MEXICO CITY (AFP) — President Felipe Calderon Friday acknowledged the country's drug war is bloodier and tougher than he thought when he first took office in 2006, but vowed to eradicate the "cancer" that is consuming Mexico.
On the same day as a US State Department report said Mexico's war on drugs was hampered by corruption, Calderon said drug trafficking is "a cancer" that has "invaded everything."
"It's as though the patient told the doctor 'my stomach hurts badly' ... And when he is operated on to remove what was thought to be an appendicitis, an already widespread cancer is found instead," Calderon told Milenio TV.
Drug-related violence has reached record levels in Mexico, with some 5,300 people killed last year. And there is no sign of any improvement this year.
Dozens of murders occur each day, especially in the northern corridor along the US border where drug cartels vie for the world's top drug market, the United States.
Calderon said there was no break in the struggle, citing the arrest Wednesday of 52 suspected members of the Sinaloa drug cartel in three US states, as part of a joint US-Mexico-Canada anti-drug sweep that netted 755 suspects in 21 months.
"So what you have to do is eradicate this disease, expose it to radiation and attack it, and of course this is expensive and painful, but it must be done," the president said.
At the start of his term in office, Calderon said he was confronted with a "very, very serious problem," as his aides updated him about the threats, kidnappings, disappearances and decapitations around the country.
But, he added, he did not know how widespread the evil really was.
So he decided to launch a proper war on the drug barons, deploying more than 36,000 troops and police around the country. Since then, 72 soldiers have been killed, and 120 police officers died in 2008 alone, according to government figures.
On Friday, Mexican defense officials confirmed that an additional 5,000 military troops and 1,000 police are to be deployed over the next 15 days to the drug-ravaged northern border with the United States.
The reinforcements are to target Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's murder capital just across the border from El Paso, Texas.
Over 1,600 murders took place in Ciudad Juarez last year in drug-related violence. Some 2,500 soldiers are currently deployed in Ciudad Juarez, which has a population of 1.3 million.
Mexico and Washington have been collaborating for some time in the fight, but last year the joint effort intensified with the US Merida Initiative that gives Mexico 1.4 billion dollars over three years and 200 million to Central America and the Caribbean.
The initiative has nabbed some top cartel bosses and drug shipments, but the drug gangs are as defiant as ever -- in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, they have threatened to decapitate the mayor and his entire family.
The chief of police of Ciudad Juarez resigned after his deputy was murdered and the drug cartels threatened to kill a cop every 48 hours if he stayed on.
Washington and Mexico on Friday reaffirmed their determination to wipe out the drug cartels and praised their ongoing cooperation, but they also blamed each other for not getting more done.
On Friday, the US State Department issued its annual report on global counternarcotics efforts, in which it said: "Corruption throughout Mexico's public institutions remains a key impediment to successfully curtailing the power of the drug cartels."
Calderon shot back wondering out loud how the drug cartels managed to get their cash from drug proceeds across the border into Mexico.
"We watch the border crossings into the United States, but the truth is we've never watched those crossing into Mexico."
"I think that weapons and cash cross from there to here, and that both countries should strive to make their border safe and open to trade and workers, but closed to illegal drugs, weapons and money trafficking."
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