Over the past three weeks, the debate surrounding the strategy to fight the "war on drugs" in Mexico has resurfaced, leading President Felipe Calderón to admit that the current militarized approach used by his administration must be coupled with social initiatives to be successful. This change in attitude came after 16 teenagers were killed by a group of masked gunman in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico's most violent city located on the U.S.-Mexico border. According to witness' reports, seven SUVs carrying masked gunmen drove up to the house where the teens were celebrating their friend's birthday and stormed the house without warning, shooting at everyone they encountered.

This change of attitude also coincided with news that the conservative National Action Party (PAN) of President Calderón was considering an alliance with the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) in an attempt to defeat the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in this summer's upcoming gubernatorial races. Therefore, the decision to implement new social initiatives in the fight against narcotrafficking could be interpreted as the PAN's attempt to extend an olive branch to the more left-leaning PRI.

The recent attack hit a sore spot for many Mexicans, especially residents of Ciudad Juárez. Since President Calderon deployed the army throughout Mexico to combat narcotrafficking in late 2006, more than 17,000 people have been killed by drug-related violence. The Mexican government often explains the high murder and crime rates in cities such as Ciudad Juárez as the result of gang-on-gang violence, resulting in the criminalization of the victims of the fight against drugs in Mexico. The teens killed on January 31st have not been linked to organized crime or the drug trade, resulting in a highly publicized event that demonstrates the impact of the city's violence on innocent citizens and the failure of the militarized approach to organized crime and drug violence.

After the shooting, the families of the slain teens immediately demanded justice and blamed President Calderón for failing to prevent the mass murder. Mexico's Congress, dominated by the PRI opposition party, echoed their demands and the country's senators called for government officials in charge of security policy to both explain how this multiple murder could take place with over 5,500 soldiers deployed to the city and rewrite Mexico's counternarcotics strategy. Ciudad Juárez's mayor, José Reyes Ferriz, joined residents in a call for a social initiatives targeting the root of the problem, described by the mayor as "social decomposition" caused by "broken homes" which leaves teens "vulnerable to a gang's plea for membership."

In the face of increasing criticism, President Calderón admitted that "the deployment and presence of the Army and Federal Police is not enough" to stop the violence in Ciudad Juárez, and he promised to launch new social initiatives aimed to lower crime through "an integral strategy of social recomposition, prevention and treatment for addictions, a search for opportunities for employment and recreation and education for youth."

Last Thursday, President Calderón visited Ciudad Juárez to meet with some of the slain teens' families and face the criticisms that have resulted from the recent events. In the presence of angry protesters holding signs demanding his resignation, Calderón again admitted that the strategy must change, again promised new social initiatives for the city, and recognized a need for better coordination between the different levels and institutions of the government. "If those deaths... mean anything it is that we need to change after that absurd sacrifice," Calderón told Ciudad Juárez residents.

The new social initiatives, however, will not replace the military strategy. President Calderón insisted that "The violence (in Ciudad Juarez) is not due to the presence of federal forces.... The presence of the federal forces is due to the violence that was and still is there."

Over the weekend, 2,000 federal police were deployed to Ciudad Juárez to strengthen the soldiers already in the city and 500 additional agents will soon be deployed to focus on improving intelligence and dismantling the financial structures used by the cartels.

The social part of the new initiative, revealed yesterday with the name "Todos Somos Juárez, Reconstruyamos Nuestra Ciudad" ("We are all Juárez, We will rebuild our city"), includes an initial investment of $600 million pesos (about $46.5 million U.S. dollars) intended to "restore the social fabric" of the city. According to Mexico's El Universal, plans include allocating around $280 million pesos ($21.7 million USD) to education programs and the construction of new parks and schools, and around $360 million pesos ($28.9 million USD) for the renovation of hospitals and the construction of drug rehabilitation centers, anti-drug centers aimed at youth, and psychological help centers for residents experiencing trauma as a result of the violence in the city.

