Thread: Mexico cracking down on drug stronghold

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/16226340.htm

Posted on Wed, Dec. 13, 2006


MEXICO
Mexico cracking down on drug stronghold
Mexican troops and police officers spread out in an area of western Mexico controlled by drug gangs with the goal of `reconquering territory.'
BY IOAN GRILLO
Associated Press

APATZINGAN, Mexico - Helicopters clattered over remote mountaintops while soldiers set up checkpoints Tuesday in western Mexico, a region President Felipe Calderón has vowed to take back from smugglers challenging authorities with beheadings and large-scale drug production.

Soldiers were ordered to set fire to marijuana and opium fields and round up traffickers in Michoacán -- Calderón's home state. Navy ships also were patrolling the state's Lázaro Cárdenas port, a hub for drugs arriving from Central America and Colombia on their way to the United States.

Cornelio Casio, one of several generals overseeing the operation begun Monday, said 6,500 soldiers and federal police were fanning out across the state.

''We aren't going to lose any time,'' he said. ``We are completely focused on this war.''

The campaign follows earlier crackdowns by Mexican presidents who ordered mass firings of corrupt police, revamped courts, sent thousands of troops to battle traffickers and accelerated drug seizures -- without making much of a dent on the quantity of narcotics crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

In an interview Tuesday with the Televisa television network, Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said the operation was aimed at ''reconquering territory'' controlled by drug gangs. ''It's not just a war against drug lords,'' he said. ``It's a war against the entire criminal structure.''

Medina Mora acknowledged that drug lords will likely just find another stronghold, saying: ``It's a complicated war, but it is a war we can win.''

Calderón brushed aside concerns the crackdown could lead to human rights violations and claim innocent victims. ''It's about recovering the calm, day-to-day life of Mexicans who live in the state,'' Calderón said at an event early Tuesday.

He took office on Dec. 1 promising to fight the execution-style killings, corrupt police and openly defiant gangs that plagued former President Vicente Fox's six years in office. Calderón has budgeted more funds for law enforcement and appointed a hard-line interior secretary, in charge of domestic security, Francisco Ramírez Acuña.

On Tuesday, Calderón met with federal lawmakers and urged them to support his program. U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza has repeatedly expressed concern about the rising violence, some of which has spilled over into the United States, and the U.S. State Department has warned U.S. citizens about travel to Mexico.

Warring cartels have killed at least 2,000 people this year and forced Fox to send troops into the bloody border city of Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas, and the beach resort of Acapulco.

But those efforts failed to deter traffickers, who have left human heads outside government offices accompanied by written warnings. One recent message in Michoacán read: ``See. Hear. Shut Up. If you want to stay alive.''

Eliminating the competition?

But those efforts failed to deter traffickers, who have left human heads outside government offices accompanied by written warnings. One recent message in Michoacán read: ``See. Hear. Shut Up. If you want to stay alive.''

now there is an effective army.

Pure South of the Border Hogwash!