9,000 Deaths Over Six Years
 El Universal
Drug traffickers were responsible for almost 9,000 murders during the six years of the Fox administration, the Chamber of Deputies´ Public Security Committee revealed Monday.
From 2001 through November 30 of 2006, the number of "narco-executions" averaged over 1,000 per year, soaring to 2,100 in the first 11 months of 2006.
The deadliest cities have been Tijuana, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Acapulco and Mexico City.
"The scenario is worse here than in Colombia," said Francisco Santos, a member of the Security Committee. "During Fox´s six years, there was an average of four such executions per day."
Santos also said that the number of murdered journalists, which he put at 30, also increased during the Fox administration.
Santos, a member of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) from the State of Mexico, said that after Felipe Calderón assumed the presidency on Dec. 1, the drug-related murder rate appears to have declined slightly.
"But it´s not enough to put things in order just in Michoacán," he said, referring to Calderón´s December crackdown on drug-trafficking organizations there. "There are at least a dozen states that have found themselves invaded by narco-violence."
Santos said his party, a bitter rival of Calderón´s National Action Party (PAN), would support any action by the president that would be effective in fighting drug-related violence.
A disturbing sign of the times, he said, is that execution-style revenge killings - known as "ajusticiamientos" - are no longer considered out-of-the-ordinary events.
"In Michoacán alone in 2006 there were 500 revenge killings, 17 of them by decapitation," he said. |
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Editorials | Issues | January 2007 
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