After a successful 10-month trial in California, a binational programme to crack down on people-trafficking is to be extended to the entire 3,200-kilometre Mexico-US border. During the trial period, joint action by the migration and security agencies of both countries were able to dismantle 17 rings of traffickers, known in Mexico as polleros.
Illegal traffic across the border has been increasing sharply. Though there are, of course, no statistics on total crossings, and idea of the volume can be inferred from the number of crossings thwarted, currently running at 160,000 a year.
The actions of unscrupulous polleros has contributed to the high number of deaths of people attempting to enter the US: 1,986 in the past six years; 371 in 2002; 78 since the beginning of this year.
* Warning on eruption of Indian land disputes
Disputes over land ownership or use involving indigenous communities could escalate into violent conflicts, according to the UN rapporteur on indigenous rights, Rodolfo Stavenhagen - who as the dean of Mexico's indigenists has a wealth of firsthand knowledge of the subject. Stavenhagen has recently concluded a tour of indigenous communities in Mexico.
He reports that there are at least 14 'hot spots' where conflicts could erupt at any moment, and a grand total of about 400 areas at risk.
Only recently a conflict within the Mixe community of San Miguel Quetzaltepec, in the southern state of Oaxaca, resulted in three dead and about 30 injured. Another dispute in Oaxaca was only averted when the state government deployed 400 policemen to keep the two groups apart.
In neighbouring Chiapas, the army was deployed to prevent clashes between the Lacandón people, who have rights over the forest that bears their name, from evicting settlers from outside Indian communities that have links with the Zapatista rebels.
* Mexico city gets new anti-crime adviser
The government of Mexico city has decided that advice from New York's former mayor Rudy Giuliani is not enough. It has also contracted the services of Leoluca Orlando, former mayor of Palermo, Sicily, to advice on action against crime. Orlando is famous worldwide for having broken the Mafia's stranglehold over Palermo.
His theory is that it is not enough to throw more money and more people into policing; that what is essential is fostering a 'culture of legality', of widespread respect for the rule of law, in the community. Cooperation between his Institute of Sicilian Renaissance and the city's secretariat of public security, headed by Marcelo Ebrard, will begin in August, Both sides expect to see results in about three years' time.
The federal government and authorities of Mexico city recently deployed 4,000 policemen in a major operation intended to 'clean up' the capital's district of Tepito and the adjacent neighbourhood of Morelos, renowned as hotbeds of violent crime and centres of traffic in contraband goods. Since the beginning of the year, 26 people were murdered in the area. The operation was led by the Agencia Federal de Investigaciones (AFI), the new FBI-style body which reports directly to the chief prosecutor's office (PGR). It is widely accepted that local police collude with the Tepito crime rings.
The sweep, which was strongly criticised by human rights organisations, did yield many arrests, but hardly pacified Tepito. A couple of weeks after it ended. the man reputed to be the boss of Tepito's street vendors, Francisco Laget Quezada (aka Layett, Laquett), was shot dead in the street.
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