In the past month, reports of worsening violence throughout Latin America have almost become a daily occurrence. Last week, we wrote about the increasing violence in El Salvador and we have have reported on the increasing drug-related violence in Mexico various times. However, countries such as Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Panama and Colombia are also reporting a worrisome increase in violent crime in 2009.

Below are summaries of recent reports of increasing violence throughout the region.

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.

Today's Washington Post headline, "New Strategy Urged in Mexico," warns that Mexican President "Calderón's U.S.-backed war against drug cartels is losing political support" due to a failed strategy of militarization.

There are now sustained calls in Mexico for a change in tactics, even from allies within Calderón's political party, who say the deployment of 45,000 soldiers to fight the cartels is a flawed plan that relies too heavily on the blunt force of the military to stem soaring violence and lawlessness.

According to the article, "U.S. officials said they now believe Mexico faces a longer and bloodier campaign than anticipated and is likely to require more American aid." However, just throwing more aid at the problem is not going to solve the increased violence and bloodshed in Mexico, and as Bloggings by Boz pointed out this morning, what Mexico really needs is a strategy, not a new strategy.

[I]t's up to Calderon and others in Mexico to piece it all together, provide a vision, set the priorities and lay out some sort of timetable for what will likely be a long struggle, one that will likely continue beyond Calderon's presidency and will have to adapt to changing events. Calderon doesn't need a new strategy, he just needs a strategy. Then we can debate the strategy overall and the components within.

United States and Mexican government officials however, according to the Washington Post, "say the military strategy, while difficult, is working. Since Calderón took office in December 2006, authorities have arrested 76,765 suspected drug traffickers at all levels and have extradited 187 cartel members to the United States. Calderón's security advisers said they have few options besides the army -- as they just begin to vet and retrain the police forces they say will ultimately take over the fight. "

Yet, "drug-related deaths during the 2 1/2 years of Calderón's administration passed 12,000 this month. Rather than shrinking or growing weaker, the Mexican cartels are using their wealth and increasing power to expand into Central America, cocaine-producing regions of the Andes and maritime trafficking routes in the eastern Pacific...."

As pointed out in the Proceso article highlighted on this blog yesterday, mass troop deployments and "tough talk" have not stopped the cartels, and the lack of coordination, due to a lack of a coherent strategy, stifles the attempt to regain control of areas controlled and overrun by the various drug cartels. Perhaps instead of forging forward on the same path of increased military deployments, Mexico and the United States need to sit down and develop a comprehensive and coordinated strategy that focuses more heavily on human rights, and judicial and police reform.

Last week, 2,500 additional troops were deployed to Michoacán, a state in western Mexico, after twenty Federal Police were killed and eighteen wounded by organized crime groups between July 11 and July 15. This deployment brings the total number of troops in Michoacán to 5,500.

One week has passed, however an article in Mexico's Proceso argues that the deployment and the "tough talk" by the Minister of the Interior merely served as propaganda, and that "not one police squad or military convoy was found" during a tour of over 1000 km in Michoacán. The article credits part of the problem to the lack of coordination between the police and the armed forces.

While another Proceso article from last Saturday reports that 11 members of La Familia have been detained in Michoacán, perhaps as a result of the increased deployment, today's article brings attention to what could become a problem in the way the increase in military presence throughout Mexico is being carried out - with too little coordination and too much propaganda.

Below is a translation of today's article in Proceso, titled "Federal forces in Michoacán: The elite and those below." The entire article can be read here.

In its first week, the new military deployment in Michoacán only had propagandistic effects, as did the Minister of the Interior's saber-rattling. In a tour through various municipalities, this newspaper confirmed that the federal forces have not regained control of the state. The lack of coordination between the Army, the Navy, and the Federal Police and, above all, the difference in how members of each group live in the "battle front" are notorious. ...

The deployment was spectacular: 1,000 soldiers in formations, armed with guns and bazookas, in the patio of the XXI Military Zone base in Morelía, to frame the challenge that the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Gómez Mont, launched hours before in Mexico City to La Familia Michoacana: "We are waiting for you.

...

But the exhibition of weapons, armed vehicles, Marines, and Artillery and Special Operations forces, the discourse about respect for human rights, and the fly overs of helicopters with journalists in the capital of Michoacán remained acts of propaganda, at least in the first week of the reinforced operation.

In a tour of over 1000 km by Proceso, between Monday, July 20 and Friday, July 24, through Tierra Calienta and la Costa - zones under the control of La Familia - not one police squad or military convoy was found.

The day after the dramatic military deployment, Gómez Mont met with the governor of Michoacán, Leonel Godoy, at the Ministry of the Interior. Later, he emerged to challenge the narcos:

"Your primary logic was not to confront the State, but you are doing it directly: gentlemen, we are waiting for you. Meddle with the authorities, not with citizens. We are waiting for you, that is an invitation from us to you."

Four days after the deployment, the Ministry of Defense admitted to the lack of coordination. Friday, July 24, the newspaper ReformaProceso proved that these forces are only carrying out coordinated patrols in Morelia, as each one arrived in Michoacán with their own strategy.

