Mexican Drug War

Delia Lloyd opines on freedom of the press in Mexico being curtailed by prohibition-related violence. She concludes with "I've got news for you, Mr. President. You may not want to say it out loud, but Mexico has become Colombia."

Authorities say gunmen have killed the mayor of a northern Mexican town — adding to a string of attacks on political figures in the drug prohibition-plagued region. Mayor Prisciliano Rodriguez Salinas was gunned down yesterday along with another employee of the town named Doctor Gonzalez, about 50 kilometers east of Monterrey. Rival gangs have been battling to control drug routes through Nuevo Leon and neighboring border states.

Mexican journalists gathered yesterday to denounce the violent retaliation they have suffered for reporting on the drug prohibition war and questioned the federal government's ability to protect freedom of expression.

Mexican drug trafficking organizations are reaching neighborhoods far from the border. Authorities said potential recruits in the South Bay used to be the primary targets, but now teens living deeper into San Diego County have been among the growing number of recruits. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Joe Garcia said, "I think parents in all neighborhoods need to be concerned."

A Mexican journalist threatened by drug gangs said he had been granted political asylum in the United States to escape the drug trafficking organizations' increasingly violent campaign to silence the media.

Mexico's government has scoffed at the idea of a truce in the country's drug prohibition war after a newspaper which has seen two of its journalists shot dead pleaded with the drug trafficking organizations to name their terms.

The death toll from an ambush staged against police in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero has risen to eight, with one officer wounded, officials said.

For the first time, Costa Rica has been named a major transit point for drug trafficking, and the United States ambassador to the country, Ann S. Andrews, is blaming the Mexican drug cartels. Costa Rican officials say they lack the resources to combat drug traffickers, to guard its coastline to keep drug traffickers from using the nation to further their illicit activities.

The drug prohibition violence that's forced about 230,000 Juárez residents to flee their homes is likely to continue for several years, experts said. Edgardo Buscaglia, a global organized crime expert, said Mexico's president does not have the political support in his country to do what is needed to make a lasting change, which is to arrest and prosecute high-level politicians and business owners who protect the drug traffickers. Last year, the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute published a study by Hal Brands, "Mexico's Narco-Insurgency and U.S. Counterdrug Policy," that states "Narcotics-driven corruption is rampant, government control of large swaths of the country is tenuous at best, and predictions that Mexico is on the way to becoming a failed state are frequent."