Pubdate: Wed, 01 May 2013
Source: Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ)
Copyright: 2013 USA Today
Contact: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/sendaletter.html
Website: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/24
Author: By David Agren, USA Today

MEXICO SHIFTS FOCUS TO DOLLARS, NOT DRUG CARTELS

ACAPULCO, Mexico - Catholic priest Jesus Mendoza ministers to a 
workingclass neighborhood in the hills of Acapulco that are a world 
away from the tourist resort destination below.

He says one parishioner had three of his daughters abducted for a 
$2,500 ransom. Business owners are being forced to pay off 
extortionists. And 120 parishioners are either missing, kidnapped or 
have been killed over the past six years.

When President Barack Obama arrives in Mexico on Thursday, he will 
come to a country that is still suffering from widespread violence 
against ordinary citizens from organized criminal and drug cartels. 
But he will also find that Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto, who 
took office Dec. 1, has little interest in talking about crime or 
getting more help from the United States to combat it.

"This new government has a media strategy to minimize the subject of 
violence as the country's main problem and give the impression that 
good times are coming, beginning with their actions," Mendoza said.

That campaign, say Mendoza and others, is to market Mexico to the 
world by tamping down talk of a country where drug kingpins control 
whole districts with unremitting violence and portray Mexico as an 
emerging economic power and safe haven for foreign investment.

That strategy was on display this week when the Interior Ministry 
announced that U.S. federal law enforcement agencies will no longer 
be allowed to work directly with its police and intelligence 
departments but must go through the ministry itself.

Mexico's drug syndicates are the No. 1 supplier of illegal drugs into 
the United States. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has said 
Mexico cartels are also infiltrating drug-selling operations in major 
U.S. cities and taking over.

According to a 2011 Justice Department report, Mexican drug cartels 
"represent the greatest organized crime threat to the United States."

Obama visits Mexico on Thursday and Friday for meetings expected to 
touch on economic issues as much security. But the Pena Nieto 
administration intends to emphasize matters such as achieving 
structural changes in the energy sector and tax system, creating jobs 
and growing the Mexican economy.

Analysts say Pena Nieto is distancing himself from the security 
problems to improve Mexico's image abroad.

"He is downplaying the number of murders," says George Grayson, 
Mexico expert at the College of William & Mary. "He wants to turn the 
debate to social and economic issues."

Pena Nieto has stopped publicizing the high-profile arrests and 
police actions that Calderon trumpeted in his administration's 
anti-crime crackdown.

He has ended the perp walks, when captured cartel kingpins were 
paraded before the press. The military no longer invites the media to 
witness soldiers burning marijuana plantations and tanks rolling over 
seized weapons.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom