Peer Reviewer 1:
The Reporter's Notebook suggests Mexican President Felipe Caldéron's latest crackdown on organized crime is showing results, although the extent of the campaign's success is highly questionable.
Some 25,000 troops were deployed to fight drug trafficking and several major cocaine seizures occurred since Caldéron took office last December. But rather than dismantling drug cartels and quashing violence, the crackdown appears to be forcing feuding drug lords to relocate to once tranquil places, as their war rages on.
For instance, the central state of Aguascalientes, the third smallest and until recently among the safest in Mexico, has seen a hike in drug-related crimes over the past year, with the targeted killing of municipal cops becoming a problem amid heightened public anxiety. Drug traffickers are believed to have infiltrated state police ranks, an act of corruption facilitated by the fact that law enforcement officials are underpaid, unprepared and poorly equipped. Last April's execution of four cops led to the disarmament of the state police force, with their weapons undergoing forensic tests. Investigators suspected corrupt state police officials were involved in the killings, but a successful prosecution of the perpetrators is still pending. Another four municipal cops were gunned down later last summer.
The author assumes drug-related killings dropped in the past year. However, a recent Reuters report puts the number of drug violence deaths at 2,350 so far this year, a slight increase over 2006. The figures are debatable since no government agency runs a tally of drug-related killings.
On the truce between rival Gulf and Sinaloa criminal organizations, it is important to point out that their agreement was timed to offset stepped-up efforts by both Mexican and U.S. authorities to combat traffickers on both sides of the border by sharing intelligence and law enforcement resources. Although the two violent cartels pledged to end their months-long turf dispute for control over the drug trade, executions continue to this day across Mexico.
Meanwhile, the campaign to prevent illegal immigrants from crossing the border fence seems to produce more results than nabbing smugglers of illegal drugs into the U.S. through tunnels dug under the fence. This is proof that the fight against organized crime is far from over.
The case of Zhenli Ye Gon, the Chinese-born Mexican businessman accused of trafficking in pseudoephedrine (substance used to produce synthetic drugs), certainly attests to that. But beyond the immediate implications of the illegal activities of Ye Gon and his accomplices among corrupt authorities, which the author accurately and fairly presents here, the case reveals a new problem emerging out of Mexico. Drug cartels, which traditionally dealt in cocaine, heroin and marijuana, are now shifting their clandestine operations to the production of synthetic drugs, such as methamphetamine. Known as speed or crystal meth, methamphetamine, also produced as pills or powder, is the third most frequently used drug in the U.S. after alcohol and marijuana, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
Specialists claim pseudoephedrine is usually imported from Asia and processed in illicit labs in Mexico before being shipped to the U.S. in the form of stimulant drugs. It is believed that methamphetamine abuse surpasses both cocaine and heroin in some western U.S. areas.
Peer Reviewer 2:
The report is factually accurate as regards the corruption caused by drug trafficking; however, the last four paragraphs regarding drug use in the United States are uncalled for, off-topic and represent an editorial opinion, not a factual presentation. In my opinion, they should be deleted.
While drug traffic-related corruption certainly trumps all other forms of corruption in Mexico, as in many countries, there are numerous other forms of corruption that affect the day-to-day life of the average citizen that should at least be mentioned. These involve police corruption and corruption in the petroleum industry, both considered by the average Mexican as seriously diminishing the hopes of effective governance in the country. Legislative and judicial corruption follow in importance and impact.
What is missing from the report is an analysis of what, if anything, the new Calderon administration is doing to fight corruption. The predecessor Fox administration did launch and maintain a fairly effective anti-corruption initiative, requiring each Secretariat to bi-annually report to the president on their efforts to fight corruption and their results. While the task was enormous some progress was made. Has Calderon continued these efforts or launched others? We cannot tell from the information presented.
Most certainly, corruption in political campaigns and elections has been lessened through primaries, limitations on campaign financing and election controls and monitoring. This clearly merits some mention. Finally, the recent charges against Fox for unjust enrichment in developing his rancho pale by comparison with the corruption-produced riches of all his predecessors since the revolution. This seems to be an advance in reducing corruption, even though some may well have occurred in the presidency and much continued in the central government, in spite of all efforts to reduce it. At any rate, Mexico is moving in the right direction and deserves some credit for doing so.
Peer Reviewer 3:
The Reporters Notebook on Mexico provides an excellent commentary on the drug-related corruption plaguing the country today. It narrates the alarming depth and continuing growth of narcotics-related issues in Mexico, with both statistics and news analysis.
There are two minor problems worth noting.
First, the report provides several compelling facts, but it is slightly biased in offering a solution. While legalizing drugs might be a ground-breaking idea, there are many complications to consider. The purpose of the report is not to offer an ideological assumption to solve the problem of drug-trafficking.
Second, the report neglects to mention other areas of corruption that affect Mexicans on a day-to-day level. While narco-trafficking is one of the most salient corruption issues in Mexico, there are also several problems on a business/bureaucratic level. Not to mention the presidential elections, which the opposition strongly contested as fraudulent.
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