1 300 dead in Mexico drug war
2008-06-11 12:06
Mexico City - A ferocious war between rival drug gangs and police in Mexico has left 1 378 people dead so far this year, with no sign of the bloodshed abating, according to official figures.
The carnage - characterised by corpses executed, decapitated or tortured - has emerged as one of the biggest challenges facing President Felipe Calderon, who has placed the anti-narcotics fight at the heart of his mandate started 18 months ago.
In that time, 36 000 soldiers deployed to help overwhelmed - or corrupt - police have confiscated 55 tons of cocaine, 13 500 weapons and 263 planes.
But the cartels have barely been weakened, employing a sophisticated arsenal against one another and the security forces as they vie for control over cocaine trafficking to the United States.
'We are going to win'
Undaunted, the country's top prosecutor, Eduardo Medina Mora, predicted "we are going to win - even though it doesn't look like it".
Calderon's vow to "rescue all the regions under the sway of the narcos" has shaken up years of status quo of official inaction and corruption that have made his pledge all the more difficult to fulfil.
Today, the cartels are well-armed, with a wide network of influence in the security forces that makes it difficult to determine who is killing whom and for what motives.
Northern towns such as Culiacan and Ciudad Juarez are the scenes of the worst of the violence, which has caused residents to live in constant fear.
"In the past, the cartels acted quietly, they didn't need to bring the war to the streets. But now there is an offensive by all the government's resources in a coordinated way, and the president has declared war on them," said Raul Benitez Manaut, of the Centre for Research on North America at the Autonomous University of Mexico.
The Mexican drug cartels "have increased their power" as those in Colombia have been weakened, he said.
As a result, "the Mexicans are slowly taking over the (drug smuggling) routes and introducing the cocaine finding its way into the United States".
Corruption
The vast sums of money involved inevitably go to fund "the corruption of many operation-level officials" to help the illicit trade, Benitez Manaut said.
Calderon has called on the United States to do more to combat drug trafficking on its side, where an estimated six million cocaine users form the biggest market in the world for the drug.
The United States is also the source of some 80% of the modern weaponry the drug gangs are buying.
The Mexican army often finds itself outgunned in its clashes with the gangs, and authorities say that imbalance was largely responsible for the deaths of seven policemen in Culiacan on May 27.
The slain officers added to a list of around 450 law enforcement officials killed since Calderon's offensive started in December 2006. In all, since that date, 4 172 people have been murdered by the gangs.
Experts warn that the war could become even more brutal, especially if a well-trained group founded by soldiers who deserted in the 1990s, the Zetas, decides to leave the employ of the Golfo cartel to become an independent drug-running outfit.
Money laundering
As the bullets have been zinging through Mexican streets and bodies piling up, little progress has been seen on the money-laundering front.
A total of 46 169 suspicious transactions were referred in 2007 and 2008 to the financial unit created to deal with that crime, too many for the 70 officials working there to handle.
In the past 18 months, only 30 cases have been brought to prosecution - and none have thus far resulted in a sentencing.
The economy ministry, which oversees the unit, explained that the slowness of the legal system meant it could take two years for a case to be decided and punishment handed down.