MUSICIANS' SLAYINGS SHOCK MEXICO

Drug Lords Strike Singers Affiliated With Rival Cartels

MEXICO CITY - Mexico is reeling from the gruesome executions of two
popular musicians last week in a record year for drug violence,
despite a yearlong military operation against Mexico's major drug cartels.

The high-profile murders have left many here feeling more vulnerable
than ever to drug violence and wondering just how far it can reach.
One musician was gunned down in her hospital bed, the other kidnapped
after a concert, tortured and left on the side of the road.

According to counts kept by the press (the Mexican government doesn't
publish such statistics) drug murders are on an unprecedented pace:

The Mexico City daily El Universal has counted 2,544 executions
through Dec. 5, already more than the 2,221 executions it recorded all
of last year. In 2001, the newspaper recorded 1,080 drug killings.

At one point during the year, Mexico was averaging more than 10
drug-related killings a day.

The grim statistics come amid the Mexican government's most concerted
effort ever to curb the reach of drug traffickers. Mexican President
Felipe Calderon has made public security the centerpiece of his first
year in office, sending more than 10,000 soldiers and federal troops
to confront the cartels in nearly a dozen states.

He also negotiated a $1.4 billion aid package from the United States
to help fight the drug war that the U.S. Congress is debating. But
despite the federal troops, the violence has continued.

"We need to recognize that we are losing the war," wrote conservative
political analyst Sergio Sarmiento this week in the Reforma newspaper.
"The murdered artists are no different than the rest of the victims of
crime in our country. Their deaths however, have the advantage of
getting the people's attention."

The country has been most shaken by the death of Sergio Gomez, 34, the
lead singer of the wildly popular group K-Paz de la Sierra. Gomez
founded the band, which plays a style of music called Duranguense,
featuring brass horns and fast-paced drums, as an immigrant in
Chicago. Gomez reportedly had received threats warning his band not to
play in their native state of Michoacan before he was kidnapped and
killed.

The same week Gomez's body was discovered, Zayda Pena of Zayda y Los
Culpables, was shot to death in her hospital room in Matamoros, across
the border from Brownsville, Texas, after a botched assassination attempt.

A Wave Of Violence

The singers' deaths were just part of a wave of violence this week: a
former federal congressman and five companions were gunned down in the
border city of Rio Bravo, near McAllen, Texas. Days later, a police
commander was killed in Tecate along the California border after a
drug tunnel to the United States was uncovered.

Samuel Gonzalez Ruiz, former head of a federal organized crime task
force, said many singers have been branded as balladeers for
particular cartels. When they sing within the territory of rival
cartels, he said, they become targets.

"The cartels don't care about how they are seen by the public, they
are worried about showing their absolute control of their territory,
and they will impose their control at all costs," Gonzalez said.
"(Killing a singer) is like planting the flag of their cartel in the
ground."

The Calderon administration has loudly trumpeted its successes in the
last year: the government has made some historic drug seizures in
recent months, including 23 million tons of cocaine in the port of
Manzanillo, the world's largest narcotics seizure.

The government has also extradited a record number of drug lords to
the U.S., including Osiel Cardenas, leader of the Gulf Cartel, which
is disputing control of the U.S.-Mexico border with the Sinaloa Cartel.

But observers agree that no matter how much money or troops are thrown
at the cartels, things won't improve without structural changes in
Mexico's opaque legal system and notoriously corrupt police forces.

"If the Mexican government can't fight corruption (the U.S. aid
package) will be useless," said Mexico City security analyst Jorge
Chabat.

Mexico is considering overhauling its legal system, a reform that
would give the system more transparency and, supporters hope, make
judges less vulnerable to pressure from drug cartels.

In the last year, at least 8 musicians have been executed, all
practitioners of grupera music, a catchall term describing a norteno-
and ranchera-influenced music popular in rural areas. Most have also
been singers of narco-corridos, songs that like gangster rap,
chronicle the deeds of drug traffickers.