Mexican Business Asks Government to Dial Back Drug Prohibition War

Business leaders in the northern Mexican border city of Matamoros are urging President Felipe Calderon to declare a truce in his all-out battle with drug trafficking organizations, a conflict that has claimed some 30,000+ lives in the past four years. Vice president of the Federation of National Chambers of Commerce, Julio Almanza, said that if the federal government continues to remain obstinate on turning city streets into "battlefields" and does not take account that its strategy "has failed," the risk exists that in more communities the situation of Ciudad Mier, Tamaulipas, might be repeated, where that community has become a ghost town because of the exodus of its frightened citizens.