Violently, Drug Trafficking in Mexico Rebounds
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Without knowing of its reputation, without hearing it called “Little Medellin,” it might be difficult to recognize this bustling provincial capital as the historic center of Mexico’s drug trade. The young men in dark glasses riding in chromed pickup trucks are harder to pick out these days in the traffic of businessmen’s sedans and farmers in from the countryside. Where the city’s three rivers intersect, construction has started on a $300 million project to reclaim the floodlands for a glitzy sprawl of shopping centers, residential developments and business parks. The new Governor of Sinaloa state, Renato Vega Alvarado, would love to talk about how its vegetable farmers might take advantage of a North American Free Trade Agreement. He would rather not talk about drugs. “It’s just not fair the treatment that Sinaloa gets,” he said. “This state has lots of potential.” 80 Slain in 2 Months But in Sinaloa, as elsewhere in Mexico, the drug trade has been bursting violently back into view. On a single night in January, traffickers left 11 people dead on Culiacan’s streets. In the two months since Mr. Vega took office, the local body count has passed 80, with most of the deaths believed to be drug-related. The killings are just the most visible sign that four years after President Carlos Salinas de Gortari pledged to make life miserable for the nation’s drug traffickers, the traffickers have adapted well. The more vigorous enforcement has helped to push the drug issue far down the agenda of Mexico’s conflicts with United States. Yet officials estimate that as much as 70 percent of America’s cocaine supply still flows through Mexico, leaving a trail of lawlessness and corruption that may yet complicate plans for a closer economic partnership between the two countries. “The Mexican perception is, ‘This is as much as we can do and it’s more than what many countries do,’ ” said Peter H. Smith, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego who studies drug-control policies in Latin America. “It is a strategy that can improve the tone of United States-Mexican relations. But I think many people recognize that it can’t do a whole lot to change the objective realities of the drug trade.” More : query.nytimes.com |