Mexico Under Siege

STRATEGIES FOR MEXICO'S DRUG WAR

Experts and Public Figures in the U.S. and Latin America Offer a
Range of Views, From Stepped-Up Policing to Legalization.

At times, the fight against drug trafficking in Mexico seems
hopeless. The body count grows steadily, each massacre seemingly more
gruesome than the one before. The flow of drugs to America and Europe
continues virtually unabated. The Times asked experts and public
figures in the U.S., Mexico and other parts of Latin America for
their views on the problem and what should be done about it. The
comments, compiled by Mexico City Bureau Chief Tracy Wilkinson, have
been edited for space or clarity.

Fernando Rospigliosi

Former interior minister of Peru

The U.S. approach to fighting drugs is, I think, the only program
that works. The problem, however, is that the United States is pulling back.

How can we have success in this fight? Within the National Police of
Peru, I know there are specialized people. They could begin capturing
entire bands of traffickers. You must attack on all fronts. It is
police work, judicial work; you have to be well equipped and,
unfortunately, we aren't.

The narco-trafficking problem in Peru has gotten worse in all
aspects: the production of cocaine, violence and the corruption that
comes from that. One of the aggravating factors was the launching of
the [U.S.-financed] Plan Colombia, which started to work in the last
decade and that has unleashed greater demand for Peruvian coca and
cocaine. In addition, you have the increasingly strong entrance of
Mexican cartels into Peru, and they have brought a kind of violence
never before seen here.

The state attaches very little importance to this fight. There was no
political will in the previous government nor in the current one, for
various reasons, including fear and the scourge of corruption that
reaches the highest levels. What does the state do? Small arrests,
small seizures, but there is no defined, broad policy for confronting
the problem.

. From an interview with special correspondent Adriana Leon

Sergio Fajardo

Former mayor of Medellin, Colombia, a onetime drug-trafficking hub
where violence has been reduced significantly

Colombia's experience is that you get rid of some narcos and others
come in and take their place. Their weapons are destruction, death
and the ability to corrupt many facets of the state. You can't leave
the slightest space in our cities or legitimate society for them to
occupy. That's very important.

The doors into the drug world are very wide for the unemployed and
the youth living in the poor barrios. You have to close or reduce the
size of that doorway. How do you do that? With opportunities,
creating jobs in those barrios with education and by establishing the
state's presence in each community. We learned that many who entered
criminality because they had no opportunity will return to society if
they can go to work.

From a distance, it seems to me that Mexico will pass through a
painful stage. There is much ground left for them to cover. My advice
is that the government should not wait until they win the war to look
at what they can do in the communities that produce these people.
They should be thinking about the poor boy standing on a street
corner, looking at that narco doorway and thinking about entering.

. From an interview with Times staff writer Chris Kraul

Maria Elena Morera

President of Mexico United Against Crime. Her husband survived a
kidnapping, but his captors severed three of his fingers to pressure
the family for ransom.

We have been stripped of our freedom to live without fear, stripped
by the criminal action of lawbreakers and by the omissions of the
authorities. The moment has arrived to cry out: Enough already! Our
demands can be summed up in one phrase: to have good laws and make
those laws obeyed by reconstructing our institutions:

1. A true national crime prevention policy that contains programs,
city by city, that diagnose the problems and set forth remedies with
time limits and budgets.

2. A unified national criminal database that uses top technology to
collect, analyze and exploit information on crimes and criminals
throughout the country.

3. Reconstruct federal, municipal and state police forces.

4. Reform the penal justice system. We want to unify the penal code
so that all crimes are punished and pursued in the same way in all the country.

5. We want a national strategy against kidnapping, which should
include the following points: fortifying kidnap investigation units
at the federal level, and the state prosecutors at all levels;
swifter prosecution, because slow justice is no justice; monitoring
of convicted or accused kidnappers in prison; better tracking of
cellphone use to pinpoint locations of users and their identities;
empower authorities to confiscate assets of alleged criminals and
break their financial structures; establish a national registry based
on fingerprints of all people residing in Mexico; creation of a
citizen watchdog, who has authority to denounce corrupt and
inefficient officials.

. From a speech this year

Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera

Roman Catholic archbishop of Mexico

To be a witness, like John the Baptist, is not easy. It can cost you
your life, as it did him. "But we must obey God before obeying men."
With this freedom, the first Christians spoke to their society and to
the judges who imposed silence on them. In our circumstances today,
the difficulties are truly enormous in attempting to fight narcotics
trafficking, violence, injustice, the attacks on human life, and then
to build peace.

The powers that have been implicated in these grave problems, as well
as the feelings of rancor, confrontation and vengeance that the
problems provoke, make finding a solution an arduous, urgent task. To
remove people and human groups from confrontation and from violence
requires dialogue that is respectful, loyal and free. It is the most
dignified and recommendable form to overcome these difficulties of
human coexistence. Those who are taking other paths are headed down
the wrong road, and are mortgaging the future of our nation.

There are other routes to take to diminish violence in our country.
It precisely does not involve making deals with criminals so that
they can continue with their criminal conduct. For not one second
would I allow that pacts be made with organized crime. You cannot
make deals with evil. You cannot make deals with those who will use
violence. Mexico will get out of this reality, but at the present
moment we only see criminality growing. These moneys [from
traffickers and other illicit sources] must not be allowed to enter
the dynamic of power, because then we would have a state within a state.

. Homily and Christmas message

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Mexican film director ("Babel," "21 Grams" and "Amores Perros")

I have always thought that the only possible way to eradicate this
plague is to legalize drugs. While the United States keeps consuming
these amounts of drugs and selling guns the way it does, there's no
way our country will win this war.

Once the tons of drugs cross the border into the U.S., there has to
be a huge web of people involved in distributing and selling all
these drugs. Where are these people? Who are they? Where are these
"American cartels" and their leaders?

The economic and gun power of the cartels has corrupted the entire
Mexican country. Like humidity, it has permeated every level, and the
economic benefits of it are so strong that it has become a national
income. The war is lost. To legalize drugs would bring another set of
problems, but at least those will be more transparent.

. From an interview with Times staff writer Reed Johnson

Terry Nelson

Federal agent for 30 years with the U.S. Border Patrol, the Customs
Service and the Department of Homeland Security

Busting top traffickers doesn't work, since others just do battle to
replace them. Despite the obvious failure of our drug control
strategy, the public discourse surrounding this issue has focused
primarily on continuing to wage the "drug war."

Mandatory prison sentences and interdiction efforts have very little
effect on drug use. This year the World Health Organization found
that the U.S. has the highest marijuana and cocaine use rates on the
planet, despite having some of the harshest sentences.

We won't be able to expand treatment and prevention efforts until we
stop spending so much money enforcing ineffective penalties, building
new prisons and buying fancy cars and helicopters for law enforcement
agencies. As we begin to treat problematic drug use as a public
health issue, it will become much easier to prevent the death,
disease and addiction that have expanded under the criminal justice
mentality of prohibition.

But even with the best public health efforts, there will always be
some who want to use drugs, and, as long as drugs are illegal, many
willing to risk imprisonment or death to make huge profits supplying
them. My years of experience as a federal agent tell me that
legalizing and effectively regulating drugs will stop drug market
crime and violence by putting major cartels and gangs out of business.

The Department of Justice reported [this month] that Mexican cartels
are America's "greatest organized crime threat" because they "control
drug distribution in most U.S. cities." If what we've been doing
worked at all, we wouldn't be battling Mexican drug dealers in our
own cities or anywhere else. There's one surefire way to bankrupt
them, but when will our leaders talk about it?

. Written comments submitted to The Times