MEXICO FIGHTS CARTELS IN WESTERN STATE

Some Praise Effort but Say They Doubt It Will Do Much Good

Acalpican, Mexico -- Swinging in a hammock after a hard day of
chopping coconut palms, Honorio Gallego stared at the odd-looking
police truck snapping photos of passing cars. Surrounded by police,
the truck was situated on a road that cuts through this tropical city
in the western state of Michoacan.

Although Gallego, 60, had no idea how the truck's photo technology
works, he did have a strong hunch why it was there.

"Drugs, violence," he said, matter-of-factly. "A lot of bad things
are happening here. It's good to see the government trying to change
that. Let's hope it works."

Such police checkpoints -- aimed at vehicles carrying drugs -- are
part of Operation Michoacan United, launched by Mexico's new
President Felipe Calderon, a Michoacan native who narrowly won the
election in July and began a six-year term on Dec. 1. Michoacan is
his first attempt to make good on a campaign promise to fight organized crime.

"This task will not be easy or quick," Calderon said on Dec. 11, the
day he announced he was sending nearly 7,000 soldiers and police
officers to Michoacan. "But the public demands results, and we must
. at all cost prevent this public security problem from becoming a
national security problem."

Nationwide, drug violence is typically fueled by turf wars between
family-run cartels. The largest are in the north -- the Gulf cartel
in the state of Tamaulipas, and a federation of cartels in Sinaloa
state. The war also pits the smaller, Michoacan-based Valencia and
Milenio cartels, both united with Sinaloa, against groups loyal to
the Gulf cartel, including the heavily armed La Familia group and hit
men known as the Zetas, according to Gabriel Castaneda, Michoacan's
top police investigator.

Across Mexico in 2006, drug violence claimed 2,181 victims as of
Saturday, according to El Universal, a Mexico City daily that keeps a
tally on such deaths. In recent years, drug violence has migrated
south to Guerrero and Michoacan states, which have become key transit
points for South American drugs.

Federal officials estimated that this year alone in Michoacan, 300
people died in execution-style killings, including 37 police
officers, according to El Universal, and 16 beheadings. In the
Michoacan city of Uruapan in September, masked gunmen threw five
heads onto a crowded dance floor. Police say they believe that the
beheadings, which have become a cartel calling card, were aimed at
rattling rival traffickers.

For the traffickers, Michoacan is worth fighting for.

The state is home to the Pacific port of Lazaro Cardenas, a key
transit point for South American drugs, and its highways provide a
straight shot to the United States more than 1,000 miles away.
Michoacan soil is ideal for growing marijuana and opium poppies, and
the state has become Mexico's main producer of the synthetic drug
methamphetamine, which has surpassed cocaine and heroin in popularity
in some West Coast and Midwestern U.S. states, according to a recent
report by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

To date, Operation Michoacan United has raided several thousand
marijuana fields and arrested about 60 suspects, including Elias
Valencia, a leader of the Valencia drug gang. Authorities have also
confiscated at least 112 weapons, 6 tons of marijuana and 300 pounds
of seeds, three yachts and $2 million in cash. More than 18,000
people have been searched, along with 8,000 vehicles and boats,
authorities say.

Authorities will "take back the territory that organized crime has
seized," said Francisco Ramirez Acuna, Mexico's new interior minister.

But Jorge Chabat, a crime analyst at the Center for Economic Research
and Teaching in Mexico City, doubts the police dragnet will have much
impact on cartel business.

"I don't think Mexico has the ability to do that," said Chabat. "But
Calderon feels he should do something to establish some public order
and send a message to the cartels that he is prepared to act tough."

Jose Arturo Yanez, of Mexico City's National Institute for Criminal
Law, agreed.

"Where are the cocaine and heroin seizures? What about the meth
labs?" asked Yanez. "I'm afraid the government is trying to make a
big splash with this operation that, in the end, may end up with a
few traffickers in jail, who will only be replaced the next day. This
operation could backfire if we don't see real results soon."

Some Michoacan officials say Calderon's anti-crime campaign marks a
major departure from his predecessor, Vicente Fox, who seemed unable
to deal with rising organized crime. Last year, Fox finally launched
Operation Safe Mexico, in which he sent soldiers to northern cities
such as Nuevo Laredo across the border from Texas. That program was
criticized for being sloppily managed and, in the end, doing little
to stop the drug violence.

"The Michoacan operation is using more intelligence and is focused on
precise points in the mountains and furthest corners of the state,
where trafficking and organized crime is entrenched," said Castaneda,
the state police investigator.

In Acalpican, a city of 93,000 inhabitants near the marijuana and
opium poppy fields of the Sierra Madre mountains, Jesus Diaz, who
shines shoes in the central plaza, says he is glad Calderon has
decided not to tolerate "more blood spilled on the streets." As he
spoke, he held a newspaper article with a banner headline that read,
"The Big Fish Has Fallen," in reference to the capture of Alfonso
"Ugly Poncho" Barajas, a Gulf cartel gunman in the Michoacan city of
Apatzingan.

"I do think that people in Apatzingan feel safer with the police
trucks around and the helicopters," said Diaz. "People are walking
around the plaza and shopping without worrying about a shootout."

David Olivier, 42, a local newspaper publisher whose loafers Diaz was
shining, agreed. "There's no denying that this is a positive step by
the government," he said.

Yet Olivier also said the government should concentrate more on
providing economic opportunities for Michoacan residents, whose
poverty levels and rates of migration to the United States remain
high. Farmers would then be less tempted to grow illicit crops to
compensate for low wages earned by growing such traditional crops as
limes, avocados and mangoes, he argued.

Most important, Olivier said, the government must clean up corrupt
police and judicial systems in which hefty bribes can buy a
trafficker a get-out-of-jail card or a rigged trial, or no trial at all.

"How do traffickers move drugs through this country's ports and
borders? How can they arm themselves with AK-47s?" asked Olivier.
"Because there's complicity at the top. When the government looks
inward and takes on an internal cleansing, I'll then be convinced
that the real war against drugs is on."