Friday, August 1, 2008
Shakeup
The head of SIEDO, the organized crime division of Mexico's justice department, has resigned in what is being described as the first in a series of changes. The impetus for the shakeup came from Felipe Calderón. The president was unsatisfied with the general decline in public security, as well as a few specific mishaps: the continued inability to break traffickers' control over the Mexico City airport, the suicide of a major kidnapper in SIEDO custody this April, the systemic failures brought to light by the Zhenli Ye Gon case, among others.
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2 comments:
Calderon is riding a tiger. What he's facing, the combination of impunity, tradition of viva yo, everything has a price, and so forth commence early in a kid's life when he finds out that he can have his slate wiped clean each week by paying his priest, receive absolution. I was told many years ago by a wealthy Mexican that "There is nothing illegal in Mexico. Some things are more expensive than others." And maybe Santa Anna had it right when he mused that Mexico is not capable of self-government. Maybe the iron fist of the PRI is less worse?
Thanks for the comment Charlie. It's hard to say if the authoritarian PRI governments would be able to make anymore headway on the cartels than the Calderon's, but there's reason to be skeptical. Drugs have gotten steadily in worse in Mexico since the early 80s, and it was PRI presidents who really let the cartels get anchored in. Calderon certainly seems to be riding a tiger in terms of drug policy, it's hard to say where he and the nation will land.
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