MEXICO COLLAPSE UNLIKELY: EXPERTS SAY GOVERNMENT STABLE DESPITE MOUNTING
BORDER VIOLENCE

More About The Ongoing Violence In Juarez

EL PASO -- A chorus of current and former U.S. officials are sounding
alarms about Mexico, warning the war-zone conditions in cities like
Juarez could lead to the government's downfall.

These voices include the Joint Forces Command, ex-CIA Director Michael
Hayden, former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, as well as
ex-U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey. Last Tuesday, Navy Adm. Mike
Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also said he was
concerned about escalating border violence.

Early in January, an obscure organization -- the Movimiento Armado del
Norte (Northern Armed Movement) -- sent an alarming communique on the
Internet calling on the Mexican people to revolt against the government.

But, in a letter to the El Paso Times, Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico's
ambassador to the United States in Washington, denies his country is
on the verge of collapse.

"The violence unleashed by trafficking organizations in response to
President (Felipe) Calderon's effort to shut them down cannot be
denied," Sarukhan said. "If one considers the criteria that could lead
to a 'sudden collapse' -- loss of territorial control, inability to
provide public services, re fugees and internally displaced people,
criminalization of the state, sharp economic decline and incapacity to
interact as a full member of the international community -- it is
obvious that Mexico simply does not fit the pattern."

Before Hayden's recent retirement from the CIA, he said Mexico could
rank alongside Iran as a security challenge for President Barack
Obama, maybe even a greater problem than Iraq, while the Joint Forces
Command's "JOE 2008" said Mexico and Pakistan's governments were in
danger of collapse.

Professor Josiah Heyman, a Mexico expert at the University of Texas at
El Paso, said it's unlikely Mexico's governability has reached such a
crisis stage.

"Part of the alarm was sparked by the fact the drug violence is taking
place right next door to our border, in Juarez," Heyman said. "There
are things in Mexico that are very negative, but others that are very
positive, too. For example, it is managing its economy very well, it
has stabilized the price of oil, and it's a real functioning democracy.

"But, it has not spread the wealth, and many decades have passed while
the purchasing power of the Mexican people has fallen below what it
was in 1982."

Heyman said a counter or alternative state must exist before a current
state can collapse. While certain factors can lead to a government's
collapse, Mexico still lacks a strong counter-state to fulfill all the
conditions for a political meltdown.

Community concerns

Mounting concerns about Juarez crimes prompted U.S. Rep. Silvestre
Reyes, D-Texas, to invite a State Department official who has insights
into the issue to El Paso.

William J. McGlynn, principal deputy assistant secretary for the
Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, will
speak about Mexican drug cartels Monday at the Greater El Paso Chamber
of Commerce.

"The kidnappings and other crimes -- it's gone way beyond the
cartels," said Richard Dayoub, the chamber's president and CEO. "Any
criminal feels empowered to commit crimes, and that's part of the
problem. No one's safe."

People in Mexico, from its capital city to border communities,
complain about pervasive lawlessness they suspect is connected to the
drug trade and corrupt law enforcement.

Ale Sanchez, a Mexico City resident and film teacher, said she's been
mugged by thieves more than once in Mexico City, "and it doesn't do
any good to report the crimes because the police don't do anything
about it."

Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched his war on the drug
cartels 18 months ago, the ensuing violence has claimed thousands of
lives throughout Mexico, including nearly 1,700 in Juarez.

Violence and chaos has also made it easy for other criminals to run
amok, abducting people for ransom, extorting businesses, robbing
banks, burning buildings, stealing vehicles and killing people for
other reasons.

Roberto Alvarez, 27, a blue-collar worker from Juarez, said the
unrelenting violence forced him to move to El Paso a couple of months
ago. To support himself and his family, Alvarez took two jobs in the
food industry.

"I have friends who have been killed and relatives with businesses in
Juarez who are forced to pay protection money," Alvarez said. "Despite
the soldiers and police that patrol the city, no one has been able to
stop the attacks, and everyone is running scared. Things are out of
control, and I couldn't live like that any more."

Luis Aguilar, who works in El Paso and lives in Juarez, said, "I
stopped going out to nightclubs with my girlfriend. We keep a low
profile, stay around our houses and try not to call attention to ourselves.

"I was really shaken up when I heard the gunfire and saw the bodies of
the five motorcyclists who were shot to death (Jan. 25). I have no
idea when this craziness is going to end."

Fleeing the violence

Jose Contreras, a Mexican chamber of commerce official in Juarez, said
some hotels in Juarez have closed or cut staffs because of the
extortions, while fear of violence keeps tourists away.

Another result of the violence is a steady exodus of people to the
United States, a trend not seen along the border since the 1910
Mexican Revolution.

Mexican officials acknowledge numerous residents, including Americans
or Mexican nationals with U.S. visas, have moved north of the border
to flee the violence.

El Paso real estate companies have reported homes sales to newly
arrived Mexican citizens, many of whom are dual nationals, but hard
data is difficult to come by.

"Yes, absolutely, they are buying homes here or are calling us to ask
about buying homes in El Paso," said Suzy Shewmaker Hicks, president
of the Greater El Paso Association of Realtors. "Some of them have the
money for a down payment and can make arrangements for financing.

