CALDERON VOWS TO KEEP UP DRUG WAR

Mexico's President Marks His First Year in Office, Saying Fighting
Gang Violence Is Still His Priority.

MEXICO CITY -- Fighting drug gangs and organized crime remains the top
priority of Mexico's government, President Felipe Calderon said
Saturday as he marked his first year in office.

"The biggest threat to Mexico's future is lack of public safety and
organized crime," Calderon said in a speech at the National Palace.
"But with one year in office, I am more convinced than ever that we
are going to win this battle."

Calderon said that since launching a nationwide military and police
offensive against drug gangs in January, security forces have arrested
about 15,000 people with links to organized crime and made significant
drug busts. Mexican authorities last month seized 26 tons of cocaine
in what they called the world's biggest single cocaine bust. In
October, authorities seized 11 tons of cocaine in northern Mexico.

Calderon has deployed more than 24,000 agents to areas plagued by
violence, but killings and crime remain rampant. The government has
released no official figure for drug-related killings for 2007,
although Mexican newspaper counts put the number at more than 2,000.

In recent days, about 200 heavily armed police landed in Mexico's
oil-producing Gulf Coast state of Campeche, a formerly quiet region
that has become the latest front in a war on powerful drug gangs.

The coastal town of Ciudad del Carmen is known more for its links to
offshore oil fields than for the drug trade, which is far less visible
around the Gulf Coast than in violent towns along the U.S.-border, but
authorities want to block the Gulf Cartel's growing presence in the
area.

"It was always quiet here -- there was never a lot of crime, so the
authorities weren't around," 55-year-old hotel manager Jose de la Cruz
said.

"That helped the drug dealers with their transport," said De la Cruz,
whose hotel faces one of two new police roadblocks where cars are
searched on the highway near the beachfront.

Eighty-eight federal police with bulletproof vests and automatic
weapons were flown in Friday on a commercial airliner. They joined 110
other newly arrived officers and 70 already in town patrolling the
humid city streets in pickup trucks.

State-run oil company Pemex operates offshore oil platforms near the
town, straight down the Gulf of Mexico from U.S. ports in Galveston,
Texas, making it a strategic spot for smugglers, according to Mexico's
deputy security minister, Patricio Patino.

A recent spate of violent crimes in the area has forced security
forces to focus on Campeche.

In April, the head of the municipal police was slain. One month later,
an assassination attempt was made against his successor.