EXPERT: YOUNGER DRUG CARTEL HIT MEN TO BLAME FOR MORE MEXICO MASSACRES

A fellow with the Brookings Institution said Friday that younger, more
out-of-control hit men working for Mexican drug cartels are one reason
more massacres are taking place, including a recent attack on buses
carrying maquiladora workers in Juarez.

Vanda Felbab-Brown, a fellow in foreign policy at Washington-based
Brookings, was the luncheon keynote speaker at a conference about
manufacturing ties between Mexico and the United States hosted by the
El Paso branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Drug cartels are employing younger hit men than before, Felbab-Brown
said after her speech. They are "less trained and have less capacity
to conduct hits in a more professional manner," which used to mean
going after only selected targets, she said.

Jose Ramon Salinas, a spokes man for the federal police in Mexico
City, said later that Felbab-Brown's contentions were too simple, and
that it would be difficult to identify the source of this type of
violence. He said many factors could contribute to attacks on
low-income maquiladora workers.

"Who's to say why this is happening?" he said. "Without us looking at
the information that this expert has, it's tough to decipher her theory."

Felbab-Brown said drug cartels also are being managed by younger
people. The leaders used to be in their 50s. A decade ago, they were
in their 30s, and today they are in their 20s, she said. Hit men can
be as young as 18, she said.

These younger leaders are not as hesitant as their predecessors to
resort to extreme violence, she said.

The Mexican government does not have adequate policies to "suppress
the violence," she said.

During her speech, Felbab-Brown said ending the violence will require
Mexico to reform law enforcement and other institutions, including
doing community policing so people gain trust in law officers. It also
will require creating more jobs in the "legal economy" so that people
are not as susceptible to the political influences of drug cartels,
she said during her speech.

"Job-creation is, of course, critical. Because as long as people are
unemployed or underemployed and persist in the situation, their option
is to try to get across the border into the United States or exist in
poverty. They are very susceptible to participation in crime," she
said.

Drug traffickers also are moving into other parts of the "informal
economy," including prostitution and smuggling people into the United
States, Felbab-Brown said.

Lucinda Vargas, an economist and director of the Juarez Strategic Plan
Association, which in 2004 wrote a plan to improve the city's quality
of life, said after Felbab-Brown's speech that she still believed
reforming Mexico's justice system was key to ending the drug violence.

"Only two out of 100 crimes get prosecuted in Mexico," Vargas said.
"That tells criminals that it's OK to do crimes."

Felbab-Brown said, "The government of Mexico frequently claims that
the violence itself is a measure of success, that most of the killings
take place between criminals. ... I don't believe it is a good
argument, and never was a good argument and no longer is a sustainable
argument. The reason is, even if it's criminals killing each other,
the bullets fly over the street. The violence affects life in the city."

Many stores and restaurants have closed in Juarez, and many people
have left the city, she said. The economic recession played a part,
but the violence also contributed to the city's decline, she said.

How long the violence will continue is difficult to say, Felbab-Brown
said. In Tijuana, which had been a center of the drug war in the past,
the violence has decreased. The atmosphere there is more upbeat than
it was years ago, she said.

Mexican officials credit government policies, including the Tijuana
police chief getting rid of corrupt officers, Felbab-Brown said.

But others believe the decrease in violence is due to the fact that
the Sinaloa cartel cartel defeated the Tijuana cartel, and that has
brought stability to the drug market, something unrelated to
government policy, she said.

Times reporter Gustavo Reveles Acosta contributed to this story.