DRUG WAR HAS COME UNDER FIRE

Mexico's Use of the Army to Battle Violent Trafficking Rings Stirs
Complaints of Abuses and Collateral Damage

APATZINGAN, Mexico -- Mexico's drug war landed at Claudia Sanchez's
front door a few days ago when soldiers unleashed grenades and
gunfire to root out suspected drug traffickers a few houses away.
Sanchez says she grabbed her 3-year-old son off the front porch and
took shelter under the bed until the battle ended.

But it isn't just the bad guys who have made her family feel under
siege. It is also her supposed protectors, the soldiers dispatched by
President Felipe Calderon to rein in spiraling violence related to
the drug trade.

Soldiers came into the home and detained her son-in-law, Gustavo
Orozco, for three days in an undisclosed location. She accuses
soldiers of beating him and of stealing money. He was eventually
released but was so shaken up that he left town.

This section of Michoacan known as "the hot Earth," one of the front
lines of Calderon's military strategy, illustrates the need for a
powerful counterforce to the entrenched drug rings but also the risks
of employing a military solution.

This week, the national Human Rights Commission provided the first
formal confirmation that some soldiers have gone too far in battling
drug violence that has claimed about 1,000 lives this year.
Investigators determined that soldiers in Michoacan have committed
torture, rape and other violations.

With violent confrontations and abuse complaints rising, human-rights
officials and opposition lawmakers called on Calderon this week to
withdraw troops.

Federal and state officials say the military strategy is not ideal
but that only the military has the firepower and professionalism to
take on increasingly brazen drug rings. They say a withdrawal would
be a victory for organized crime.

Sanchez agrees that local police have not proved to be up to the task
of dislodging drug traffickers from her Miguel Hidalgo neighborhood.
But she worries that the military's blunt instrument is also harming
innocent residents like her.

"Everybody has to do their job," Sanchez, 38, said as an army
helicopter buzzed overhead. "But not like this."

U.S. Supportive

The military campaign has made Calderon into a wartime president and
forced a public confrontation on Mexico's most serious security
crisis. U.S. officials have backed his get-tough approach to stem the
northward flow of methamphetamine, marijuana, cocaine and other
drugs, as well as the extradition of high-level drug kingpins.

Federal authorities say turf battles among key cartels for shipping
routes and Mexico's growing domestic market have caused a surge in
violence. The government does not release official figures, but
leading Mexican newspapers put this year's death toll at about 1,000,
on pace to shatter last year's count.

The central state of Michoacan, because of its fertile drug fields
and access to northbound highways and Pacific ports, has been hit
especially hard. Experts estimate that Michoacan has the
second-highest toll in drug-related deaths this year. In many rugged
mountain towns, drug rings have entirely infiltrated local police departments.

"In an ideal situation, we would not have the military leading this
effort," Gov. Lazaro Cardenas said in an interview. But with violence
escalating and "with the magnitude of strength that organized crime
maintains, the only force capable of successfully confronting it is
the military," he said.

This week, the head of a federal drug intelligence unit was gunned
down in an ambush in Mexico City. In Veracruz, someone left a bag
near an army barracks. Inside was a human head, grenades and a note
reading: "We will continue."

And Wednesday, state officials reported that Apatzingan's security
chief was wounded by unidentified gunmen in a taxi. He resigned hours
later. The attack came days after the deadliest assault on the
military, an ambush in nearby Caracuaro that killed five soldiers.

After the Caracuaro ambush, the cover of the influential newsmagazine
Proceso hinted at an intractable conflict with a headline calling the
drug war "Calderon's Iraq." A poll published May 9 in the newspaper
El Universal found that 73 percent of respondents think drug-related
violence has increased this year. Although generally supportive of
Calderon's approach, only 33 percent think the anti-drug operations
have succeeded.

Even as lawmakers urge an end to the military campaign, Calderon is
stepping up his efforts. Last week he created a special military unit
to battle organized crime, and he recently launched a new offensive
of more than 1,000 troops in Veracruz state.

Secretary of Public Security Genaro Garcia Luna told a gathering of
foreign journalists Thursday that he sees the counterattacks as a
strategy by organized crime to shake Mexican political will and force
the withdrawal of the military.

"The criminals are looking for a retreat by the authorities so they
can achieve impunity," he said. "We are not going to take a step
backward. On the contrary. The vision, the strategy, the concept is
very clear: going on the offensive."

Apatzingan, an unruly town of 90,000 in the state's west, has become
a key test for the military's staying power. Calderon visited in
January, dressed in an army cap and jacket, for a de facto
declaration of war. In last week's raid, heavily armed troops
demolished a suspected drug house and killed four assailants in broad daylight.

Human-Rights Complaints

In the process, the town has generated the most human-rights
complaints among 52 received statewide. Officials say most of the
complaints statewide involve soldiers entering homes without warrants
and illegally detaining residents without probable cause.

"One complaint, you could understand. But so many have the same basic
claims," said Erik Gonzalez, the Apatzingan representative for the
state's human-rights commission. "The military used to be an
institution with great prestige and respect. Now people are feeling
discontent about the military presence."

Cardenas, the governor, insists that the military deployment is
showing signs of success, including the arrests of organized crime
leaders and corrupt police. Authorities have eradicated marijuana
fields statewide, and drug-related violence has ticked downward.

"It would not be responsible to say we have results that we should
celebrate excessively," he said. "But compared to the period before
this operation began, we have seen evidence of improvement."

The long-term effects are less clear. One of Sanchez's neighbors in
Apatzingan, who also was detained, has since left town in fear.
Sanchez still has nightmares. And when her son sees a man in uniform,
he mutters "Pocia" (his version of policia) and runs away.

Jorge Luis Sierra, author of the book "The Internal Enemy" about
domestic military operations, said he worries that the emphasis on
the military has caused elected officials to overlook wider issues,
such as improving counterintelligence and keeping drug rings from
infiltrating police forces. He also is uneasy because other Latin
American nations have tilted toward authoritarianism when they employ
the military.

"We need to take a few steps back and ask ourselves if a society like
Mexico wants its military occupying the plazas, the city halls,"
Sierra said. "In the long term, I don't think it is healthy for a democracy."