Violence

The untold story of Mexico's prohibitionist campaign against drug trafficking organizations is the surge in lethal violence against women. As Mexico enters its fifth year of conflict and escalating militarization, the country's ability to ensure basic protections for its citizens – and, in particular, for those most at risk – has never been less certain.

Gunmen who attacked a group of youths playing soccer killed seven people in the violent northern border city of Ciudad Juárez. The latest drug prohibition violence came on the eve of a one-day visit to Mexico by US secretary of State Hillary Clinton to discuss bilateral cooperation against the country's powerful drug trafficking organizations. The stadium where the shooting occurred was inaugurated just four months ago as part of a campaign called "We are all Juarez" that the local government has hoped will help stem a wave of drug prohibition related violence.

"There is a growing perception that the 'war on drugs' approach has failed," the Global Commission on Drug Policies said in a statement, as it began an inaugural two day meeting in Geneva. "Eradication of production and criminalization of consumption did not reduce drug traffic and drug use," the commission said. It concluded that the harm from corruption and violence resulting from prohibition "largely exceeds the harm caused by drugs."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits Mexico today for talks expected to focus on the country's accelerating drug prohibition violence. The Mexican government says the bloodshed is a sign the gangs are weakening. But business leaders and rights groups worry the strategy has backfired, sparking an endless stream of revenge killings that is spilling across the country.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will make a one-day visit to Mexico next week to discuss bilateral issues including organized crime. The visit comes as drug prohibition violence continues to plague Mexico, including a string of attacks in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco and the northern business hub of Monterrey since the start of the year. Drug prohibition violence left 15,273 dead in Mexico in 2010, according to official figures, making it the deadliest year yet since President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown on drug trafficking organizations four years ago, with tens of thousands of troops.

To students of the drug prohibition wars, pyrrhic victories that merely displace the problem of the drug barons to the next country are depressingly familiar. They are the story of the past three decades in Latin America. It is no wonder that a growing number of wise heads in the region have concluded that the drug war is costlier than legalizing drugs.

A Penticton, B.C., man vacationing in Mexico is recovering in hospital from a gunshot wound after being caught in a bloody crossfire that left one man dead in yet another round of drug prohibition violence in the troubled country. The man, in his 60s, was leaving a Mazatlan pharmacy with his wife on Sunday when gunmen opened fire, spraying their intended target with bullets and striking the man in the leg below the knee, according to family members.

Guatemalan soldiers tasked with sweeping out Mexican drug trafficking organizations are finding they are outgunned and ill-equipped, raising fears of a power vacuum in parts of the country even after a 30-day military siege. "Organized crime is not just infiltrating us, it pains me to say it but drug traffickers have us cornered," Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom told Congress last week.

Colombia's largest rebel group FARC may benefit from the recent killing of neo-paramilitary drug lord "Cuchillo," newspaper El Espectador reports. According to the newspaper, the death of Pedro Oliveiro Guerrero, alias Cuchillo, late last month brought an end to the paramilitary rule of the underworld of Colombia's eastern plains that started when the AUC took control of the region in the 1990s. A police investigator told El Espectador that members of Cuchillo's organization ERPAC have been meeting to assure a continuation of the drug trade, but have not been able to appoint a successor of their slain leader.

The number of civilians killed in Mexico’s drug prohibition war soared by 172 percent in the last 12 months. Collateral deaths of civilians increased from 61 in 2009 to 166 last year, according to a report from the Attorney General’s Office.