"Calderon asesino" ("Calderon assassin") was emblazoned on banners outside a hotel where President Felipe Calderon met with locals to discuss the spiralling conflict in the city. It was a far cry from the jubilation in the world's most dangerous city in 2009 after President Calderon took the bold move of disbanding its police force and sending in 10,000. Twelve months on, however, the violence has got dramatically worse - culminating last weekend in the murder of three people, two of them Americans employed by the US consulate, as they drove their children home from a party. The troops still rumble through the scruffy city - just a bridge away from El Paso, Texas - in heavily-armed convoys. However critics say the cartels have learnt how to avoid the soldiers, whose record has been undermined by poor intelligence work and sometimes brutal treatment of suspects. President Calderon has staked his political credibility on defeating the drug lords and he made Juarez his main testing ground. In an effort to revive battered confidence, the Mexican leader outlined a new plan to "rescue" the impoverished city with increased spending on social programmes such as in health and education. Instead he was assailed with a list of grievances from local people. A doctor said one of his colleagues had been kidnapped in the city every week for the past three. Others said they despaired of justice or, as a student put it, were simply "tired of being scared". The corruption that the solders were supposed to root out is reportedly still virulent and protecting the cartels. Many residents say the city is dying - shops and business continue to close and 200,000 people have moved out. On both sides of the border, there is a chorus of complaint that President Calderon's strong-arm tactics have not worked and have, if anything, provoked the drug lords to even more ferocious violence. In Juarez, the main newspaper splashed a banner headline "Not one person murdered yesterday" after a rare lull in the onslaught. Out of a 1.3 million population, 2,600 died in drug-related violence last year and 500 so far this year. Across Mexico, some 18,000 people have been killed since the army started fighting the cartels. Recent attacks have increasingly exposed the popular misconception that the drugs gangs only kill each other. Last month, gunmen burst into a teenagers' party in Juarez, spraying more than 200 bullets into the crowd and killing 15 people, none of them linked to a gang. This trend was reinforced last weekend when suspected cartel gunmen chased two cars as they left a children's party in Juarez. Lesley Enriquez, an American consulate worker and her husband, Arthur Redelfs, a US sheriff's department detention officer, were killed before they could reach the border. The husband of another US consulate staff member, was shot dead in another part of the city. But foreigners are rarely targeted without a reason and the Mexican press has speculated that the gunmen were trying to get the detention officer and hit the second car - which looked very similar - by mistake. Outrages that are commonplace in Juarez are spreading throughout Mexico. In the tourist resort of Acapulco, once considered a safe haven, 13 people including five police were killed one weekend last month - some of them decapitated. Only the wealthier Gulf and Pacific tourist resorts remain as well-guarded enclaves. Critics say successive White House administrations have ignored the crisis on their own doorstep and there are signs that the murder of American government staff has prompted a new resolve. President Calderon has called for increased assistance, pointing out that America can hardly cut itself off from a war that is being fought over its own drug appetites. North of the border 200 US law enforcers swept through El Paso on Thursday, rounding up for questioning members of the Barrio Azteca gang that are thought to have carried out the consulate killings. Meanwhile, Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, has beefed up border security with National Guard helicopters. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, will lead a high profile delegation to discuss the situation in Mexico next week, while Pres Calderon will be a state dinner guest in Washington in May. However, some experts are sceptical over such US-Mexican resolve. "It's really like putting Band Aids on a cancer until the Mexican establishment has a commitment to fighting the cartels. You have politicians there who are blatantly involved in drug-trafficking," said Prof George Grayson, an American academic and expert on the drug war. He said President Calderon would continue to have to rely on his army and his more capable navy because "you cannot swing a dead cat in Mexico without hitting a dirty cop". As President Calderon indicated by his promise to roll out more social programmes, the solution is ultimately economic in a country where 40 per cent of its citizens live in desperate poverty. "The overall problem is the lack of opportunity for so many Mexicans," said Prof Grayson. "They may not be capos or gunmen but they will gravitate to the cartels because they can give them jobs. The establishment there has never given a rat's derriere for ordinary people."Mexico president struggles as drug war explodes across the country
A year after he was hailed as the saviour of the violence-plagued city of Juarez,
Mexico's president was this week presented with a stark message of dissaffection
on a return visit.
Saturday 20 March 2010
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