Mexican Drug War

As the Homeland Security Department's Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bureau has ratcheted up efforts to cope with the tide of crime sweeping across the Southwest border, Mexican drug trafficking organizations have stepped up efforts to infiltrate CBP and other federal, state and local agencies responsible for policing the border.

Gwynne Dyer, an independent journalist based in London, opines on the state of Mexico's drug prohibition war against the backdrop of a remarkable event that occurred in Mexico last week. Tens of thousands of Mexicans gathered in the main squares of cities across the country to demand an end to the "war on drugs". In the Zocalo, in the heart of Mexico City, they chanted "no more blood" and many called for the resignation of President Felipe Calderon, who began the war by using the army against the drug trafficking organizations in late 2006.

At least 88 bodies have been found in a complex of mass graves in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, security officials say, likely victims of the country's ongoing drug prohibition war. The graves are the largest concentration ever found in one area in Mexico.

Mexican drug trafficking organization members threatened to kill U.S. agents working on the American side of the border. Republican Michael McCaul said a law enforcement bulletin was issued warning that Mexican traffickers were overheard plotting to kill Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and Texas Rangers stationed along the border.

Reports of the Zetas and Maras drug trafficking organizations doing drug deals together or assassinating mutual enemies have been floating around for several years. But human rights workers and police in southern Mexico and Guatemala say they have now formed a more concrete alliance, in which they work together on kidnappings and acts of intimidation and terror.

Recent decapitations and killings have residents on edge over whether local street gangs are mimicking larger drug trafficking organization violence in the nation's capital. "I think of these groups as cells, as franchises," said Alfredo Castillo, attorney general for Mexico state, the suburban area surrounding Mexico City. "As franchises what do they want? They want the know-how, the business model, and in the end, they want their backing in case of an extraordinary problem."

Six out of 10 Mexicans think that drug trafficking organizations are getting the upper hand in the prohibitionist war that President Felipe Calderon launched when he came to office in late 2006, the poll by Demotecnia found. The poll may augur a change in the country's approach to drug trafficking when a new administration takes over after elections next year.

A new study by the Swiss-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Center that at least 230,000 people have been displaced in Mexico because of drug prohibition violence and that about half of them may have taken refuge in the United States.