Pubdate: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 Source: Wichita Eagle (KS) Contact: http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/editorial/4664538.htm Copyright: 2005 The Wichita Eagle Website: http://www.wichitaeagle.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/680 Author: Alfredo Corchado and Tracey Eaton, The Dallas Morning News Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Mexico Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Nuevo+Laredo SURGING MEXICAN VIOLENCE DRAWS COMPARISONS TO COLOMBIA CENIZO, Texas - When he looks across the Rio Grande into Nuevo Laredo, Webb County Sheriff Rick Flores sees not the friendly Mexican border town he knew growing up, but the violent trappings of another country far to the south. "It's a sad, scary sight," he said. "We are in the United States of America, and just across this border, the Colombianization of Mexico is slowly taking shape." In describing the surging drug violence along the U.S.-Mexico border and elsewhere in Mexico, Flores and other law enforcement officials and analysts are increasingly referring to Colombia, where the Medellin drug cartel and other criminal organizations waged war on the government and killed hundreds of people during the 1980s. The level of mayhem in Mexico still does not approach Colombia's violence then, when politicians, dozens of judges and hundreds of police officers were killed. Kingpin Pablo Escobar was also blamed for the deaths of more than 1,000 civilians, including the bombing of an in-flight commercial jetliner, killing all 107 aboard. Police commandos killed Escobar in 1993. Compared with Colombia, Mexico has had relative calm since the 1910 Mexican Revolution. But new, menacing signs abound: An estimated 1,100 people have been killed in drug-related slayings so far this year, and analysts say that the epicenter of the hemisphere's drug war has shifted to Mexico. Lawlessness has surged along the border. In the embattled city of Nuevo Laredo alone, 136 people have been killed this year, including 21 current and former police officers and a City Council member, raising concern among U.S. law enforcement officials. Violence has flared in Mexico's interior as well, in states including Michoacan, Guerrero and Sinaloa. On Sept. 16, suspected drug traffickers gunned down Rogelio Zarazua Ortega, the head of Michoacan's state police, as he dined with his wife and friends. The Mexican government is providing protection for at least eight federal judges handling drug cases who have received threats. Responding to the border violence, the U.S. government last week announced that it was sending a team of federal agents to Laredo, and top U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials pledged to step up cooperative efforts against the traffickers. Texas Gov. Rick Perry said the state would devote nearly $10 million to improving border security. Mexican Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca acknowledged that the seven major drug organizations operating in Mexico have increased their reach to practically every corner of the country, corrupting even some new members of the elite AFI agency, Mexico's version of the FBI. While the corruption and threats aren't new, some analysts express concern about the long-term consequences for Mexico, particularly if the government fails to control the violence. "The bad news is that this is beginning to look like the violence we saw in Colombia," said Jorge Chabat, a Mexico City expert on national security issues and organized crime. "The good news is that this conflict is identifiable, and it's one that the government is responding to specifically. I'm not saying that we won't get to a Colombia-like situation, but if the government can step in successfully, the situation is still containable." A U.S. investigator, speaking on condition of anonymity, was skeptical that the violence would be contained. "Nuevo Laredo is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many warning signs across Mexico," the investigator said, "and how the government responds, for example on extradition issues, will go a long ways in responding to many of our doubts and fears. Today, Mexican kingpins are just as powerful, if not more, than their Colombian counterparts. The balance of power is shifting fast." The threat in Mexico is rising because of a shift in the drug trade, U.S. anti-drug officials and drug-trade specialists say. Mexico - and not Colombia - is now headquarters for the Western hemisphere's most important drug traffickers. "Since the fall of the big Colombian cartels from Medellin and Cali, the power center in the Latin American drug trade has shifted to Mexico," said Ron Chepesiuk, journalist and author of "Drug Lords: The Rise and Fall of the Cali Cartel." "The violence is getting worse, I suspect, because the Mexicans are playing a bigger ... more lucrative role in the trade." The rising violence has been accompanied by reports of mutilated bodies and brazen daylight executions. "The violence and corruption is getting worse and worse, like a cancer," said Aaron Pena, who became a Texas state lawmaker and anti-drug activist after his 16-year-old son died in a drug-related death. "It's literally at America's doorstep, and it's about to explode," he said. "It's a problem we can't simply blame on the Mexicans. At its root, it's our problem. It is the demand for drugs that causes this to happen." Flores recently received an alert from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, warning his office and other law enforcement agencies on the border about a possible alliance between the Zetas, the armed enforcers of the gulf drug cartel, and rogue members of the Kaibiles, a Guatemalan special forces unit whose members are known for their jungle fighting skills. Seven Guatemalans, including four thought to be former Kaibiles, were arrested recently in southern Mexico, the Defense Ministry said last week. "There are now possible new players in this drug war, and we have to take this very seriously, even if it's just an alert," Flores said. "This opens the possibility of a definite change in the mix of violence and dynamics that we face along the border." Flores has advised his deputies to proceed with caution. "I've told them to consider the consequences of their actions very closely," he said. "Besides, we don't have the resources to even begin a war. We're outmatched. They have rocket-propelled grenades. They've got bazookas. They'll blow a squad car into the air." Rami Schwartz, a Mexican radio commentator and founder of Mexico.com, one of the country's leading Internet portals, said he believes that drug corruption is so pervasive in Mexico - nearly half of the Nuevo Laredo's police force was fired because of suspected collaboration with drug traffickers - that the country is "way beyond Colombianization." He points out that 121 of the DEA's 535 most-wanted fugitives are Mexicans - more than any other nation and more than three times Colombia's 34. Mexican authorities dispute such talk. Gen. Alvaro Moreno Moreno, who oversees anti-drug efforts in Nuevo Laredo, has said the dark cloud over Nuevo Laredo is lifting. Drug-related killings have declined since the military and federal agents began the second phase of a national anti-crime program in early August. Local officials say they're seeing some success, too. "Things are calming down," Nuevo Laredo Police Chief Omar Pimentel said. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake