Rapidly growing Mexico unrest alarms U.S.
by Traci Carl - Jan. 19, 2009 12:00 AM
Associated Press
MEXICO CITY - Indiscriminate kidnappings. Nearly daily beheadings. Gangs that mock and kill government agents.

This isn't Iraq or Pakistan. It's Mexico, which the U.S. government and a growing number of experts say is becoming one of the world's biggest security risks.

The prospect that America's southern neighbor could melt into lawlessness provides an unexpected challenge to Barack Obama's new government. In its latest report on possible global security risks, the U.S. Joint Forces Command lumps Mexico and Pakistan together as being at risk of a "rapid and sudden collapse."
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The U.S. Justice Department said last month that Mexican gangs are the "biggest organized crime threat to the United States." National-security adviser Stephen Hadley said last week that the violence threatens Mexico's democracy.

The alarm also is spreading to the private sector. Mexico, Latin America's second biggest economy and the United States' third-biggest oil supplier, is one of the top 10 global risks for 2009 identified by the Eurasia Group, a New York-based consulting firm.

In 2006, President Felipe Calderón sent troops across the country to try to regain control. But soldiers and police are outgunned and outnumbered.

Mob murders doubled from 2007, taking more than 5,300 lives last year. The border cities of Juarez and Tijuana wake up each morning to find streets littered with mutilated, often headless bodies.

Businesses have closed because they can't afford to pay monthly extortion fees to local thugs. The rich have fled to the U.S. to avoid one of the world's highest kidnapping rates. Many won't leave their homes at night.

Several soldiers fighting the gangs were kidnapped, beheaded and dumped in southern Mexico last month with the warning: "For every one of mine that you kill, I will kill 10."

The U.S. government is supportive, recently handing over $400 million in anti-drug aid.

Many said the solution lies in getting the U.S. to give more help and let in more migrant workers who might otherwise turn to the drug trade to make a living.


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