MEXICAN RESOLVE: STAND FIRM FOR PEACE

Here's an instance where the average citizens in Mexico are beginning
to use resolve to fight back against the heavily armed drug cartels.

Without bullets.

The small town of Praxedis G. Guerrero, just south of eastern El Paso
County, has nine women on a 13-person police force, and the new chief
of police is a 20-year-old female university student.

Marisol Valles Garcia, who took office Wednesday, said, "People trust
women more. They are more sensitive ... Fear is always there. I think
we are all scared."

Praxedis G. Guerrero is a town of about 8,000 residents near the Texas
communities Fort Hancock and Tornillo. It is a town of alfalfa and
cotton farmers mainly.

And, as with many small, rural border towns in Mexico, people are
afraid of a complete drug-cartel takeover. Thus, people flee to other
areas.

So far this year, some 2,500 people have been murdered in Juarez and
surrounding rural towns.

In nearby Porvenir, drug cartels seek a refuge for easier access to
the U.S. border across from Fort Hancock. They have threatened to burn
the town down. Fast action by citizens doused a fire at a church. Last
weekend, a Porvenir official and his son were murdered in Juarez.

And citizens of Ascension, located south of the New Mexico bootheel,
went to the unlawful extreme last month when they chased down two
presumed kidnappers and beat them to death.

From early reports, Valles has a demeanor that may be quiet and even
shy. But it is also firm.

And definitely, there is resolve. "I trust my team," she
said.

Marisol Valles Garcia, petite and soft-spoken, just might be the new
face of Mexico. "It is my community, she said. "We all dream about
peace."