MEXICO CITY — The drug war in Mexico is at a crossroads. As the death toll climbs above 28,000, President Felipe Calderon confronts growing pressure to try a different strategy — perhaps radically different — to quell the violence unleashed by major drug syndicates.
Even an elder from his own party, former President Vicente Fox, is taking potshots at Calderon, telling him that his policy is seriously off-track.
Many Mexicans don’t know whether their country is winning or losing the war against drug traffickers, but they know they’re fatigued by the brutality that is sweeping parts of their nation.
Calderon has urged his countrymen not to gauge the drug war by the relentless rise of the death toll. In early April, newspaper tallies put the toll at about 18,000, but legislators then leaked a higher official estimate: 22,700. This month, the nation’s intelligence chief said that 28,000 people most likely had been killed since Calderon came to office in late 2006.
“The number of murders or the degree of violence isn’t necessarily the best indicator of progress or retreat, or if the war . . . is won or lost,” Calderon told opposition party chiefs at a meeting called to pull the nation behind his counter-drug strategy. “It is a sign of the severity of the problem.”
Calderon had called the party bosses — along with academics and civic leaders — into public sessions on how to improve security and get the upper hand against the drug gangs, several of which are engaged in bloody warfare over smuggling routes.
“What I ask, simply, is for clear ideas and precise proposals on how to improve this strategy,” he said at one session.
What Calderon, a bespectacled economist with a professorial manner, got instead was a barrage of criticism. The government should send soldiers back to their barracks, he was told, and do more to attack money-laundering and to protect judges. Several politicians, including Fox, suggested that Calderon consider legalizing narcotics.
The near-daily brainstorming sessions were interrupted when Calderon flew to Colombia to attend the swearing-in Aug. 8 of President Juan Manuel Santos, and that nation’s success in battling cocaine cartels has served as a reference point for the discussions.
So have several disclosures and news events that underscore the levels of corruption that are corroding law enforcement efforts. Among them:
• Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna said Aug. 6 that narcotics cartels paid about $100 million a month in bribes to municipal police officers across Mexico, ensuring that their activities went undisturbed.
• About 250 federal police officers abducted a commander briefly this month in the border city of Ciudad Juárez, accusing him of being in cahoots with traffickers and forcing the police to extort citizens.
Calderon is seeking support for wholesale police reform in Mexico, where about 33,000 officers belong to a federal police force and another 430,000 belong to disparate state or municipal forces. He has pointed to Colombia’s unified national police as an example of how to make headway against organized crime.
