MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) – A Mexican general took over all police and military operations in a chaotic western state yesterday in a test run of President Enrique Pena Nieto’s new security strategy to tame raging drug violence.
Alberto Reyes assumed control of all federal, state and city police forces, as well as military units in Michoacan, one of the most violent states in the country, after he was named the state’s new security minister.
Big swaths of Michoacan have fallen under the sway of criminal gangs who are fighting among themselves and against authorities. Former President Felipe Calderon launched his military-led crackdown on drug cartels there in 2006.
Pena Nieto, who took office in December, has vowed to reduce the violence that has exploded in Mexico in the last decade by battling crime rather than hunting down drug lords.
He wants to create a new national police force and move away from Calderon’s strategy of relying on the military, and he is clearly seeking to focus public attention away from violence and on to the economy.
More than 70,000 people have died in drug-related violence since Calderon began his offensive against the drug gangs. The government says the pace of killing has slowed since Pena Nieto took office in December, but thousands of people still died in his first months in office.
Calderon had sent out generals to lead operations in violence-racked states and cities such as Tijuana and Juarez, but they did not control the state and city police.
