Failed Mission Raises Doubts About Mexican Security

Experts say the horrific homicide numbers and the administration's inability to communicate a coherent security strategy do not paint an optimistic picture for the remaining five years of López Obrador's term. So far, he has been able to blame his predecessors for inherited problems, but at some point voters won't accept that anymore. He was elected as a nominal leftist, but has not governed that way, refusing, for instance, to challenge U.S. policies that have dumped thousands of refuge-seekers on the streets of dangerous border cities. Mexican police forces are blamed for some of the violence inflicted upon the refugees.

"How to marry this 'humanist' and 'progressive' vision of the president and his government with the undeniable reality and undeniable necessity of containing not just the drug trafficking groups but also the ordinary criminal violence" is the question faced by Mexico's president, according to Erubiel Tirado, coordinator of the national security, democracy and human rights program at the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City.

The most visible element of a security strategy under López Obrador, though not a strategy in itself, was the creation of the National Guard. The new fighting force was supposed to fill the security void created by corrupt, disbanded or outmatched police forces around the country and to an extent lessen the country's dependence on the use of the military for domestic policing.

A large portion of the guard, however, was immediately detoured to immigration enforcement duties under pressure from the United States.

"They're not a police force that is professionalized, that is trained in conducting investigations, surveillance, intelligence and that have special teams to conduct arrest operations in a finer way, not through confrontations in the streets," said Tony Payan, director of the Center for the United States and Mexico at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston.

It also remains unclear how the National Guard fits with the social programs that López Obrador says will attack the root causes of crime in Mexico.

"There doesn't seem to be any kind of holistic or integrated thinking about how you link violence-prevention programs, which the government talks a lot about, with actually prosecuting organized crime," said Duncan Wood, director of the Wilson Center's Mexico Institute.

López Obrador says little about strengthening Mexico's justice system, a key component of reining in the country's security problems.

The lack of a clear strategy worries not only Mexicans, but their neighbors to the north.

In October, Payan visited with personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City who expressed concern.

"They clearly said that they were waiting for the (López Obrador) administration to have a clear strategy and to communicate to them what the administration intends to do and how they intend to do it," Payan said.

The United States has enjoyed varying levels of cooperation from recent Mexican administrations in prosecuting the drug war, but has been struggling to find the channels for that cooperation under López Obrador.

"The sense that I have from my conversations is that the López Obrador administration considers these American agencies as part of a war on drugs that he wants to put behind him," Payan said.

In the case of Ovidio Guzmán, the United States has requested his arrest for extradition.

On Thursday, López Obrador, responding to speculation the U.S. government had pressured Mexico to act, said flatly: "We do not take orders from Washington."

Wood, of the Wilson Center, doubted this would be the last time we see Mexico go after a drug lord under López Obrador, because the U.S. pressure is not going to go away.

"There was huge disappointment on the part of folks in Congress and in the State Department and intelligence services with the way that the Culiacan mission was mishandled," Wood said.

"Now the question is, next time that they capture a high-value target, what will they do if faced with the same kind of situation? Will they back down or will they double down?" Wood asked.

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