Thread: Mexico's president pitches conference to address crime

Mexico's president pitches conference to address crime
By DUDLEY ALTHAUS Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Mexico City Bureau
Aug. 14, 2008, 6:56PM
MEXICO CITY — With gangland violence rampaging across Mexico, President Felipe Calderon sparred Thursday with a top opposition politician over the format for talks about coordinating a crackdown on crime.

The gangland warfare that has claimed more than 5,000 lives since Calderon took office 20 months ago shows no signs of easing. The latest outrage took place Wednesday night in Ciudad Juarez when gunmen stormed into a drug rehabilitation center and killed eight men and wounded five others during a religious service.

Responding to public demands that something be done about Mexico's kidnapping plague, Calderon proposed a conference with Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard to discuss police and intelligence coordination. Ebrard responded with a proposal for a summit attended by Calderon, himself and the country's 31 governors — most from political parties opposed to the president.

But Calderon insisted that any dialogue with the governors be held under the auspices of the so-called Public Security Cabinet, composed of his administration's senior law enforcement and military officials.

"It's the legal framework in which we can all participate, each assuming his responsibility," Calderon said in a Thursday speech otherwise focused on the plight of poor farmers.

"Being in agreement or not isn't important," he said. "Knowing how to negotiate and discuss what most serves the people is."

Witnesses of Wednesday's shooting told the Ciudad Juarez newspaper El Diario that the killers herded several people into the patio of the drug center and shot them point-blank before opening fire on the assembly.

"They started shooting left and right," Socorro Garcia, wife of the pastor leading the service, told the newspaper. "I called on the Lord to send his angels to protect us as I saw youths falling wounded and others managing to flee."

Police recovered more than 60 spent automatic rifle and pistol shells at the scene. State police investigators said they had no leads and had made no arrests in the case.

Nearly 800 people have been killed in Juarez, a city of 1.5 million across the border from El Paso, since Jan. 1. Most of the violence has been related to a turf war between rival drug smuggling gangs, officials say.

Calderon has made the crackdown against Mexico's drug traffickers a cornerstone of his administration. But a wave of kidnappings has galvanized the public's outrage against the government's inability to combat crime.

Calls for sweeping judicial and police reforms have been amplified since the discovery two weeks ago of the body of Fernando Marti, the 14- year-old son of a prominent businessman who had been kidnapped in June. Two Mexico City police detectives have been arrested in connection with the case, and more than a dozen others are being questioned.

The dead youth's father, sporting goods magnate Alejandro Marti, is helping spearhead a new public push for the reforms, which will be anchored by nationwide protest marches on Aug. 30.

"We don't want anyone in Mexico to suffer what has happened to us," Marti said at a press conference Wednesday, in which he called for better coordination and real reform. "Impunity in Mexico is destroying us.

dudley.althaus@chron.com


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5944663.html

I wish Mr. Calderon all success in the outcome of this summit, and hope doesn't break down about squabbles about the shape of the table and who gets to sit where, as many attempted summits around the world have disintegrated into.