Baghdad on the Rio Bravo

     News Item: The Iraq government has removed an entire brigade of Iraq police from service for investigation and "training". There is reasonable suspicion that the police were complicit in the actions of militant insurgents.

     Now shift to México. A company in my area, who exports sophisticated consumer products, arranged for factory training for service of a product for one of their US distributors. Suddenly, a short time before the personnel to be trained were due to arrive, the training of the US personnel was canceled. Instead, the distributor asked for a training video be made and sent to them.

     What happened? Simple; the US distributor can read the newspapers and the increasing warnings from the US State Department about travel in ever larger areas of México. The Mexican and US governments now list México City as one of the danger areas!

     The newspapers report that 25 beheadings have occurred so far this year in México. In one case a gang entered a bar in rural México and dumped a sack of five heads on the floor to "send a message". This is new. Welcome to Baghdad.

     More parallels to Iraq: Without taking sides on the conduct of the war in Iraq, it is the opinion of many that by conducting a "regime change" and leaving a vacuum of power set the stage for an insurgency. In México's case, this has been the result of conducting a strong anti-drug war against the cartels. In many cases, the former leaders of the cartels have been caught and are in prison. The war is being carried out by the remaining fractions fighting to get control of the lucrative drug running routes to the US market. And with the money involved, the corruption of both the local police and federal forces is rampant. Murder of both drug gang members and police are not even being reported by the press along the northern border now. Too dangerous for the newspapers to even print the numbers. In the interior of México, you can't pick up a paper without reading about such and such police chief being assassinated.

     Those of us living in the interior, going about our normal business, we don't really see any of this. On the other hand a tourist, not knowing what areas to avoid can get him into big trouble. Therefore the warnings. As for me, I wouldn't even think of going to Acapulco, but I know of lots of other areas to go for a dip in the ocean. Cancun, revealed as a pedophile nest, belongs on the list.

     This brings us to another facet. Recently, a former Prime Minister of Spain, joined by Carlos Slim, our richest man, joined in a forum about increasing foreign investment in México. Both suggested a stronger effort be made to increase tourism (along with improved infrastructure) to improve our third largest source of foreign income. From what I am seeing now with all of the dire warnings, I predict that this year will be a dud on tourism.

     Couple this with the declining world price of oil (our first source of foreign income) and there are financial problems on the horizon. President-elect Calderón will have his work cut out for him.

     But getting back to México's drug war, this is a two-country problem. The vast market is the US who can't seem to control its appetite for drugs. On the other hand, México, itself, is becoming a viable market for the drugs that pass through on the way north. Both countries will have to cooperate in solving what is a common problem.

     México's second largest source of foreign income is the "remittances" sent south by Mexican immigrants to their familles in México.  Problems may be looming here too. More and more migrants are taking their entire families north because of the increasing difficulty to be able to cross the border in either direction. As I have said in the past, sealing (or trying to) the border serves to also seal in the migrants. We have entire states that are closing school after school because there are no children left to attend. Why send money to México to support your family when they are up north with you?

     Reading the US newspapers about crops rotting on the vine due to the shortage of agricultural workers (read Mexicans) seems to indicate a real need for guest workers that can work, go back home and work again as needed. So much for Pat Buchanan.

     On the brighter side, it would look like that Calderón is building a coalition to be able to pass some of the badly needed reforms that México needs. I sincerely wish him well on this venture.

     But it would look like our new president may have his plate full to put down a local war right here.
_____________________________________
Richard N. Baldwin T., a HispanicVista.com (http://www.hispanicvista.com/) contributing columnist, lives in Tlalnepantla, Edo de México. E-mail at: R1041643422@aol.com