Some analysts claim the new plan is too little too late, comparing the announced initiatives to a doctor telling a lung cancer patient that he should stop smoking. Others say the social initiatives are misguided: that Ciudad Juárez does not need health and education programs, but instead needs to tackle deeper social problems such as hunger, victims of violence, and the city's growing population of orphans.

January 2010 has already been cited as one of Mexico's most violent months in recent years, with 933 organized crime-related deaths. When the United States implemented the Mérida Initiative in 2008 to help Mexico fight organized crime and narcotrafficking, groups including CIP, Amnesty International, LAWG and WOLA, warned that a militarized approach would not solve Mexico's problems, nor would it stop drugs from entering the United States. Instead, strengthening Mexico's police force and judicial system, addressing the military's human rights violations, and focusing on social initiatives were offered as viable programs.

The Calderón administration appears finally to be admitting that the militarized approach on its own has not worked. The recent events in Mexico can be viewed as an opportunity to reevaluate the war on drugs not only in Mexico, but throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

In 2007, President George W. Bush announced the Mérida Initiative, a 3-year, $1.4 billion program, most of it military and police assistance, to help Mexico and Central America fight organized crime and narcotrafficking. Congress first appropriated funds to the Mérida Initiative in the Fiscal Year 2008 supplemental appropriations bill, and have since appropriated nearly $1.3 billion for the initiative.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office, a branch of the U.S. Congress that audits and evaluates government policies, released a report (pdf) Thursday finding that as of September 30, 2009, only 2% of funds ($26 million) allocated to the Mérida Initiative since 2008 had been actually delivered. The report attributes the delay to three factors: "(1) statutory conditions on the funds, (2) challenges in fulfilling administrative procedures, and (3) the need to enhance institutional capacity on the part of both recipient countries and the United States to implement the assistance."

Interestingly, in 2003, the GAO released a similar report on the status of assistance appropriated to Colombia under Plan Colombia from 2000-2003 (pdf). The report only covered the allocation of assistance appropriated in 2000 to the Colombian Army, much of which had been delivered by June 2003, though it highlights similar financial and management challenges.

The most clear comparison between the two reports is the delay in delivering the helicopters provided under the two U.S.-funded programs. In the report on the Mérida Initiative, the time it takes for administrative procedures to be carried out, especially for the delivery of helicopters, was an important factor in slow delivery of Mérida assistance. The report cites one State Department official, who explains that "it typically takes between 3 to 6 months to negotiate and sign a contract for the provision of aircraft." Once the contract has been signed, it then takes another 12 to 18 months for a helicopter to be built, and 18-24 months for an airplane. Therefore, it would take anywhere from 15-24 months for a helicopter to be delivered. The report does say that the State Department expects five Bell helicopters to be delivered to Mexico sometime this month as a result of an attempt to expedite the process. Though it is noted that "the time lapse between funds being appropriated and a deliverable on the ground will still be about 18 months."

The earlier report on Plan Colombia noted an even longer lag in the delivery of helicopters. President Bill Clinton signed the Plan Colombia appropriation into law in July 2000, yet the first Black Hawk helicopters were delivered between July and December 2001 and not operational until November 2002 "because of a shortage of fully qualified Colombian Army pilots." 25 UH-II helicopters were also to be delivered between November 2001 and June 2002, however, "they were delivered between March and November 2002 instead because the Colombian military was considering whether to use a more powerful engine in the helicopters than the one usually installed." Those helicopters were not operational until June 2003, again due to a lack of qualified pilots. The Colombian Army did not have the operational helicopters promised under Plan Colombia for almost two and a half years - a long delay that makes the 18 month lag in delivering helicopters to Mexico look like an improvement, though the problem with training could arise as it did in Colombia.

Both reports also mentioned human rights conditions and a lack of institutional capacity as factors in the delay of aid delivery under these two prominent counternarcotics initiatives.

