Pubdate: Mon, 9 Mar 2009
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2009 Guardian News and Media Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author: Dan Glaister,  in Los Angeles

AS GUNS GO SOUTH, DRUGS - AND VIOLENCE - GO NORTH

For the Obama White House, pondering how to reshape the Bush
administration's war on drugs, the concerns presented by the deepening
crisis in Mexico are twofold.

The first was highlighted by the chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, talking
about US-Mexican counter-narcotics co-operation. "They want to clearly
stop the guns from the United States going south. We want to stop the
drugs coming north," he said.

The second concern is about another equally pernicious commodity
migrating north: the violence. The announcement last month that 730
people had been arrested across the US following a 21-month
investigation into Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel confirms suspicions
that the cartels are taking root in the US.

A succession of drug-related incidents has fuelled concerns. In
January a man was kidnapped outside his home in suburban Phoenix,
Arizona. Initially, his family denied anything was wrong. Later, they
admitted he was involved in a drugs deal gone sour and his captors
were demanding $150,000 (UKP 106,000) .

Within two days he had been freed with the help of Arizona's recently
formed kidnap unit, set up in response to the increase in ransom
cases. Last year Phoenix police received 366 kidnap-for-ransom
reports, a figure they estimate represents half of the true total.

Further east in Texas, governor Rick Perry has called on the
government to send 1,000 additional troops to help police the border.
"I don't care whether they're military troops, or they're national
guard troops or whether they're customs agents," he said. Noting the
proximity of one of the centres of violence, Ciudad Juarez, Perry
admitted he was concerned. "One of the deadliest cities on the north
American continent," he said. "Darn tootin' it concerns us."

Obama was briefed on Friday by the chairman of the joint chiefs of
staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, who compared the challenge in Mexico to
that of dealing with insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. America, he
said, was ready to provide the kind of "intelligence support,
capabilities and tactics that have evolved for us in our fight against
networks in the terrorist world. There are an awful lot of
similarities."

The other crucial tie between the two neighbours is weaponry. Mexican
authorities say they seized 20,000 weapons from the drug cartels last
year. With the purchase of firearms difficult in Mexico, authorities
conclude that most of the weapons came from the US.

The US bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)
estimates that 90% of firearms seized in Mexico come from north of the
border. Of the 2,400 weapons traced back to the US, 1,800 came from
dealers in the four US border states, where more than 6,500 gun
dealers operate.

The scale of the arms trade can be shocking. On 7 November last year,
Jaime Gonzalez Duran - known as El Hummer - a leading member of a
Mexican drug cartel, was arrested in Reynosa. A day earlier, police
raided a safe house belonging to El Hummer and made the largest
weapons seizure in Mexican history.

Homeland security and the ATF say that the Mexican cartels bypass gun
control laws in Mexico by paying US citizens to buy guns for them.

While a drugs strategy may be difficult to elaborate on, officials
believe something can be done on guns, at least. The homeland security
secretary, Janet Napolitano, has instructed the customs and border
protection service "to find guns going south and interdict them".
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake