Pubdate: Thu, 09 Jun 2011 Source: Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL) Copyright: 2011 Sun-Sentinel Company Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/mVLAxQfA Website: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/159 Author: Guillermo I. Martinez, Columnist MONTERREY MUST BE THE LINE IN THE SAND IN MEXICO DRUG WAR Some stories make it to the front pages of our newspapers and we cannot ignore their importance. Take for instance the victory by leftist Ollanta Humala in Peru's presidential election Sunday. That is unquestionably a new challenge for U.S. foreign policy in the region. Then we have those stories that seldom make it to the front pages but are brought up often enough that we know that the United States has a problem. The violence in Mexico is a perfect example. With 40,000 dead since December 2006, the United States is conscious of a looming problem on its border. Still others, sometimes the most dangerous, escape the view of all but the most observant. That is the case of a special report done by the British news agency Reuters headlined: "If Monterrey falls, Mexico fails." It is so obvious that one wonders why journalists or politicians have not raised the issue before. Yet that is not a question. We need to ask what can be done to stop it. Monterrey is the economic capital of Mexico. The per capita income in Monterrey is $17,000 a year, twice as high as what the average Mexican makes. It is a city 140 miles from the Texas border with 4 million people and a reputation as a serious center for business, where foreigners go for excellent medical treatment, where at times you could forget you are in a foreign country because you are surrounded by so many signs of international companies and fast food chains and hotels. No more. The Reuters story details, at length, how Monterrey slowly has become a key battleground between the drug cartels: Businessmen have to pay protection money and the cartels recruit new members and even train hit men. It is a story of how the economic engine of the largest Spanish-speaking nation in the world -- one on our southern border - -- might become a failed state. We've known about the violence in the states of Tamaulipas, where mass graves are found on a regular basis. We know that drug killings have spread to Guadalajara, Mexico's second largest city. But what had escaped notice are the drug battles between the Gulf cartel and the Zetas being waged in and around Monterrey. What we did not know is that 20 percent of the students of the Instituto Tecnologico de Monterrey -- the equivalent of MIT in the United States -- have dropped out of school to attend college in other parts of the country or in the United States. Monterrey cannot fall. Mexico would then be in danger of becoming a failed state. That would be unacceptable to Mexicans and Americans alike. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.