Many factors contribute to Mexico's ongoing violent drug war. While stopping the flow of drugs and weapons is of critical importance, many internal realities play a significant role in the Calderón government's inability to quell the violence by merely deploying additional troops and police officers to the high-conflict areas.

Recent articles on Mexico indicate that corruption, rule of law, poverty and a lack of trust in the police have combined to create an environment in Mexico where it is faster to take justice into one's own hands, more profitable to be involved in the illicit economy, and exceedingly difficult to reform the broken municipal and local police forces.

Corrupt police force
The Los Angeles Times published an article on the difficulty Mexico faces to "reverse a legacy of police corruption that has tainted whole departments, shattered people's faith in law enforcement and compromised one of society's most basic institutions." Despite the government's attempts to reform the corrupt police force into a new model stressing "technical sophistication and trustworthiness," the country has a tendency to trade in "one corrupt police agency for another." The article argues that this habit must be overcome if real change is to emerge with the new police model.

Vigilante groups
Vigilante groups are becoming more prominent in the violence-ridden areas of Mexico due to the lack of trust in the police force, as reported by both the Los Angeles Times and the Houston Chronicle.

Just last Wednesday, police had to rescue four suspected kidnappers from a mob of angry residents who wanted to punish them themselves. And two weeks ago, the mayor of one northern Mexico city, San Pedro Garza Garcia, announced that he had created a special group, which might act outside of the law in some ways, in order to clean up criminal elements in his city. This group was made public after the new mayor announced that a group of kidnappers who had terrorized his city were dead four hours before the police had found the bodies. When questioned about how he knew before the police, the mayor admitted it was thanks to the new special group.

We're tired of sitting around on our hands and waiting for daddy or mommy Calderón to come to fix our fights. We in San Pedro took the decision to grab the bull by the horns.... Even acting outside the limits of my role as mayor, I will end the kidnappings, extortions and drug trafficking. We are going to do this by whatever means, fair or foul.

Poverty and politics
The BBC also published an article yesterday on the difficulties the Mexican government is facing in defeating the drug cartels that have such a firm grasp on some cities. In addition to corruption and a lack of trust in the police, the article cites poverty and the current elitist political model as important underlying factors. According to the article, an "unsustainable economy" in cities such as Ciudad Juárez has driven "many into the arms of drug cartels," with the drug trade offering 30 times more money than one could earn as a teacher.

In their own way, each of these articles points to a similar conclusion - the Mexican government's current strategy of sending in more troops and firing local police is not sufficient. More attention is needed on tackling corruption, improving the rule of law, and strengthening the judiciary. While most importantly, reliable security and alternative economic opportunities for the local population are necessary to deter even more citizens from entering the illicit and dangerous economy of drugs and murder.

This was originally posted on the Latin America Working Group's website

Challenges and Opportunities to Strengthen Law Enforcement at the State and Local Level in Mexico

On September 17, 2009 the Latin America Working Group Education Fund and the Washington Office on Latin America joined with the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center to host a discussion regarding police reform in Mexico. Researchers and public officials who have spent years exploring these issues participated in this discussion: Edgar Mohar, former Secretary of Citizen Security of the state of Querétaro; Juan Salgado, Associate Professor at the Center for Economic Research and Education (CIDE) in Mexico City; and Daniel Sabet, Visiting Professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh of Foreign Service.

The Calderón administration has relied heavily upon the Mexican military to combat drug cartel related violence with the rationale that local police units are too corrupt and ineffective to fulfill this role. Efforts to reform and professionalize the police have been focusing on the federal police, despite the fact that local state and municipal police forces compose 72% of Mexico’s collective law enforcement.

As noted by the speakers, the principal strategy currently used to combat drug-related violence—widespread deployment of the military—has been inappropriate and is far too blunt of an instrument for the task. Firstly, military soldiers are not trained to handle civilian policing processes. Secondly, the military is not trained to engage in domestic law enforcement, leaving it highly prone to abusing human rights. History has shown us that the military is not a substitute for effective and transparent civilian police institutions, so focusing reform efforts on these entities is essential.

According to the panel, a lack of accountability is one of the most significant challenges facing efforts to reform civilian law enforcement in Mexico. Many state and municipal police mechanisms designed to enhance accountability are challenged by a lack of continuity. When new officials get elected and local governments turn over from one party to another, political priorities and agendas change, having major impacts on the durability of reforms and local police administration.

However, it is important to note that encouraging advancements have been made. An important trend emerging in Mexican police recruiting procedures has been the requirements on increasing education. For example, just a few years ago one could be recruited into a police force in Querétaro with only an elementary-level education. Now, high school completion with one full year of basic police academy training is required for recruitment and a University degree is required for top-rank promotions.

The municipality of Chihuahua has also undergone multiple reform initiatives, including implementation of internal affairs mechanisms and public citizen committees, to achieve Mexico’s first CALEA (Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies) accreditation. By being CALEA-accredited, the municipal police force of Chihuahua has met a long list of standards that ensure more effective training and operations for cops.

Click here to read a story in the Christian Science Monitor that further covers this topic.

For more information, check out the full presentations here.

In early September, the number of people killed by drug-related violence in Mexico surpassed 5,000, prompting us to write on this blog that "it looks like 2009 is assured to be more violent than 2008 - which ended with 5,600 narcoviolence-related murders." Unfortunately, it took less than one month for the number of such murders in Mexico to surpass 2008 levels, reaching 5,874 murders by the end of September.

The image below was posted on the Security in Latin America blog today and is from the Mexican newspaper Milenio. It breaks down the narcoviolence-related murder rate in Mexico in various ways, providing an interesting and unsettling picture of Mexico's increasing violence. Because the image is in Spanish, here are a few statistics that stand out:

Mexico's El Universal reported last week that the number of deaths by narcoviolence in 2009 surpassed 5,000 on Thursday morning, reaching 5,018 by the end of the day. With narcoviolence-related deaths already surpassing 5,000 in early September, it looks like 2009 is assured to be more violent than 2008 - which ended with 5,600 narcoviolence-related murders.

The article in El Universal breaks down the numbers of narcoviolence-related deaths to show how fast narcoviolence in Mexico is increasing. Here are some of those statistics:

• Under Mexican President Felipe Calderón's government, there have been 13,599 murders related to organized crime;
• The most recent 1,000 narcoviolence-related deaths of 2009 occurred in 41 days (August 1 - September 10);
• During those 41 days, a minimum of 24 crimes/day were reported - or one crime per hour;
• The first 1,000 narcoviolence-related deaths of 2009 occurred in 51 days, the second 1,000 in 59 days, the third 1,000 in 58 days and the fourth 1,000 in 44 days;
• Of the most recent 1,000 deaths, 487 were in Chihuahua, specifically in Ciudad Juárez where the Juárez and Sinaloa cartels fight for control of trafficking routes across the border into the United States;
• In 2009, narcoviolence-related deaths has occurred all over the country, except in Tlaxcala and Yucatán;
• The two most violent days of 2009 were August 17th, with 57 deaths, and September 2nd, with 52 deaths.

If the narcoviolence-related death rate (1,000 deaths/41 days) continues at its current pace, the remaining months of 2009 could add almost 2,750 more deaths to the 5,018 already cited by El Universal.

On Wednesday, Mexican President Felipe Calderón gave his third state of the union address to the National Congress. One of the major topics he touched on was security and the fight against drug cartels. President Calderón pledged to continue his "full frontal attack ... in the fight against the powerful drug cartels that threaten the national security of Mexico."

In his address, Calderón recited the following statistics on successes against the drug cartels:

We have seized nearly 50,000 weapons and nearly 22,000 vehicles while the amount of drugs we have confiscated would suffice to provide all Mexicans between the ages of 15 and 30 with over 80 doses.

In the past 12 months alone, 1,400 kidnappers have been arrested, over 200 gangs have been dismantled and over a thousand kidnap victims have been released.

