Non-Subscriber Extract
Fighting back - Mexico declares war on drug cartels
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| 13 March 2007 |
By Oscar Becerra
Within days of taking office in December 2006, President Felipe Calderón began a major offensive against the drug cartels, deploying 5,000 military and federal police personnel to the Pacific coastal state of Michoacan and a further 3,000 to the US-border city of Tijuana.
Subsequent deployments to other areas of the country during January and February this year brought the number of troops and federal police deployed against the cartels to nearly 30,000 since Calderón took office.
The strategy consisted of three main tactics. First, the army and the federal police were deployed side-by-side in order to monitor each other and create an incentive to both sides to prevent leaks of information and to control their personnel more closely. Second, federal troops and police were kept largely separate from state security personnel in an attempt to insulate them from local dynamics including corruption and intimidation. Third, the federal forces attempted to 'seal' the state, installing checkpoints on main roads, patrolling the sea coast as a kind of sea blockade, to control Lazaro Cardenas seaport and patrolling the main towns.
The strategy and its limits
Despite the determined early steps taken by the government, it is too early to judge whether these will achieve the desired effect. The aggressive counter-criminal campaign could help to expel drug gangs from affected states and restore public security. However, it could equally simply transfer the criminal activity to neighbouring states.
President Calderón has described his campaign against the cartels as a war and, as the body count increases, it increasingly resembles one on the ground. Like most wars, victory is likely to be dependent on long-term political commitment, sustained funding and public support. It is this third variable that represents a particularly tough challenge for Calderón, who won the 2006 presidential elections by the smallest of margins and is strongly opposed by governors in many of the targeted states. The Calderón administration and the war on drug cartels are likely to succeed or fail together.
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© 2007 Jane's Information Group
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