CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico, (Reuters) – Crowds of protesters damned President Felipe Calderon’s military crackdown on drug cartels as he flew to Mexico’s most violent city yesterday, three days after gunmen killed two Americans and a Mexican linked to the local U.S. consulate.
Hundreds of demonstrators held signs reading “government assassins” as Calderon arrived with U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual to meet officials and try to reassure Mexicans and Washington that his army-led crackdown on drug gangs is the best way to curb their violent turf wars.
“Calderon has no idea what he is talking about. He lives on another planet,” said Susana Molina, one of many activists walking and driving to the hotel where Calderon was due to give a televised speech.
“We told him we didn’t want more soldiers and he sent more,” Molina said, echoing frustration across the city, whose main newspaper El Diario ran the headline “We are sick and tired, Mr President.”
Violence has exploded here in recent months as ruthless, heavily armed cartels flush with profits from U.S. drug sales battle for control of the desert manufacturing city across the U.S. border from El Paso, Texas.
Mexicans generally support Calderon’s military-led drug war but polls suggest a loss of confidence in the campaign. Many Mexicans want a genuine reform of corrupt police forces that aid drug gangs, effective criminal investigations and an end to the culture of impunity that allows cartels to flourish.
In an apparent escalation of tactics, suspected drug hitmen on Saturday killed an American woman working at the city’s U.S. consulate and her U.S. husband as they left a birthday party. A Mexican man married to another consulate employee also was shot dead after he and his wife left the same event.
