had corrupted most
Mexican political institutions, including army and police, which
hasn’t been changed.

Fox’s break with Calderon signals long-term dim prospects for the drug
war. WatchingMexico.com features links to top stories from Mexican
(both translated and original Spanish) and international media. Today,
we have one from a Christian minister who published a prayer he wrote
to the agony of border city Ciudad Juarez, epicenter of drug war. You
may choose to read or not read the prayer but the daily life of the
city he describes is haunting:

"Every night victims have been found hanging from bridges, gunned down
in vehicles, and left on street corners, bound and gagged with their
throats slashed. Many victims are bystanders in the wrong place. But
most are low level operators of the two feuding drug cartels: the
Juarez Cartel and the El Chapo Guzman Cartel."

Three separate columnists quote the same passage from a recent George
Will column on the drug war to argue that decriminalization must be
explored.

Will: "Eighty percent of the revenue of the Mexican cartels is
marijuana. If you really want to go after the Mexican cartels—and I’m
not saying that’s the only criterion for public policy— you’d legaliz
e
marijuana."

Strangely,  one columnist to praise Will is Andrew Sullivan, the
former conservative editor of New Republic, who broke with
conservatives over gay issues and became the first big name blogger.

The home page, which turns over about three times a week as older
stories are pushed downward, features two stories on brave police
fighting the dealers,  both Mexican and American.

A link to a Wa Post article on how great it is to visit the
practically deserted resort island Isla Mujeres just off Cancun is
also available.

Monday, October 26, 2009
Former Mexican President Fox Pans the Current Drug War
Frontera NorteSur

Continuing his break with the Mexican tradition of former presidents
refraining from direct engagement in politics, Vicente Fox has plunged
into another controversy: the Calderon administration's drug war.

In blunt remarks made recently in Vienna, Austria, Fox called on
President Felipe Calderon to return the Mexican Army to its barracks
as soon as possible and leave the enforcement of drug laws to federal
police.

"Using the army, using force against force, hasn't solved the
problem," Fox told the annual meeting of the conservative European
Popular Party. "On the contrary, it has multiplied it."

Mexico's former president also had words for the United States,
calling on his nation's main trading partner to do a better job of
controlling arms trafficking, money laundering and illegal drug
consumption. Nonetheless, Fox questioned drug use prohibition as a
realistic strategy.

"Drug consumption is a personal responsibility, not one of
government," Fox was quoted as saying. "Perhaps it is impossible to
ask government to halt the supply of drugs to our children."

Mexico decriminalized the possession of small amounts of drugs for
personal use earlier this year.
Fox's comments in Austria could be in response to criticism from
Calderon administration officials and others that drug-tainted
violence and corruption spiraled out of control during the former
president's term in office, from 2000 to 2006.

Entitled "The Farm," a video song released this year by the musical
group Los Tigres del Norte lampooned the Fox years and the explosion
of narco-violence. The wildly popular combo performed the song before
35,000 fans at a concert in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, on Sunday, October
18.

The latest drug addiction survey, sponsored by Mexico's Health
Ministry, reported that between 2002 and 2008 cocaine use nearly
doubled, from 1.4 percent to 2.5 percent of the population in the
12-65 age group. By 2008, illegal drug use was reported among 5.7
percent of the age group in question, according to the study.

Like all Mexican presidents over the last 40 years, Vicente Fox relied
on the armed forces as the leading force against illegal drug
trafficking. Significantly, the armed forces also expanded its role in
immigration law enforcement and other civilian policing duties during
the Fox presidency.
In the Fox years, the Mexican army was deployed in Sonora, Chihuahua,
Tamaulipas and other states after narco-related violence began
intensifying to unseen levels in 2003. A review of Frontera NorteSur's
archives showed that at least 1,395 people were reported killed in
homicides linked to organized crime from January 1, 2005 to November
29, 2005.

Another 2,012 people were reported slain in similar circumstances
during the same period of time in 2006. In contrast, nearly 2,000
people have been murdered in the narco war in Ciudad Juarez alone so
far this year.

A recent edition of the weekly Proceso magazine estimated that about
14,000 people were killed as a result of narco-violence from the time
of President Calderon's December 2006 inauguration to mid-August 2009.

"Not since the years before the Revolution and the (1920s) Cristero
War has Mexico experienced homicidal violence as it has now," wrote
Proceso reporter Jorge Carrasco Araizaga in a story that compared
Mexico with Somalia, Haiti, Brazil and Colombia.

END

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