MEXICO BOOSTS POLICE ETHICS TO FIGHT DRUGS

Local Groups Are Battling Police Corruption - Which Fuels
Drug-Trafficking - With Programs Such As Ethics Training At Mexico
City's Police Academy.

Mexico City - Angel Augusto Nunez, a police cadet, knows that cops
have a bad rap in Mexico.

And as fresh violence has swept the nation's police force into the
center of the drug war - with the unprecedented slaying of at least
four high-ranking officers this month - new questions about how many
officers are colluding with drug dealers and how effective police
efforts are have battered its reputation once more.

At least one slaying was allegedly coordinated by a federal police
officer working for drug traffickers. Many local police have
resigned. Some have reportedly even sought asylum in the United States.

But Mr. Nunez is determined to do his part to rebuild confidence in
an institution that ranks among society's least trusted. On a recent
day, in a hardscrabble neighborhood of Mexico City, he is one of 142
students in a yearlong program at a police academy called the
Professional Training Institute (PTI) established to raise the
standards of the city's judicial police.

"I feel proud to put on this shirt and feel part of this
institution," Nunez says, before heading out to join his colleagues
in calisthenics.

The challenge to stem Mexico's drug violence - which analysts
increasingly compare to the situation in Colombia - escalated this
month when the acting national police chief was killed at his home in
Mexico City. President Felipe Calderon has vowed to fight on, but
many say no amount of strength will solve the problem if corruption
is not first confronted.

As questions about his strategy surface, especially as the US
considers a $1.4 billion aid package for Mexican security forces over
three years, smaller grass-roots efforts, such as Mexico City's
academy and various nongovernmental organizations around the country,
are developing accountability standards and corruption controls that
many say could help advance the government's efforts.

"If the police were better trained, it would help against
infiltration of corruption in the system," says Jose Arturo Yanez, a
professor at the academy. "At the federal level, the training doesn't
give them time to develop ethics and the spirit of group work learned
in the classroom."

Mr. Calderon has made tackling drug violence the cornerstone of his
presidency, sending 25,000 soldiers and police across the country.
But at least 1,300 have been killed this year, as wars between drug
gangs and security forces rage. Usually low paid, cops often
moonlight for drug traffickers.

The killing this month of Edgar Millan, the acting national police
chief, represents a troubling new challenge because a federal
policeman was arrested for coordinating the job, with alleged plans
to target more officers.

"The assassination ... was possible thanks to corruption in the
police structure; this is the main weakness of Calderon's general
strategy," says Erubiel Tirado, director of the national security
program at the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City. "You cannot
fight a war like this without a very clean and professional structure."

While it is the federal police who directly investigate drug
trafficking, local police are often most susceptible to the lure of drug money.

That is exactly what the PTI is trying to avoid: On a recent day,
Nunez studies the Spanish police model with his colleagues, listening
eagerly to the main lesson of the day. "It is about the satisfaction
of having fulfilled a duty," agent Mauricio Bautista Lara, their
teacher, explains. "Not to get thanks, or more money, or a day off."

Since the one-year program began five years ago, 600 detectives have
gone through training, which includes a rigorous recruitment process.
Cadets' houses are visited - to make sure their family and friends
are not involved in crime or corruption. The point: to begin with a
higher caliber of candidate.

The academy is not the only group looking at higher police standards,
says Raul Benitez, a security expert in Mexico City. He says that
non-governmental groups have arisen in recent years to demand greater
accountability from police at all levels. He is the president of the
Collective of Security Analysis with Democracy, formed in 2007.
Another group, Insyde, is creating accountability systems for police
institutions across the country.

In addition to his military deployment, Calderon pledged to overhaul
Mexico's police system. Many support his efforts, in particular
reassigning about 300 high- and mid-level officers last year and
setting up a new national training academy. "He is trying to make
police service attractive by turning it into a career," says Jorge
Chabat, a security specialist in Mexico City.

Calderon, and many others, urge patience for the enormous task.
"Calderon has made a priority of this transformation," says Armand
Peschard-Sverdrup, an expert on Mexico and head of the
Washington-based consulting firm Peschard-Sverdrup & Associates, "but
it is not going to happen overnight."

Still, others worry that his focus has thus far been one of muscle
and not modification. Mr. Tirado says the administration has not been
training officers thoroughly because, with the magnitude of the
crisis, the effort requires as many officers as possible. Yet the
police, who are increasingly met with AK-47s, need more training than
ever, he says.

Police deaths are often met with ambivalence - in part because no one
knows whether they were targets for colluding with drug cartels or
carrying out their missions. A lack of investigation does not help.
Mr. Yanez says that, of 300 officers killed over the past two years,
only one suspect has been arrested directly for the crime.

This lack of accountability can lower morale: This past weekend, the
police chief in Ciudad Juarez, home of much of the nation's worst
fighting, resigned from his post. His force had received death
threats from drug traffickers, many of which have been carried out.

Demand for change is rising, says Mr. Benitez, and he says places
like the PTI are slowly making a difference. "This is an important
change in transforming the police. The most important thing is
creating a new mentality to serve the citizens," says Mr. Bautista
Lara, who spent 12 years as a police detective in Mexico City.

That sense of purpose, for now, seems to be filtering down. Many
young recruits hope to be able to continue that spirit. Says Nunez:
"I think we can do important things for our city, and our country."

Find this article at: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0522/p06s01-woam.html