Word: n
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Staff writer Max N. Brondfield can be reached at mbrondf@fas.harvard.edu...
...Calderón put the army on the front lines of the fight against cartels as soon he took office in December 2006. There are now some 50,000 troops deployed against the gangsters, both in the marijuana-growing mountains and in cities such as Juarez, Monterrey and Tijuana. That campaign has coincided with skyrocketing violence, as criminal gangs wage war on government forces and on one another, leaving more than 5,300 dead last year. Many citizens support the soldiers, whom they see as Mexico's only hope against thugs armed with high-powered rifles and rocket-propelled grenades...
...Political analyst Jose Antonio Crespo suggests the protests are, indeed, the work of drug cartels, who he says are throwing everything they have into their fight against the government crackdown. But he argues that Calderón has made a mistake by keeping the soldiers on the streets throughout his first two years in office. "The army could be tolerated as an extreme measure. But now they have become the first level of enforcement against the cartels," he said. Crespo contends that this deployment has actually weakened the army's position. While criminals once viewed the troops as untouchable, they...
...pictures of Culiacán, the home of Mexico's drug-trafficking industry...
...military claimed that Beltran confessed to paying the demonstrators $15 to $35 each to take to the streets. "We have to stop criminal groups trying to generate chaos through co-optation and threats," said Federal Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna, the leading figure in President Felipe Calderón's campaign against crime. (See pictures of Mexico City's police fighting crime...