Different Takes on Juárez

Here's Alberto Aziz Nassif:

Every day it's worse. There's no exit in sight and the measures that the federal government have taken have failed. But instead of recognizing it, Felipe Calderón talks of a "new strategy" that he's going to negotiate with Juárez residents. What is the cause of all this ineptitude? A government that decided to confront organized crime without having a strategy, without instruments, without calculating the levels of corruption that are in the police and the judicial systems of the state. A government that decided to send in the army, as if this option was going to resolve anything, when it's well known that the army can't work as a police agency. Where are the necessary reforms to attack organized crime? Where is the project to make a national police unifies multiple corporations?

I'd say this is a bit unfair; Aziz gives Calderón a 0 and you can argue that he doesn't deserve a passing grade, but he has indeed made an effort. For instance, Aziz asks where the reforms are. Well, last April the government passed a potentially significant asset-seizure law, and in 2008 there was a groundbreaking judicial reform. There are certainly issues with the application (see the Carlos Navarrete's recent criticism of the government for not using the asset-seizure law), but the idea that Calderón's team has done nothing but twiddle its thumbs isn't accurate.

And here's someone with a very different take on public security, Jorge Fernández Menéndez:

One [option for Juárez] that should be considered seriously is establishing a sort of state of emergency in the city and its metropolitan area, as agreed to by the city, the state, and the federal government, so as to recover territory and establish limits that are essential in the present environment. One example is visible only a few meters from Juárez, in El Paso, where the members of gangs (that's where Los Aztecas and Los Artistas Asesinos, who are directly responsible for a good part of the murders that have been committed in the city, come from) are prohibited from going out, except in cases of evident urgency, starting at 10 at night. These rules have been established, for example, in the Barrio Azteca of El Paso, where the gang that carries that name comes from and operates with enormous liberty on this side of the border.

It will be said that it's not necessary, that this way the civilian population is sacrificed, but the fact is that this plan seeks to recover tranquility and that, with certain measures, such as this one, much more control can be achieved.

Fernández Menéndez was also very supportive of the decision to move the state government operations to Juárez, which has provoked a great deal of criticism of Chihuahua Governor José Reyes Baeza.