Increasingly, major U.S. news sources are covering the rapidly spreading violence in Mexico's border towns and throughout the country. Today, it made the front page of the Washington Post after a Mexican general, along with his bodyguard and his driver, was tortured and killed in Cancun last week. He had been there less than one week, recently recruited by Cancun's Mayor to "train and run an elite special forces police group."

Despite Mexican President Felipe Calderón's attempts to push back the drug cartels and 'retake the streets' of many border towns creeping with cartel members and drug violence, the drug cartels are merely stepping up their violence in retaliation. A Reuters article covers a new tactic employed by Mexican drug gangs: breaking into police radio frequencies and issuing chilling death threats to cops while playing 'narcocorrido' music in the background. Once the death threats are issued, "no one can help them," according to one Mexican officer, and the officers who are named are often found dead within hours. While, according to the article, the drug cartels had infiltrated the radio after police executions in the past, the new tactic has terrorized the police force and many officers have taken early retirement as a result - or rely on their prayers for protection.

As the trend so far has indicated, more weapons for and presence of the police and military has only led to escalating violence by the cartels and increasingly excruciating and fear-inducing tactics. If more and more police and high ranking military officers are killed in Mexico's drug-related violence, President Calderón is going to have a hard time finding honest and 'incorruptible' officers to fill the ranks, and the United States will have to closely monitor the police and military recipients of training and equipment allocated through the Mérida Initiative.

While last week we speculated about what would happen if the drug cartels in Mexico actually reached a truce, this week's news coverage on Mexico remains grim. According to El Universal, 508 people were killed in drug-related violence in January 2009 alone - more than double the amount of deaths in January 2008.

An article in Sunday's Washington Post cites the increasing difficulty lawyers face in Ciudad Juarez as a result of the increase in drug-related violence and threats against their families. The article alludes to a breakdown in the justice system and the military's takeover of law enforcement as major obstacles to trying drug offenders. As law enforcement and the justice system lose hold in the region, other institutions, such as schools and hospitals, become undermined by increased violence.

Lawyers in Ciudad Juarez describe a chaotic legal landscape in which they are threatened by their clients, opposed by biased judges and harassed by the Mexican military, which has sent 2,500 troops to the city and has taken over law enforcement duties here, mostly by running heavily armored patrols and setting up roadblocks, but also by pursuing its own investigations, interrogations and detentions.

"In this environment, it is almost impossible to do your job," said Héctor González Mocken, a criminal defense attorney and a leader of an association of Juarez lawyers, whose own office wall features a large portrait of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

González said that one by one, the institutions and professions in Ciudad Juarez are being undermined. Teachers have been victims of extortion rackets shaking them down for their Christmas bonuses. Doctors stage protests, asking for more protection when they work on gunshot victims in the emergency room. Business leaders are kidnapped. More than 60 police officers in Juarez have been killed, and some officials are assumed to be working for or alongside the cartels. Journalists are also routinely threatened -- or worse. In November, one of the city's most experienced crime reporters, Armando Rodríguez, was assassinated in his front yard as he got ready to drive his daughter to class.

The majority of the aid allocated to Mexico through the Mérida Initiative is in the form of equipment and training for the security forces. Less resources are going to elements necessary to make a true dent in Mexico's drug violence, such as strengthening institutions like the judicial system, erasing corruption from and strengthening the police force and removing the military from civilian law enforcement roles.

Even more pressing is the need to reduce the demand for drugs in the United States and stop the flow of weapons from the United States to Mexico. At a George Washington University event last week on Transnational Criminal Organizations, Manuel Suárez-Mier, from the Embassy of Mexico, used the basic argument that any student of Econ 101 learns (as long as there is demand, supply will continue) to explain that Mexico sees the Mérida Initiative not as a way to end the "war on drugs," but instead as a way to increase the cost and liability of "doing the drug business" in Mexico so that it merely goes somewhere else. In essence, pushing the cartels out of Mexico and into some other country with weak institutions and law enforcement. It is not clear whether Mexico can actually make the business of trafficking drugs too expensive or dangerous within their borders, especially as long as drug traffickers can make a larger profit as the street price of drugs increases, but the argument does make the need to address the demand side more apparent.

An article in yesterday's Washington Times reports on a recent resolution passed by the El Paso City Council that asks the U.S. federal government to begin an "open, honest national dialogue on ending the prohibition of narcotics." El Paso, Texas is a U.S. border city that not only fears the spillover of the violence in Mexico to their town, but also is home to many Mexicans that have fled from nearby Mexican cities such as Ciudad Juarez. While there is much room for debate on the prescription they recommend, El Paso's citizens and City Council are at least acknowledging the need to address the United States' role in Mexico's drug-related violence: not just U.S. addicts' voracious demand, but the weapons-smuggling and money-laundering that occur on our side of the border.

The Mérida Initiative does not address these important aspects of the drug trade. Nonetheless, doing so is going to be extremely important in finding an end to the drug-related violence and drug-trafficking currently plaguing Mexico.