Weekly Report - 11 April 2006

As the tally of murders in Nuevo Laredo since the beginning of the year reached 70 early last week, the government began to protest that this did not spell the failure of either México Seguro, the anticrime drive launched in mid-2005, or the more recent Frontera Norte campaign, launched on 13 March [WR-06-12;13]. By the end of the week the tally had increased by 10%, and Nuevo Laredo was accounting for 54% of the countrywide total. Impressive as these figures are, they seem to point to a decline over the past year.