Statistical Slights-of-Hand and Temporary Lulls Have Obscured the Drug War's Rising Costs

The Mexican Attorney General's Office (PGR) reports that as of March 13 of this year it had counted 10,475 executions since the beginning of President Felipe Calderon's term on December 1, 2006.  Furthermore, almost 10% (997) of the victims were public servants.

According to the PGR's official count for 2008 (released this past February only after an NGO filed a Freedom of Information request), 6,262* people died "violent deaths" in 2008--a 154% increase over 2008's official (according to the PGR) death toll of 2,477.  The NGO, the Citizen Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice, had requested the year's organized crime death toll broken down by month and by state.   In response, the Mexican Attorney General's Office released one sheet of paper (PDF file) breaking down the violent death toll by state, but not by month.

The Mexican government has been quick to manipulate the 2009 numbers to demonstrate some sort of success in the war on drugs.  Eduardo Medina Mora, the Federal Attorney General, told press that the approximately 1,600 executions the PGR has recorded during the first three months of 2009 constitutes a 25% decrease over the last three months of 2008. (The AP reported that the drop occurred when the first three months of 2009 are compared to the first three months of 2008, but that is a misinterpretation of government officials' statements).

With the bilateral strategy's implementation, dozens of experts began to arrive in Mexico.  They will collaborate with Mexican authorities in the fight against drug trafficking.

by Víctor Hugo Michel, Milenio
translated by Kristin Bricker

The United States government's presence in Mexico is growing.  As part of the Merida Initiative, Washington is preparing an unprecedented bureaucratic invasion: it will bring dozens of new agents to carry out administrative work, intelligence, arms interdiction, prison reform, and anti-narcotics operations, amongst others.

Ex-Intelligence Directors and Attorney General Medina Mora Contradict Clinton and Calderon on Drug War

In January, a Pentagon study declaring that Mexico is at risk of "rapid and sudden collapse" made waves in the international press.  US and Mexican officials, namely Hillary Clinton and Felipe Calderon, came to the Mexican government's defense.

President Calderon was the first to lash out against the report.  He told the AP that the Mexican government has not "lost any part--any single part--of the Mexican territory" to organized crime.

During US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent visit to Mexico, she told reporters "I don't believe there are any ungovernable territories in Mexico."

Well, Secretary Clinton and President Calderon, former Mexican intelligence directors, including current Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora, beg to differ.  In a book entitled Cisen: 20 Years of History, former directors of Mexico's intelligence agency, the Investigation and National Security Center (Cisen in its Spanish abbreviation), give frank interviews regarding Mexico's current security situation.  The book, whose distribution was restricted to government officials and security experts, was leaked to the press.

by Rolando Ramos, El Economista

Javier Gonzalez Garza declared himself to be in favor of decriminalizing all types of marijuana use in Mexico.

The cannabis issue, said the president of the House of Representatives Political Coordinating Council and coordinator of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) faction in congress, has to be discussed apart from other types of drugs such as cocaine, heroine, opium, and synthetic drugs.

No Day in Court; Judge Will Call Venegas' Lawyer with Verdict

For the second week in a row, Oaxacan judge Amado Chiñas Fuentes delayed Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) adviser David Venegas' verdict in what Oaxaca commentator Nancy Davies referred to as "harassment by delay."  In a statement issued after the first postponement, Venegas' collective VOCAL wrote, "It is clear to us that the reason for the delay is to keep David Venegas tied up in the proceedings, thereby putting constraints on his full participation in the social movement. This is not the first case in which the tactic has been used. In fact, the practice of delays in sentencing and the eventual pronouncement of adverse sentences after such delays has been a common practice against social activists by these prosecutors disguised as judges. Moreover, the delay could also mean that the government is trying to test the waters of movement response to an adverse sentence."

"They wanted people in the movement to believe that my arrest wasn't politically motivated."

At midday on April 13, 2007, 24-year-old David Venegas, an advisor to the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), was walking with human rights lawyer Isaac Torres Carmona through El Llano park in downtown Oaxaca City.  Without warning, a group of men dressed head-to-toe in black clothing jumped out of a red pick-up truck without license plates and, as Venegas recounted to Narco News, "jumped on top of me."

The black-clad men were police.  Torres Carmona demanded to see an arrest warrant, but he says the police told him to shut up or he'd be the next one they beat up.  "Within a matter of minutes," says Torres Carmona, police threw Venegas in the pick-up truck and put a bag over his head.  Torres attempted to identify which police force was carrying out the action; one of the police yelled at him, "Write down the license plate number, asshole." 

US-funded Judicial Reform Creates Two Justice Systems: Citizens and Enemies of the State

When the US Congressed passed $700 million in funding for Mexico's drug war as part of the Merida Initiative, it included $35 million under the Economic Support Fund (ESF).  At least $20 million of ESF funds will be used to support Mexican judicial reform.[1]

by Andrés Manuel López Obrador

• Rejection of all interventionist behavior, Andrés Manuel López Obrador warns in a letter to Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State.
• Ready to "defend our right as a free and sovereign Nation"
• "It is an error to want to confront the problems of insecurity and violence with only an iron fist, soldiers, jails, tougher laws, and stiffer penalties."

Mexico City. March 25, 2009

Mrs. Hillary Clinton
Secretary of State
Government of the United States of America
Presente

The Mexican Military Uses the Cover of the Drug War to Repress Indigenous Movements in Guerrero

by Gloria Leticia Diaz, Proceso
translated from the original Spanish by Kristin Bricker

Guerrero's recent history is full of violence against its indigenous communities at the hands of the successive local governments and, especially, the military.  [Center-left] Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) member Zeferino Torreblanca's rise to power in 2005 didn't stop the attacks; instead, they got worse.  Within this context, the murder of social activists Raul Lucas and Manuel Ponce sparked international organizations' demand that the Mexican State end this escalation of repression. 

In 2006 there were eleven thousand youths involved in gangs; in 2008 the number rose to 26 thousand.  A military report confirms that Los Zetas financed the tapados protests.

by Diego E. Osorno, Milenio

Monterrey - Organized crime groups have beaten the state for control of Monterrey's poorest neighborhoods, as indicated by military reports, official surveys of state police, and sociological studies.

Recent statistics from the state Ministry of Public Security show that in the past two years the number of youths who enter gangs has doubled in Mexico's richest city.  According to official numbers--considered to be conservative by independent investigators--, in 2006 the authorities had counted 11,319 gang members, but last year the number rose to 26,023.