The Mexico drug insurgency continues

Houston Chronicle:

About the very hour that President Felipe Calderon threw thousands of troops into battle against Mexico's gangsters, the novice mayor of this factory town was stepping out of a bulletproof vehicle to lead grade-schoolers in a flag-raising.

Dionisio Herrera, 40, has been traveling under guard around Santa Catarina, a suburb of Monterrey, since a gunman killed his city's police chief and a councilman in late November.

Though Herrera claims not to feel particularly threatened, he goes everywhere in the armored vehicle — to work, to the store, to the cinema — with pistol-packing bodyguards at the wheel and riding shotgun.

Most mayors in the Monterrey area, where police have been killed with alarming frequency, are doing the same, Herrera says.

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Bloodshed, drug-related or not, seems to be drowning nearly every corner of Mexico. Violence and public safety have become a leading concern of Mexicans and one of the greater challenges for a fragile democracy.

As rival gangs have fought for control of narcotics-smuggling routes and street sales, more than 2,000 people have died gangland style this year, according to one leading newspaper's unofficial count. That's hundreds more bodies than last year, which had set a record.

Gangsters and policemen have been beheaded by rivals in Acapulco and central Michoacan state. Prosecutors, police chiefs and petty politicians have been shot dead in the northern industrial mecca of Monterrey, along the border and in Mexico's south.

Though most of the killings are between rival gangs, ordinary citizens and officials such as Herrera increasingly are targeted. Some 125 policemen, about a third of them ranking commanders or department chiefs, have been killed. Judges, prosecutors, mayors have all been gunned down.

Calderon, a Michoacan native who took office two weeks ago, sent nearly 7,000 troops on Dec. 11 to his home state to take on its gangs. Though analysts sniffed at the move as ineffective showboating, the new president has vowed to make law and order a pillar of his six-year administration.

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Much of the violence stems from the struggle between two large smuggling organizations, one based in Sinaloa on the Pacific Coast and the other in the state of Tamaulipas, which borders Texas.

Each of those smuggling conglomerates includes dozens of smaller gangs, which wage feuds of their own. And much of the violence in recent years has been carried out by syndicates involved in selling cocaine, crystal methamphetamine and other drugs to the burgeoning ranks of Mexican users.

"They kill (police officers) either because they won't cooperate or because they are cooperating with the rival gang," said Cosme Furlong, president of a civic organization in Monterrey that's pressuring for better law enforcement."

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There is more.

Calderon does appear to be serious about doing something, but it may be too late to do it without much more bloodshed. This break down of the rule of law will probably give even more incetive to those who want to immigrate illegally to the US.

The Federalies need to adapt a take and hold approach. The gangs apparently lay low when they sweep in only to resurface when they pull out. To avoid corruption, the Mexicans will probably need to frequently transfer these forces to different regions.