WAR ON DRUGS LOSES POPULARITY

Mexicans Call For President To Back Off Of Criminal
Gangs

Mexico's drug-related violence is sparking demands that President
Felipe Calderon drop his war on criminal gangs.

From Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego, who controls
broadcaster TV Azteca and retailer Grupo Elektra, to the parents of
bystanders killed in shootouts, criticism of Calderon's U.
S.-supported crackdown is growing. Salinas urged Mexico and the U. S.
in an interview Friday to legalize drugs. Soldiers on the streets have
exacerbated the violence, he said.

" They are not winning this battle," said Roderic Camp, a government
professor at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif., who has
published more than 20 books on Mexico, including two on its army. "
At best, they're maintaining the status quo with many more negative
consequences."

Urgency of violence

The urgency of dealing with violence in Mexico, where 2,213
drug-connected deaths have been recorded since the start of the year
according to El Universal newspaper, was heightened for the U. S. on
March 13 when gunmen killed three people connected to the U. S.
consulate in Ciudad Juarez across the border from El Paso, Texas.

Within the past week in Monterrey, headquarters to companies such as
Cemex SAB and Fomento Economico Mexicano SAB, two university students
and a mother of three were killed in two separate shootouts. An
elderly couple was wounded in a third. All were bystanders. Drug gangs
demonstrated their power by blocking major highways with cars and
buses seized from motorists.

During her visit last year to Mexico, U. S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton praised Calderon's unprecedented use of more than 50,000 army
and navy troops to take on the gangs that ship cocaine, marijuana,
methamphetamines and heroin to the U. S.

After the Juarez murders, Clinton reiterated support for Calderon's
effort to " cripple" the trafficking organizations. Monday, Calderon's
office said in a statement that U. S. President Barack Obama had
called to express his backing for Mexico's efforts.

On Tuesday, Clinton visited Mexico and promised to help broaden the
drug war, saying it was time to tackle the deeper social issues that
fuel the narcotics trade as both nations battle to outmanoeuvre
powerful smuggling organizations.

Calderon's offensive has resulted in a record number of arrests and
confiscations.

At the same time, the death toll has climbed every year since Calderon
took office in 2006. Once popular, the military patrols on the streets
of Monterrey, Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana now stir fears that innocents
are getting caught in the crossfire between gangs and shootouts with
the army.

" This isn't the way to fight it," Rosa Elvira Alonso, the mother of
one of the slain university students in Monterrey, said in an
interview aired by Milenio television.

" It's costing the lives of a lot of innocent people."

U. S. Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Arturo
Valenzuela has portrayed the surge of violence as a sign Calderon's
tactics are working.

' Quantum leap'

" As you bring down certain kinds of criminal organizations, you
encourage a certain degree of conflict between them," Valenzuela told
a U. S. House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on March 10.

Since the 1990s, there has been " a quantum leap" in U. S. cooperation
with Mexico, he said.

In his book Drug Trafficking: The Failed War published in October, Jorge
Castaneda, foreign minister under Calderon's predecessor, President Vicente
Fox, wrote that Calderon's military offensive on crime was designed to
legitimize his presidency after a disputed election.

" I think it's really dangerous in terms of civil liberties and it's
not going to lead to anything except more violence," said Salinas
Pliego, whose Mexico City-based companies have made him the country's
second-richest person after Carlos Slim according to Forbes magazine.

" We should definitely reconsider this mistaken policy."

Calderon to press ahead

Calderon said he will press ahead with the drug fight.

Drug-related killings reached a record 7,724 last year and are on
track to surpass that in 2010, according to the Mexico Citybased El
Universal, which keeps an unofficial tally.

" Because of our duty to preserve liberty and security for every
Mexican family, we are not taking, and will not take, even one step
backward from those who want to see Mexico on its knees and without a
future," Calderon said in a speech Sunday.

The U. S. hasn't done enough to support Mexico with materiel or
stopping illegal weapons or reducing drug demand, Claremont McKenna's
Camp said. Of the $ 628.6 million of helicopters, polygraph units and
armoured vehicles that the U. S. has committed to provide to Mexico, $
112.9 million has been delivered, according information provided by
the U. S. embassy in Mexico City.

" I don't see any end in sight," Camp said. " Citing how many drugs
they seize or how many drug cartel leaders they kill, it just doesn't
alter the flow of drugs, which only can be altered by us."