An extraordinary delegation of senior US officials, including Hillary Clinton and military and intelligence chiefs, landed in Mexico City yesterday for talks on the countrys rocketing drug-related death toll.
Ten days after an American consulate worker, her husband and the relative of a Mexican consulate employee were shot dead in the border town of Ciudad Juárez President Obamas diplomatic, war and intelligence Cabinet arrived en masse in a delegation usually reserved for visits to Iraq or Afghanistan.
After travelling through Mexico City in motorcades the group spent the day in talks with senior Mexican officials, including a session with President Calderón, on how to disrupt and dismantle the cartels, whose power and bloodlust grows by the day.
Mrs Clinton told reporters that the US had to do its part to curb the demand for drugs in America and the flow of guns into Mexico. Declaring that the cartels were waging war on civil society, she added: We have watched with great grief the terrible tragedies and murders that have taken place here in Mexico and then our hearts were broken by the murders in Juárez. They were the latest horrible reminder of how much work we have to do together.
Related LinksMurder in Mexico brings the drug war homeUS evacuates Mexico consular familiesCity in the front line of Mexicos drug warsMultimediaPictures: MexicoJoining Mrs Clinton, the US Secretary of State, were Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dennis Blair, Americas top intelligence official, and Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security chief.
Mrs Clintons visit was scheduled months ago but the heavyweights joining her underscored how the consulate killings on March 13 have focused the Obama Administrations attention on the carnage south of the border, where 79 US citizens were killed last year.
The group arrived amid anger here that the US is doing too little in Mexicos war on drugs, especially over the two root causes of the epidemic: the huge consumption of illegal drugs in America, which has created several billionaire drug barons, and the flow of guns from the US into Mexico. Since Mr Calderón declared war on the drug gangs in 2006, 18,000 people have died in drug-related murders. In Mexico last year a record 7,720 were killed in drug-related incidents. In Ciudad Juárez 2,600 were killed. This year 500 have died there.
Since 2006 Mr Calderón has used 50,000 troops to try to defeat the cartels Mexicos border police are notoriously corrupt but there is criticism that the military has only made the situation worse. There have been thousands of allegations of torture and illegal detentions, with civilians claiming that hundreds are being killed in shooting between gangs and soldiers.
When Mr Calderón Ciudad Juárez last week he was greeted with protests demanding the withdrawal of troops, rather than protests against the drug gangs, which ship massive quantities of heroin, cocaine and marijuana into the US.
It was this febrile atmosphere that the US delegation entered. At the heart of the discussions was the $1.3 billion (860 million) Merida Initiative, a three-year US aid deal to Mexico to help it to take on the cartels. It was struck between President George W. Bush and Mr Calderón in 2007, and Mr Obama wants to extend it.
Yet only a fraction of the Merida funds has been delivered to Mexico, another source of contention. Of the $628 million set aside for helicopters and armoured vehicles that the US pledged to provide, $113 million has been delivered. US officials say that another $135 million of equipment will be delivered by June, including three Black Hawk helicopters. Last year five Bell helicopters were supplied to the Mexican army. Also due to be supplied are two $50 million maritime surveillance aircraft.
Part of the discussions, informally called Merida 2, focused on improving cross-border security, intelligence sharing and new initiatives to track and disrupt the cartels finances.
Mr Calderón also wants help in funding social programmes in cities such as Ciudad Juárez that he hopes will steer people away from the drugs trade. Since 2006 there have been hundreds of extraditions to the US, including 107 last year, and tonnes of drugs confiscated. Yet the flow of drugs and the death toll has only increased.
The cartels are so brazen that the family of a soldier who arrested an alleged gang member was murdered soon afterwards. Last week in two Mexican cities drug gangs used cars, buses and trucks to block roads so that military reinforcements could not arrive.
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