SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL

Border violence must get Obama's attention

December 4, 2008

Tijuana, like other parts of Mexico, is being torn apart by wave after wave of drug violence, and the consequences are spilling into everything. The breakdown of law and order affects trade, immigration and, of course, the U.S.-led war on drugs.

Baja California is catching the worst of it. Every Monday, it seems, there is another report of a couple dozen – yes, dozen – killings over the weekend in Tijuana alone. This week is no exception. Since Saturday, at least 38 people have been killed in Tijuana. Nine of the dead were decapitated, a gruesome tactic employed by the drug cartels to spread terror.

Earlier this week, Secretary of Public Security Alberto Capella Ibarra was fired by Tijuana Mayor Jorge Ramos after a bloody year marked by unremitting violence. Even the presence of soldiers and federal agents roaming the streets of Tijuana haven't stopped the killings between rival cartels, each jockeying to control the lucrative drug trade.

The extreme violence has been going on since late September, and more than 350 people have died as a result. The victims fall into two categories. There are the innocent victims and the human telegrams. While the innocents may have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, the telegrams are intended to send just the right message. How these people are killed, and the condition in which their bodies are found, spells out what their murderers intended to communicate, either to authorities or to the leaders of rival gangs.

In the recent carnage, three of the nine decapitated bodies were those of police officers. Maybe that was meant as a push-back against a recent, and obviously unsuccessful, military assault. Maybe the officers were working both sides of the street, and the drug bosses wanted to terminate the relationship. For those on the outside looking in, it's hard to know what is really going on.

But this much is clear: This is not a problem that Americans can ignore any longer. Even here in San Diego, as far as many people are concerned, the U.S.-Mexico border might as well be the end of the Earth. They forget that, just beyond the checkpoints, there is a country of 120 million people whose destiny is intertwined with that of the United States.

When we do well, our neighbor does well. When we struggle economically, so do our friends south of the border. And when the subject is drug violence, the connection is even clearer. Americans buy the drugs that create the profits that allow the drug lords to buy the weapons that let them wreak havoc and run up the body count.

President-elect Obama and his administration need to make Mexico a top priority. We need to get behind Mexican President Felipe Calderón and his heroic efforts to put the drug cartels out of business – because the longer these enterprises thrive, the more suffering there will be for people on both sides of the border.

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