A senior US delegation led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought Tuesday to bolster joint efforts to tackle surging violence by Mexico’s powerful drug cartels.
“There is no question that they are fighting against both of our governments,” Clinton said at the start of the meeting, which came barely a week after three US consulate-linked killings in Mexico’s most violent border city of Ciudad Juarez.
The one-day talks in Mexico City — featuring US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano — took place amid tight security and more drug-related attacks across the country.
The meetings focused on the Merida Initiative, a 1.6-billion-dollar program of aid to fight organized crime mainly in Mexico but also in Central America that is due to expire in 2011.
Clinton said the plan had now entered a new phase.
“This new agenda expands our focus beyond disrupting drug trafficking organizations… and encompasses challenges such as strengthening institutions, creating a 21st century border and building strong, resilient communities in challenging environments such as Ciudad Juarez,” she said.
Mexico has been gripped in drug-related bloodshed since President Felipe Calderon launched a military clampdown on the country’s powerful drug gangs after taking office in December 2006.
More than 15,000 people have since died in suspected drug attacks, particularly near the US border, which increasingly claim the lives of innocent bystanders.
The Obama administration was the first last year to admit the United States was also to blame for Mexico’s drug violence, recognizing the role of US drug appetites and the flow of weapons from north to south.
Clinton said Tuesday’s discussions focused on combating money laundering, justice reform and how the United States can assist in Ciudad Juarez.
Three killings linked to the US consulate in Mexico’s notorious northern crime capital on March 13 brought renewed US attention to the problem.
US law enforcement agents across the border in El Paso, Texas last week rounded up members of the Barrio Azteca gang — hitmen for the Juarez drug gang — who are suspected in the killings of a US consulate employee, her husband and the husband of another staff member.
Mexico’s most violent city, Ciudad Juarez has been a testing ground for Calderon’s crackdown, which includes the deployment of some 50,000 troops nationwide.
But protests by residents frustrated with a spiraling death toll and growing crime greeted Calderon when he visited the city last week.
As the violence continues, Calderon’s replacement of notoriously corrupt police officers with soldiers to fight drug traffickers is under increasing scrutiny.
The army also has drawn fire for its sometimes brutal treatment of suspects.
“The military presence alone has to be complemented with civilian law enforcement and a whole traditional framework that surrounds that,” Napolitano told journalists on her flight to Mexico.
Analysts have hailed improved cooperation in recent months, including scores of extraditions of cartel leaders from Mexico to the United States, and a mass arrest of Mexican drug gang members north of the border last year.
But only a fraction of the 1.3 billion dollars earmarked for Mexico under the Merida Initiative has been delivered so far.
Clinton said US equipment deliveries were accelerating.