"This trend began last summer, although it's hard to say exactly how
many of the home buyers are people who left Mexico because of the
violence. We can say we saw more sales this December (through multiple
listings) than we did in December 2007, which may account for some of
the Mexican buyers."

Attacks on both sides

According to U.S. law enforcement, the brutal cartels have been bold
enough to carry out revenge activities on the U.S. side of the border.

For example, since 2007, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
agency has received information about at least six drug-related
kidnappings of people in El Paso who were taken to Juarez, including a
man who was abducted in another state and transported through El Paso
to Mexico. Last year, Phoenix and Las Vegas reported kidnappings by
Mexican cartel members who posed as police.

Along the border, drug violence has turned small Mexican communities
like Palomas and Guadalupe Distrito Bravos into virtual ghost towns
with little activity and no tourism.

"Everyone I know who can has left Guadalupe, and the rest won't leave
their house unless they absolutely have to," said Isela Gomez, a U.S.
citizen who lived there.

Two weeks ago, six Gua dalupe policemen were abducted, killed and
decapitated, wiping out the town's police force. Residents and U.S.
drug investigators say dealers who control the region 20 miles east of
Juarez feed rivals to lions.

In Ciudad Acuna, in the Mexican border state of Coahuila, drug dealers
operate unhindered, said Joe Morales, a former security coordinator
for transnational companies in the border cities of Acuna, Juarez and
Piedras Negras.

"They are in complete control of the streets and get very little
resistance from those they extort. It's every citizen for himself if
they are confronted by the drug lords," Morales said. "If the drug
dealers need to kill someone, they take them outside Acuna so they
don't (attract) the attention of Mexican federal officers or the
military. The drug dealers are suspected of killing an Acuna city
councilman in 2007 who lived on the U.S. side of the border."

Mexico's tourism industry, which ranks third in the nation's economy,
fell an average 10 percent in 2008 in seven tourist destinations,
including in Juarez, Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo, according to the
Mexican federal tourism secretary's office.

Mexicans take up arms

U.S. drug investigators say drug cartels, with vast resources and
military-grade weapons, have used submarines, airplanes, trains,
ships, trucks, cars and people on foot to transport drugs like
cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine and ecstasy.

About 90 percent of the cocaine that enters the United States comes in
through Mexico and Central America, and border corridors at Tijuana,
Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, Nogales, Ojinaga and Matamoros are considered
crucial crossings for the cartels.

To battle the drug dealers, Calderon ordered 25,000 soldiers to help
enforce the crackdown, mainly in Mexican hot spots and on the border.
Over this period, between 1,500 and 2,000 soldiers have been rotated
in and out of the Juarez region.

Calderon, who is also fighting corruption in his government, suffered
a setback when he lost two key officials in the war against the
cartels in a Nov. 4 plane crash in Mexico City -- Camilo Mourino, the
interior secretary, and Santiago Vasconcelos, the country's former top
organized crime prosecutor, who also investigated the Carrillo Fuentes
drug cartel's clandestine graves and women's murders in Juarez.

Late last year, Mexican officials detained Noe Ramirez Mandujano, 47,
a former top federal organized crime prosecutor, on charges he
received $450,000 to tip off the Sinaloa drug cartel about government
operations against the cartel.

To protect themselves, Mexican citizens are buying guns in record
numbers, according to the Mexico City-based Child Rights Network,
which comprises 65 civil organizations that promote the well-being of
children.

The federal Mexican Comision Nacional de Derechos Humanos says 10,500
slayings in Mexico were linked to organized crime between 2006 and
2008.

During that time, the Mexican army processed a 30 percent increase in
gun permits, the Child Rights Network reported, for a current total of
2.1 million gun permits.

More than half the permits were issued to people in Mexico City and
Baja California, and the figure does not reflect illegal purchases of
guns on the black market.

Merida Initiative

In response to complaints over the drug violence, particularly from
U.S. border states, the U.S. government devekloped the Merida
Initiative, a $1.4 billion package for Mexico and Central America to
be allocated over three years.

Former President George W. Bush oversaw the release of the first
installment -- $400 million for Mexico --channeled through a 2008
fiscal year supplemental bill for U.S. military operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

The money provided by U.S. taxpayers is intended to pay for technology
and equipment; to train law enforcement and military officers; for
technical advice and training to strengthen the Mexican justice
system; to establish and promote witness protection programs; and for
projects to reduce arms-trafficking from the United States to Mexico.

Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West, who was born in El Paso and is
familiar with border law enforcement, said his deputies have had
numerous encounters with drug smugglers over the years.

"I haven't seen any results from the Merida Plan yet -- the violence
is still escalating," West said. "And, what's bad, we've got a whole
community fixing to arm itself, which is going to get people killed.

"Obviously, Mexico needs help, but the Mexican president needs to take
it a step further because they can't do it themselves. They need to
ask for assistance from our military."

Karen Hooper, Latin American analyst for STRATFOR, a global
intelligence service in Austin, said unless Mexico experiences a
catastrophic event, such as the assassination of the president or a
destabilizing terrorist attack, "it is unlikely for the government to
collapse or for the U.S. military to play an active role in Mexico
beyond one of cooperation, such as through the Merida
Initiative."

"Yes, the violence has increased, but so far, it's been mostly
cartel-on-cartel violence. The cartels have no interest in doing
something that could lead to a U.S. military (response). If everything
stays the same, the most that can happen is for the status quo to remain."