Mexico moves to curb drug crime wave

Facing wide public indignation over Mexico's crime epidemic, President Felipe Calderon on Thursday proposed new steps to fight kidnapping and other violent offenses, writes Ken Ellingwood of the Los Angeles Times from Mexico City.

He called for anti-abduction squads, special high-security prisons with separate areas for kidnappers, closer tracking of cellphones and more aid for local authorities to combat what he described as the "cancer of criminality" that has developed in Mexico.

Calderon summoned governors and police officials from across Mexico to chart a way out of a crisis that has dominated the news and put the nation's leaders on the defensive.

The crime issue has dominated the Mexican agenda since the killing this month of a 14-year-old kidnapping victim, Fernando Marti. The kidnapping, which appeared to involve at least two Mexico City police officers, tapped deep resentment over impunity and corruption.

Read the rest of Ellingwood's report on anti-crime measures in Mexico here.

Click here for more on the drug trade.

For our special report on Mexico's drug violence problems, go to our Mexico Under Siege page.

For more on Mexico in general, click here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Comments

[Irgain]

Cuba's economy depend on cocaine and prostitutes trafficking.
Mexico is the strongest ecomomy in Latin America.

Terrorists in Cuba and Miami hate Mexico's economy and wonder who's behind this wave of narco-violence?

[Irgain]

Terrorism in Mexico comes from the Cuban-Floridian drug cartel.

Narco-communists who hate Mexicans and Mexico.
in Mexico and USA

supply and demand
go hand by hand.

Raul Castro is the main cocaine trafficker who blames on Mexican cartels of the pacific.

Miami-La Habana. is where terrorists are nested

[Southoc]

Huge protions of the Mexican economy is based upon illegal activities. The culture is moving north. We need to stop the spread.

[MarkM]

I think the heading here is very misguided. Mexicans are angry about kidnappings; Mexicans are NOT angry about drug sales to the USA! Half the state of Sinaloa's economy depends on drug growing. Just imagine how many other areas are also supported. You give the 'good' drug growers and dealers a bad name by trying to pin these kidnappings-for-ransom on them, and you prejudice the efforts for full drug legalization.