Yet, President Calderón also noted that "I am the first one to recognize that what has been done is insufficient when we look at the view of the Mexico we aspire to."

The Mexican press cited Calderón's speech as "old demagogy" and "recycled campaign promises."

The news coverage of the speech is accompanied by coverage of more violence throughout Mexico. Yesterday, 17 patients at a Mexican clinic in Ciudad Juarez were killed by hooded gunmen and the No. 2 security official and three others were shot dead in Mexico's Michoacan state.

The United States recently released $214 million to aid Mexico in its fight against drug trafficking, which includes funds for five helicopters for the military. In mid-August, the State Department also released a favorable report on human rights in Mexico, allowing for the release of an additional $100 million in aid - an act that human rights organizations in Mexico and the United States have condemned.

This was originally posted by Vanessa Kritzer and Jennifer Johnson on the Latin America Working Group's blog.

We were disappointed and troubled to learn last week that the U.S. government had released the chunk of Merida Initiative funds that were supposed to have been withheld until the State Department reported that Mexico had demonstrated progress in key areas of human rights.

Soon after the news of the release was confirmed, the Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center, the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center, and the Fundar Center for Analysis and Investigation, three prominent Mexican human rights NGOs, released a public statement condemning the U.S. government’s action, as the “human rights obligations remain unfulfilled as Mexican security forces commit widespread, unpunished violations against the civilian population.”

Click here to read their statement in English.

Para leer el pronunciamiento en Español haga clic aquí.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who recently exercised his position as Chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations to freeze these funds, also issued a public statement expressing his deep disappointment that the State Department had “issued its report prematurely when there is so little progress to report.”

Senator Leahy also remarked that the report issued by the State Department about the status of human rights in Mexico “is most notable for how little it says about the key issue - impunity within the Mexican military. It is well known that the military justice system is manifestly ineffective, and it is apparent that neither the Mexican government nor the State Department has treated human rights abuses by the military, which is engaging in an internal police function it is ill-suited for, as a priority since the law was enacted over a year ago…Reform of Mexico's dysfunctional judicial system…is critical to the success of the Merida Initiative and to addressing the culture of lawlessness that pervades Mexican society.”

According to a recent post on DipNote, the State Department's blog, a "tech.del" sponsored by the State Department is currently visiting Mexico. The participants are representatives from U.S. new media and telecommunications firms (including Google, Facebook, and Microsoft), State Department representatives, and an academic and the goal is to "look at how new media and technology tools can help Mexican citizens amplify their voices against narco-violence."

Here is an excerpt from the post by Suzanne Hall, the Public Diplomacy Advisor for Canada and Mexico in the State Department's Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, "'Tech.Del' to Mexico: Using Technology to Encourage Citizen Participation."

This "tech.del" is the first that we have organized in the Western Hemisphere. We arrived yesterday in Juarez and kicked off our visit with a night border tour organized by Customs and Border Patrol agents. The idea was to give tech.del participants an idea of the breadth and depth of the U.S.-Mexico bilateral relationship. Our border is characterized by an enormous amount of trade in goods and people, both licit and illicit. Today we will have the opportunity to meet with NGOs, journalist associations, business associations and academics from Juarez and the surrounding region who are working with local citizens to improve the security situation on the ground here. Our goal will be to listen to their objectives and the challenges they face, and review how existing technological applications can provide a venue for citizens of Juarez and beyond to better organize, share information on criminal acts and overcome personal security concerns to take a proactive stand against drug cartel violence.

After a full day of meetings in Juarez today, we will fly to Mexico City later this evening. On Wednesday, the tech.del participants will meet with Mexico City-based mobile providers, federal government representatives, NGOs and academics to hear the view from the capital. Working with the Mexican government, our starting point is that any long term solution to the challenge of drug violence in Mexico needs to include a grassroots, citizen-based response. Our goal is to identify real deliverables, partnering with the various Mexican institutions we will meet to create a space for the citizens of Mexico to feel secure in finding their voice against the cartels.