A Report From Juarez, the Front Line of the War on Drugs

Comments (0) By Susana Hayward Wednesday, Apr 28 2010

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Many in Juárez think they've been forsaken, that the government is letting the violence play out until a cartel winner emerges. Mexico ended 71 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) when Vicente Fox, a former Coca-Cola executive, won the presidency under the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, in 2000. Mexicans viewed this election as the country's first democratic ballot, and there was hope that with it, corruption would decline and the rule of law would materialize.

Calderón maintains that most of the murders are related to cartel violence, and that about 5 percent are innocent or bystanders. When answering questions from the public or the media about the success of his strategy, the president insists it is a problem of "perception."

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His oft-repeated answer is, "We all have to work on the image of Mexico and the perception of the violence."

Calderón won in 2006 in a highly contested election, and when his term ends in 2012, Mexicans could opt to return to PRI rule, when a policy of criminal tolerance reined in drug violence. The question is what role the U.S. government will play in a nation averse to foreign intervention.

"The consulate killings put Mexico drug violence higher up on the U.S. agenda. But will this be enough to change the bleak panorama for both nations?" Chabat asked. "The truth is not clear, at least in the short term. How long can Mexican people and even the U.S. government endure this violence?"

In the meantime, the people of Juárez are trapped.

"We lock ourselves up," said the U.S. Consulate driver. "And at night, we dream of the dead."