MEXICO'S NEW LEADER VOWS CRIME CRACKDOWN

Texas Leaders Hope Cartels Will Be Targets

DALLAS Mexican President Felipe Calderon talks tough on law and
order, and he acted tough in arresting the leaders of a violent
protest in the southern state of Oaxaca.

Texas leaders hope that the tough-on-crime policies extend to
lawlessness along Mexico's northern border, where warring drug
cartels battling for trafficking routes into the United States --
through Texas -- have killed hundreds.

In his inaugural speech this month, Calderon promised to strictly
enforce the rule of law in Mexico, with no tolerance for violence,
whether the result of feuding drug cartels or political opposition.

"Laws must protect citizens, not criminals," Calderon said.

"It won't be easy or quick. It will take time and a lot of money. But
rest assured: This is a battle that I will lead."

Calderon promised to make law enforcement one of three top
priorities, along with creating jobs and fighting poverty. A budget
proposal he has presented includes a 12.4 percent increase in
spending on crime fighting, and he promised a raise for the armed
forces, which he deemed crucial to fighting drug traffickers.

He gave his Cabinet 90 days to come up with an anti-crime plan.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who attended the inauguration, "takes
President Calderon at his word," said spokesman Robert Black.

The cartel war, centered on the border city of Nuevo Laredo, has
occasionally spilled into Texas, where border sheriffs say they'd be
grateful for some help from Mexican officials.

"If he's going to increase the effort to attack the cartels, it will
be a tremendous help," said Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez,
co-chairman of the Southwest Border Sheriff's Coalition.

So far, Calderon seems to be backing up his words.

In early December, he ordered the arrests of the main leaders of the
political group that effectively shut down tourism in the southern
capital of Oaxaca state. The bloody protest there has led to more
than a dozen deaths.

The president used federal police to remove the last of the
barricades that had blocked streets in the downtown area for six
months and killed the critical tourism industry. President Vicente
Fox had been criticized for allowing protesters to take over the
city, burn buses, rob governmental buildings and attack local police,
who could not control the demonstrators.

Police have been similarly impotent to stop the violence in northern
Mexico. One police chief was slain hours after taking office, and
another vowed to leave drug traffickers alone. Just this year,
according to reports, there have been about 200 drug-related killings
in Nuevo Laredo.

And Americans have been drawn into the violence. The FBI said 60 U.S.
citizens have been kidnapped in the Nuevo Laredo region; 21 of those
cases remain unsolved. Some security experts question how much the
new Mexican president can change the situation.

"At this point, there really isn't a lot that President Calderon can
do," said Andrew Teekell, an analyst at STRATFOR, a private security
consulting firm in Austin. "The drug cartels are deeply entrenched
and very powerful."

Teekell noted that last summer, Fox ordered the Mexican army into
Nuevo Laredo, where it disbanded the entire police force and
patrolled the streets until a new one could be hired.

"For a while, the violence slowed, but the flow of drugs did not," he
said. "And after the army left, the violence escalated as the cartels
continued wrestling for control of distribution networks in Nuevo
Laredo. Frankly, I don't see what President Calderon can do that
Vicente Fox couldn't."