Mexico, three times the size of Texas..... is the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world and the second most populous country in Latin America after Portuguese speaking Brazil.
Narcotics-related violence took the lives of 8,000 individuals in 2009, with over half killed in states along the US border. New estimates suggest 29,000 have died since President Calderon took office in December 2006. President Calderon has made combating organized crime a priority of his administration and to that end, has deployed the Mexican military to 10 Mexican states to assist (or replace) the weak and often corrupt local and state police.
Transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) have responded to increased pressure on their activities with unprecedented violence directed mostly at competing cartels, but also government security forces and innocent citizens.
In an article from the News Daily in Mexico City, posted through Reuters, it was reported last month that Mexico's main television networks and other news groups had vowed to put tighter controls on the publication of of gruesome images from a drugs war that has hurt President Felipe Calderon's government.
Calderon has criticized Mexico's media for publishing the threats , and occasionally showing grainy images of hitmen interrogating tied-up enemies before executing them.
Nearly one million people and one billion dollars worth of commerce cross the border each day! Coordination of both sides of the border is crucial.
A New York Times article this past December, discusssing diplomatic leaks (Wikileaks), mentioned that President Obama had called the leader of Mexico regarding the leaked cables quoting officials there admitting pessimism about the nation's war on drug lords.
Overall the Wikileaks disclosure of diplomatic reports between Americans in Washington and foreign capitals have been more embarrassing than revelatory or harmful to national security, officials and analysts say. Nevertheless, those dealing with Mexico, a troubled neighbor battling a corrosive drug war, illustrate the diplomatic problems created by exposing even routine communications to international light.
American diplomats in the leaked cables quoted officials there admitting pessimism about the nation’s war on drugs even as the government publicly had boasted of progress, while other cables conveyed Americans’ criticism of the Mexican military police and judiciary and of public corruption in the country generally.
Opinion polls show public confidence in security has been shaken, and Calderon's conservative ruling party is lagging the main opposition party ahead of next year's presidential vote.
Twenty two journalists have been murdered during Calderon's term, at least eight in direct reprisal for reporting on crime and corruption, according to the Committee to Protect Journalits, or CPJ which welcomed the media accord.
The drug cartels now threaten the basic stability and social fabric of many Central American countries as well. As reported in Mexidata.Info, Laura Chinchilla Miranda, President of Costa Rica, speaking to the United Nations this past September, warned that the battle against narco-trafficking can only be won if nations worldwide overhaul their current strategies.
“If we don’t react, we are at risk of being virtually taken by their gangs, with consequences that will transcend local spaces and will turn into a clear challenge to international security”, Laura Chincilla Miranda said.. “From being a transit point, due to our geographical location between the great drug producers of the south and the great consumers of the north..... I call to the highest consuming countries so that they undertake more effective actions against such major problems and cooperate with the countries suffering from a malaise we have not created."
Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal also sounded the alarm during his address to the General assembly He said that the crime problems extended beyond drugs, incorporating trafficking in weapons, human organs and persons, as well as money laundering, illegal migration and terrorism.
Last month, Randal Archibold and Damien Cave, writing for the the New York Times , commented that the issue took center stage when President Obama, during a visit to El Salvador , announced a plan to fight organized crime in the region by providing training for local authorities, weapons and equipment.