Tijuana drug violence soars despite army crackdown
29 Aug 2007 19:27:01 GMT Source: Reuters
By Lizbeth Diaz TIJUANA, Mexico, Aug 29 (Reuters) - A military-led campaign against drug gangs in Mexico has failed to calm a feud on the border with California where gangland murders are rising, with victims burned alive or beheaded and dumped on streets. At least 323 people have been killed in drug violence in Baja California this year, more than in all of 2006, despite President Felipe Calderon sending more than 2,000 soldiers and federal police officers to the state earlier this year. While violence in many Mexican states like Nuevo Leon near Texas has dropped in an anti-drug drive by Calderon, killings in Tijuana -- just 20 miles (32 km) from San Diego -- have surged and spread to once quiet towns like Rosarito on the Pacific, according to the state attorney general's office. "The situation in Tijuana is truly appalling and Operation Baja California has shown its failings," said Jesus Alberto Capella, head of a government-funded pressure group that monitors state policing. Beaten and beheaded bodies are regularly found across Baja California, with some victims burned to death after being locked in car trunks, covered with gasoline and set alight. In January, heavily armed police and camouflaged soldiers rolled into Tijuana in a bold show of force, briefly disarming corrupt local police, raiding cartel safe houses and setting up roadblocks along city highways. But with only two senior kingpins captured, daylight kidnappings by hooded men and street shootouts continue as a power battle between the Arellano Felix family that has controlled the Tijuana cartel since the 1980s and Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, goes on unabated. Guzman, who escaped from prison in a laundry van in 2001, leads the powerful Sinaloa cartel from Pacific state of the same name and has vowed to crush the Arellano Felix clan. OPERATION FIZZLES OUT The number of federal cops in Tijuana has dwindled to only several hundred since January and few troops now patrol the streets. Police officials complain of a lack of good intelligence. "They have been shooting from the hip and the big arrests have been down to luck. We are still waiting for operations based on intelligence," said Tijuana Chief Police Luis Javier Algorri, who is credited with firing corrupt officers and raising police salaries in the city. About 1,600 people have died this year in drug violence in Mexico, as Guzman seeks to dominate the drug trade. Baja California is perhaps the biggest test for Mexican security forces because the Tijuana cartel is so entrenched and wields great power. Corruption among the police and politicians is a major problem in Baja California, where officers, business people and officials have enduring links with the Arellano Felix family and receive huge sums to turn a blind eye to drug trafficking and murders of rival drug gangs. "The political class is guilty of complicity. Rosarito is proof of that," said Victor Clark, a drug trade expert at San Diego State University, referring to the development of the coastal town as a new shipment point for cocaine heading to California. Drug killings have surged in the town this year.(Additional reporting by Robin Emmott in Monterrey)
