Pubdate: Sun, 25 Jan 2009
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2009 Los Angeles Times
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/bc7El3Yo
Website: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Ken Ellingwood, Reporting from Mexico City
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Felipe+Calderon
Bookmark: Mexico Under Siege (Series) http://mapinc.org/find?255
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Obama
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/walters.htm (Walters, John)

Mexico Under Siege

CALDERON SEEKS TO DISPEL TALK OF 'FAILING STATE'

Two Recent U.S. Reports Paint a Dire Picture of Mexico As Its Battle 
Against Drug Crime Grows More Bloody, but Mexican Officials Say That 
Though Some Cities Are in Trouble, the State Itself Is Strong.

Stark assessments of the threat that drug crime poses to Mexico's 
stability have put the government of President Felipe Calderon on the 
defensive as he tries to forge a relationship with a new U.S. president.

Rising violence, spurred in part by Calderon's 2-year-old offensive 
against drug traffickers, has prompted some officials and analysts in 
the United States to warn that Mexico faces a risk of collapse within 
several years.

The U.S. Joint Forces Command recommended that Mexico be monitored 
alongside Pakistan as a "weak and failing" state that could crumble 
swiftly under relentless assault by violent drug cartels.

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, the former U.S. drug 
agency director, said in a separate analysis on Mexico that the 
government "is not confronting dangerous criminality -- it is 
fighting for its survival against narco-terrorism" and could lose 
effective control of large swaths near the U.S. border. The outgoing 
CIA director, Michael V. Hayden, listed Mexico with Iran as a 
possible top challenge for President Obama. And former U.S. House 
Speaker Newt Gingrich said this month that Mexico could turn into a 
surprise crisis for the new president by year's end.

The assessments come as Calderon seeks to assert that gains have been 
made in his government's fight against drug traffickers, a campaign 
that has aggravated violent feuding among gangs vying to supply the 
lucrative U.S. market for narcotics. More than 5,300 people died in 
the violence last year.

Mexican officials and most analysts here scoff at depictions of 
Mexico as a failed or failing state. They say it bears little 
resemblance to basket cases such as Somalia, Haiti or Sudan, with 
their weak central governments, sectarian blood-letting or fleeing populace.

"It's a very bad analysis," said Raul Benitez, an expert on security 
and U.S.-Mexico relations at the National Autonomous University of 
Mexico. "Mexico has some failed institutions inside the government, 
but not the whole state."

Few deny that lawlessness prevails in cities such as Ciudad Juarez 
and Tijuana, and that corruption has chewed deep into law enforcement 
agencies and the courts. Still, many analysts say, the government's 
basic authority remains intact in most of the country, and the daily 
violence is nothing like that of a civil war.

"You have places where things are not going well, but that hardly 
makes a failed state," said one U.S. official. "And there's an 
incredible resolve by the Calderon government to address those challenges."

But the darker assessments have put the Calderon administration in 
the awkward position of making a strong enough case for increased 
U.S. help while trying to stave off the kind of talk that could scare 
off tourists and foreign investors.

"These analyses are a big strike against Calderon," Benitez said. "He 
wants the attention, but not the attention for the bad things."

Mexican officials dismiss the idea that their nation's problems 
represent a threat to the United States. But they have emphasized 
that the United States must do more to curb drug use and to help stem 
the flow of guns across the border. Calderon reiterated that drug 
violence is a shared problem during a visit with Obama on Jan. 12, a 
week before the inauguration.

Calderon has deployed 45,000 troops and 5,000 federal police officers 
around the country as part of the anti-drug offensive. His 
administration has said the violence among the cartels is a sign that 
the campaign is putting pressure on traffickers' ability to smuggle 
drugs into the U.S.

"It seems unacceptable to me that Mexico would be deemed a security 
risk," the interior minister, Fernando Gomez Mont, told reporters 
this month. "There are problems in Mexico that we are dealing with, 
that we can continue to deal with."

Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa also plays down the possible 
threat to the central government, saying killings have been 
concentrated mainly in four drug-trafficking hubs: Ciudad Juarez, 
Culiacan, Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo.

Denials by Mexican officials, however vehement, probably won't be 
enough to stanch the grave assessments as long as the nation shakes 
with violence.

"They're pushing back, but I think the evidence is on the other 
side," said George W. Grayson, a Mexico scholar who teaches at the 
College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. "You've got more 
cartels, in more diverse activities. They're in more states. They're 
killing more people. They're kidnapping more people and getting more 
attention for the savagery of their acts."

Few here expect Mexico to rise to the top of Obama's long list of 
urgent foreign-policy worries, which include the wars in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and questions over how 
to handle Pakistan.

An Obama-Calderon relationship is yet to be forged. Calderon's visit 
with Obama in Washington produced general vows of close cooperation, 
but no immediate indication of big shifts on the most ticklish 
bilateral issues, including migration.

Calderon enjoyed the firm support of former President Bush, a fellow 
conservative, and the two governments usually sang from the same page 
when it came to Mexico's military-led strategy against drug traffickers.

The Bush administration consistently praised Calderon's efforts to 
fight crime and corruption, despite setbacks. The U.S. ambassador 
here was a onetime Bush aide, Tony Garza. He stepped down Tuesday and 
his replacement has not yet been named.

Calderon probably can count on continued U.S. backing, primarily 
through the $1.4-billion security-aid package known as the Merida 
initiative. The first $400 million was approved by Congress last 
year, and has begun flowing after some delay.

The aid will provide the Mexican military with six helicopter troop 
carriers and a surveillance airplane, truck scanners, police 
equipment and law-enforcement training and technical help.

Obama has pledged continued support, including trying to curtail 
gun-running from the United States. But the administration has not 
shown signs of the alarm sounded by McCaffrey, who said a failure by 
Mexico to curb violence "could result in a surge of millions of 
refugees" across the U.S. border. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake