Echoes of Colombia in Mexico drug war
Cartels up stakes with high-profile killings of officials
By Oscar Avila
Chicago Tribune correspondent MEXICO CITY — On the home turf of Mexico's deadliest drug cartels, they hang banners that mock Mexican authorities trying to maintain order. "Little tin soldiers, federal officers made of straw," read one banner in the state of Sinaloa.
But a more powerful message is coming in the brazen and widespread burst of murders, much of it geared toward law-enforcement officials, that has shaken even the most hardened Mexican in recent days.
Even as the body counts spiral in northwestern Mexico, a single killing in Mexico City raised the stakes. Edgar Millan Gomez, acting national police chief, was assassinated at home last week, the highest-ranking official to be killed since President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006.
Millan Gomez's death, a coolly efficient hit in the nation's political and symbolic heart, has raised stark comparisons that Mexico could be heading the way of Colombia of the 1990s, when chunks of territory were out of government control and the indiscriminate killings of police chiefs, judges and prosecutors became commonplace.
This critical juncture for Mexico comes as the U.S. Congress is set to vote this week on the Merida Initiative, a $550 million anti-crime aid package. Bush administration officials say the recent violence shows the urgency for the proposal. To continue click here...
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