More troops, more police
President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa's one-dimensional security strategy is to respond to a deteriorating situation by deploying even more federal policemen and soldiers. The federal government's response to the massacre of 12 federal policemen in Michoacán, the first state into which the government sent the army, was only to dispatch even more troops and federal policemen to the state.
The current strategy is under pressure from several sides. Not only is it failing to deliver results but human rights' organisations, both in Mexico and the US, are becoming increasingly concerned that the army has been cutting corners during its deployment as an auxiliary police force. The third area of criticism is what the deployment means for Mexico's style of government.
Under the constitution, state governments are responsible for law and order in their jurisdictions. Constitutionalists point out that the federal government is riding roughshod over this stipulation. There are good reasons for it to do so. The main one is that a lot of state policemen have become either compromised with, or have gone over completely to, the gangsters. Municipal police forces are equally unreliable.
In Michoacán, for example, the feds arrested 29 state policemen since the massacre of the 12 feds whose bodies were dumped by a road on 13 July. The state cops are all accused of taking part in the massacre. It is not only state policemen that the federal government doubts. Before the mid-term elections it arrested 28 local officials, including several mayors, whom it also accused of being in league with the gangsters.
The state policemen are being held under the judicial process of “arraigo". This means that they are only under suspicion while an investigation of the evidence against them continues. A judge has to issue a warrant for arraigo, which is usually for 30 days. The arraigo system has been heavily used by the current administration. It is much criticised by human rights groups who argue that it allows the authorities to conduct fishing expeditions.
The federal government's mistrust of the local cops is the principal reason for the deployment of federal police, soldiers and marines. On 16 July the federal government announced it was sending a further 5,500 police and soldiers to Michoacán.
The big question is whether these extra forces will tip the balance decisively against La Familia Michoacana, the gang which controls the drug trade, and, some commentators allege, has close links with the state government and the mayors of some municipalities in Michoacán.
The government's new deployment, reinforcing the 3,200 federal force which has been operating in the state since December 2006, is composed of 1,500 federal police officers, 2,500 soldiers and 1,500 marines. The forces will be deployed in the state cities and along the main roads. La Familia, security analysts guess, can probably field 5,000 gunmen.