Pubdate: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 Source: Economist, The (UK) Copyright: 2007 The Economist Newspaper Limited Contact: http://www.economist.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/132 Alert: Just Say NO To 'Plan Mexico' http://www.mapinc.org/alert/0352.html Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Plan+Mexico (Plan Mexico) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Felipe+Calderon Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Mexico (Mexico) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Plan+Colombia PLAN MEXICO ON TAKING office as Mexico's president last December, Felipe Calderon made a crackdown against drug gangs his first action. He was prompted by violence that has seemed to spiral out of control in the past few years, with hundreds of murders--and severed heads dumped in public places. He sent the army into nine states, announced a reform of the police--and began talking to the United States about an aid package. The details are now close to being finalised. An announcement may come on August 20th or 21st at a meeting in Quebec between Mr Calderon, George Bush and Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper. Though neither side will be keen to say so, the aid scheme is likely to bear some resemblance to Plan Colombia, under which the United States has given aid totalling some $5 billion over the past seven years. According to Mexico's attorney-general, Eduardo Medina Mora, discussions were still under way but the aid would be geared to equipment and training. Ever since a 19th-century war in which Mexico lost half its territory to the United States, its politicians have been fiercely touchy about anything that smacks of foreign intervention. In Colombia several hundred American troops have acted as trainers and advisers, though they have not played a direct role in operations. American firms, working under contract to the State Department, have sprayed coca fields with weedkiller. Mr Medina Mora stresses that Mexico will run all crime-fighting operations on its territory. The government is unlikely to welcome a visible American presence. So the aid is likely to be concentrated on improving the mobility and intelligence capabilities of Mexico's security forces, by providing aircraft, phone-tapping gear and training in infiltration and surveillance techniques. It may also include cash to supplement the miserly salaries that make it so easy for the traffickers to buy off provincial policemen and prosecutors in the often isolated areas they control. Any aid is likely to have to be approved by the United States Congress, now controlled by the Democrats. They have grown increasingly hostile to Plan Colombia. This has indeed had little impact on the flow of cocaine to the United States. But it has helped Colombia's government to retake control of large areas of the country from guerrillas and paramilitaries. In recent years Mexico's trafficking gangs have come to control much of the import of cocaine and methamphetamine by the United States, and a large chunk of its distribution north of the border. Mexicans note that their country is paying a high price in violence for the failure of drug prohibition across the border. Officials also point out that the Mexican victims of drug violence are often killed with firearms smuggled in from the United States, where slack gun laws make automatic weapons easy to obtain. Mr Calderon is claiming that the crackdown is starting to have an effect. But a recent lull in the killings may merely be the result of a peace pact between the two main rival mobs, the Gulf "cartel" and that from the western state of Sinaloa. They are said to have agreed on a division of territory. Even if true, that may not end the violence: 13 drug-related killings were reported in a single day earlier this month. Any aid package is bound to attract opposition on both sides of the border. Human-rights groups question the use of the army for police work. No amount of aid will improve matters unless Mexico's largely useless police forces undergo radical reform. But many Mexicans may reckon that Mr Calderon is right that those who consume the lion's share of the traffickers' product should help to pay for dealing with their mayhem. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake