New Mexican prosecutor to boost anti-drug forces
Source: Reuters
MEXICO CITY, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Mexico's incoming attorney general said on Wednesday he would bolster police and military forces to combat violent drug traffickers he compared with Italy's infamous Cosa Nostra mafia. Almost 3,000 people, most of them drug gang members and police, have been killed in the past two years in escalating turf wars between rival cartels that have exposed the weakness of government forces. "The police and the army have a small deployment, too small for the challenges that we have to face. We have to grow our operations," said Eduardo Medina, a former public security minister whose nomination as Mexico's top public prosecutor will likely be approved by the Senate on Thursday. His comments during a Senate hearing on his nomination came in response to newly inaugurated President Felipe Calderon's call for a plan to crack down on organized crime and the corrupt officials who enable it. Parts of Mexico's north and Atlantic and Pacific coasts are under the de facto control of drug traffickers who enforce their power through kidnappings, murders and the torture of citizens, police and rival gang members. Some drug gangs have followed the Sicilian mafia's example by branching out into diverse criminal operations to fund their regional battles, Medina said. He called for an all-out war that would move beyond traditional tactics aimed at taking down gang leaders and their criminal structures. "Against a territorial occupation we need our own territorial occupation, one that the Mexican state launches with all available force," he said. Senators listening to Medina's testimony described his mandate as nearly as difficult as that facing Calderon. Sen. Leonel Godoy from the crime-torn state of Michoacan was skeptical of the effectiveness of Medina's plan. His state, also home to Calderon, has seen some of the most brutal executions, including beheadings and mutilations. "These criminal organizations have the ability and discipline to hold off ... the police (for hours)," he warned. Calderon's predecessor, Vicente Fox, also tried to intensify the fight against drug crime, launching what he called the mother of all battles on cartels in early 2005. He sent hundreds of troops and federal police to cities along the northern border but violence actually increased as a result.
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