Associated Press WorldStream via NewsEdge Corporation
MEXICO CITY_Police officers who are afraid of being attacked by drug gangs should not be in law enforcement, a Mexican official said Wednesday, as the government comes under increasing pressure following a wave of killings of top police authorities.
"It takes a lot of courage to confront organized crime," said Ruben Aguilar, spokesman for President Vicente Fox. "Those who are scared should not be there."
Aguilar also said the government "recognized the heroism" of all public officials killed in the line of duty, adding that "the government will not lower its guard until all the criminals are where they should be, in the prisons."
Two police chiefs were shot and killed within hours of each other on Monday in two towns in northern Mexico, where drug gangs have been battling for control of smuggling routes into the United States.
Last year, the police chief of the border city of Nuevo Laredo was gunned down on the street hours after being sworn into office. And in the central state of Michoacan, the head of police was fatally shot in a restaurant.
Dozens of low-ranking officers and several prison guards were also slain in drug-related violence in 2005, and federal judges who work on organized crime cases have asked for police protection.
University of Miami political scientist Bruce Bagley, who has written extensively on drug trafficking, said the Fox government had failed to devote enough resources to the battle against the cartels.
"It's all very well to talk about heroes, when they have left these men on the front line to die like dogs," Bagley said. "The federal government is a bystander to violence that is tearing the country apart and spilling into the United States."
Bagley also blamed Mexico's Congress for the worsening security, noting that a bill to overhaul the nation's judiciary has been stuck in gridlock.
"Mexico's justice system is totally broken. The lawmakers are fiddling and bickering while Rome burns," he said.
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza has repeatedly urged the Mexican government to do more to slow drug violence that killed more than 1,000 people nationwide last year.
Fox has said his government is fighting "the mother of all battles" against organized crime and has arrested more than 40,000 people on drug charges, including several kingpins, since he took power in December 2000.
But he says the confrontation with the cartels has provoked a backlash against officers.
Some analysts have compared the spiraling drug violence in Mexico to Colombia in the 1990s, when the Medellin and Cali cartels routinely killed police officers, judges and politicians.
But Bagley said there were "stark" differences between the two countries.
"There is no ongoing civil war in Mexico. There are no real guerrilla armies and right-wing paramilitaries," he said.
Mexican officials have blamed the conflict on U.S. consumers, for feeding demand, and U.S. gun dealers, for providing Mexican smugglers with weapons.
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