Pubdate: Thu, 23 Apr 2009
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA)
Copyright: 2009 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Contact: http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/letters/sendletter.html
Website: http://www.ajc.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/28
Authors: Steve Fainaru, William Booth

KILLINGS PLUMMET AS ARMY POLICES DRUG CITY

Ciudad Juarez, Mexico --- A few months ago, the mayor of the most 
violent city in Mexico would sometimes sleep across the border in El 
Paso for safety. Now, with the military firmly in control of Ciudad 
Juarez, an entire day can pass without a single drug-related killing.

Violence has plummeted here since President Felipe Calderon 
dispatched thousands of soldiers to take over public security, a 
strategy designed to crush the drug gangs that turned Juarez into a 
symbol of lawlessness.

In the first two months of this year, 434 people were killed in drug 
violence in the city, accounting for nearly half of all homicides 
nationwide. After 5,000 additional troops were sent to Juarez in 
early March, the number of deaths last month dropped to 51. 
Twenty-two people have died in drug violence so far in April.

The military occupation of Juarez, an industrial city of 1.3 million 
across the river from El Paso, is the most extreme example of 
Calderon's high-risk strategy of using the army to confront Mexico's 
powerful drug cartels. Besieged city officials signed an agreement 
surrendering responsibility for civilian law enforcement to the military.

The Juarez police department is now under the command of a retired 
three-star general and a dozen top military officers handpicked by 
Mexico's defense secretary. Soldiers are the cops --- they write 
traffic tickets, investigate domestic disputes, arrest drunks and run 
every department, including the jail, the training academy and the 
emergency call center.

More than 10,000 soldiers and federal agents patrol Juarez's gritty 
streets. Dressed in green camouflage and carrying automatic weapons, 
they stage raids, detain suspects, and search travelers at the 
airport and border crossings, assuming unprecedented law enforcement duties.

The steep decline in killings here has been accompanied by a spike in 
human rights complaints. A Juarez government office created last 
month to monitor the army's conduct received 170 complaints in its 
first three weeks, including allegations of illegal detentions and 
beatings. Last week, the attorney general opened separate 
investigations into the cases of two men who were killed while 
allegedly in the army's custody.

"Ciudad Juarez, right now I'd say it's the safest city in Mexico," 
said Jorge Alberto Berecochea, a former lieutenant colonel in the air 
force who was called out of retirement last month to run one of the 
city's six district police stations.

Berecochea and other officials described a "cockroach effect" in 
which drug traffickers have scattered under the glare of the 
military. One night last week, he led a patrol through Casas Grandes, 
a slum where smeared blood and splintered glass still cover the floor 
of a guard station where a police officer was killed in December by 
assailants firing AK-47 assault rifles.

Next to the abandoned kiosk, where someone had scrawled "Ha Ha Ha" on 
the facade, young men played basketball on a lighted court while 
families walked the streets.

"The cartels are basically wiped out here now," Berecochea said. 
"They're not operating, at least not in Juarez."

The lull in violence may be temporary. Last Thursday, a 32-year-old 
man was killed --- shot 10 times in front of his family's house a few 
hundred yards from the U.S.-Mexico border. Later that night, in a 
commando-style raid at a popular nightclub, hooded assassins ordered 
patrons to the floor, then took the manager to the pantry and 
executed him. On Friday, four more men were slain.

"The surge by the military has made a profound difference. They do 
serve as a deterrent. Crime is a fraction of what it was. That is the 
good news," said Tony Payan, an expert in Mexico's drug trade at the 
University of Texas at El Paso. "The bad news is: What is going to 
happen when the army returns to the barracks? I think the situation 
remains very precarious."

Centrally located, with access to U.S. interstates, Ciudad Juarez is 
the most coveted "plaza" of the Mexican drug trade, which funnels 90 
percent of all cocaine entering the United States. Last year, the 
Mexican news media dubbed it the "city of terror." Headless torsos 
hung from highway overpasses, severed heads were dumped in the 
central plaza, and masked assassins executed prosecutors in broad daylight.

Many Juarez residents have greeted the army --- and the sudden, 
surprising calm --- as if they have been liberated from a siege.

"The violence is pretty much gone," said Agustin Vargas, a thin, 
24-year-old soccer player who described himself as a reformed ex-gang 
member. "There used to be murders all over the place, people 
shooting. It's changed."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom