Calderon changes Mexico's drug war strategy

'We are scared to go out of houses'
“Calderon’s war on drugs has been a big disappointment for us,” said Pedro Ortega, a family doctor in Aguililla, a Michoacan farming town at the center of the drug trade. “The reality is that we are scared to go out of houses, scared about what could happen to our children.”

Calderon’s overall approval ratings remain high — 68 percent according to a recent Ipsos-BIMSA poll. But 40 percent blame the military presence for the increasing violence, and 36 percent believe the traffickers are winning, according to the nationwide survey of 1,050 adults from April 26 to May 1, which had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.

Aguililla was one of the first towns to receive soldiers. Convoys of Humvees rolled down the streets, black helicopters clattered low over the houses and soldiers at checkpoints frisked motorists for guns. But residents say the military presence has been sporadic since then, and most of the time they are left without protection from the traffickers.

“There is no government here. We just pray to God to take care of us,” said 60-year-old Soledad Lombera, sobbing at a cross of candles in her house, an alter she created days after her son Francisco Alvez was found shot and buried on a nearby ranch.

Outsiders ordered to leave
Like many towns in the heart of drug country, Aguililla is strategically difficult to control, approachable by winding roads on which assailants ambushed and killed 11 state police last year. At night, the paved central plaza is taken over by gun-wielding thugs in sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks.

Outsiders are not welcome. A group of Mexican newspaper reporters who tried to cover the killings in Aguililla were blocked by a gang of men bearing automatic rifles who ordered them to leave, said the reporters, who asked that their names not be used for fear of reprisals.

Seven journalists have been killed in Mexico since October, making it the world’s second-most dangerous place to report, after Iraq.

Aguililla’s mayor, Miguel Avila, said the crackdown won’t work unless Mexicans get better jobs as an alternative to growing and smuggling drugs.

“If you don’t let people make money in one way, you have to offer them another,” Avila said. “All the people in the United States buying these drugs give people a big incentive to produce them.”

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