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R 021309Z MAR 07
FM AMEMBASSY MEXICO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5621
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RHMFISS/CDR USSOUTHCOM MIAMI FL
RUEAHLA/DEPT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 MEXICO 001068 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/28/2017 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR MX
SUBJECT: ANTI-DRUG OPS EXTENDED TO EIGHT STATES 
 REF: MEXICO 983 
 
Classified By: Political Minister Counselor Charles V. Barclay, Reasons 
: 1.4(b/d). 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1.  (C) In the first three months of his presidency, 
President Calderon has initiated "surge operations" involving 
the mass deployment of federal police and troops in anti-drug 
operations in a total of 8 of Mexico's 32 states.  When 
measured strictly by the quantity of drugs seized and the 
number of drug traffickers arrested, the operations' results 
have been modest, leading some critics to dismiss them as an 
exercise in political grandstanding.  Nevertheless, even if 
the immediate results of the operations have been modest, 
they have sent several strong, symbolic messages.  First, his 
willingness to stake his prestige on these operations in only 
the second week of his presidency conveyed to the Mexican 
public that he would lend the war on crime more than just lip 
service, a welcome change after the torpor of the latter Fox 
years.  Indeed, his aggressive tactics against public 
insecurity may well explain his relatively high public 
approval ratings, and the political capital he has gained 
through these operations may prove valuable as he seeks more 
fundamental law enforcement reforms.  Moreover, his 
willingness to use the full authority and resources of the 
presidency against drug cartels has sent tremors through 
Mexico's underworld, clearly catching the cartels off guard. 
Although the operations seem to have been effective in 
curbing drug-related killings in the states where there is a 
continuing military presence, organized crime-style killings 
have spiked in at least three formerly peaceful states not 
targeted by the GOM, suggesting the surge operations are 
causing criminal syndicates to shift their operations 
elsewhere.  At this point we will be looking to see whether 
the GOM uses the momentum it has gained from these surge 
operations to attack the very pillars of the illegal drug 
industry, making it economically unsustainable.  End Summary. 
 
Operation Conjunta Michoacan 
---------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) The anti-drug offensive began on December 8, 
exactly one week after Calderon's inauguration, when the GOM 
sent 6,784 troops and federal police to his troubled home 
state of Michoacan.  Their mission was to eradicate drug 
plantations, intercept drug cargos and wanted criminals, 
execute arrest warrants, and dismantle points of drug 
retailing.  On January 3, Defense Secretary Guillermo Galvan 
summarized the results to date as follows:  5,023 fields of 
marijuana destroyed; 80 arrests; the seizure of 127 firearms, 
32,000 rounds of ammunition, 41 grenades, and US$4,000 in 
cash.  Over half of the troops sent to Michoacan were devoted 
to eradicating marijuana plants, but the number of arrests 
and the fact that none of those detained was a prominent 
trafficker compelled authorities to explain that tracking 
down and arresting drug bosses had not been a priority in 
Operation Michoacan.  However, Public Security Secretary 
Genaro Garcia Luna said the presence of troops in the state 
has reduced drug-related killings by 72 percent. 
 
Operation Tijuana 
------------------ 
 
¶3.  (SBU) One month later, the GOM deployed a force of 3,926 
officers to the border city Tijuana -- home to the cartel of 
the Felix Arellano clan.  One of its first acts was to disarm 
the entire 2,000-strong local police force and send their 
weapons for ballistic tests to determine whether they had 
been used in any crimes.  (Note: The federal authorities 
believe that drug gangs reign free in Tijuana due to 
widespread collusion with local police. End Note.)  In the 
first two-and-a-half weeks of Operation Tijuana, drug gang 
killings fell to less than half of last year's average.  No 
arrests of leading cartel figures were reported. 
 
Operation Sierra Madre 
---------------------- 
 
¶4.  (U) That same day, January 9, a force of more than 9,000 
officers began to arrive in the area known as the "Golden 
Triangle," which straddles the states of Chihuahua, Durango 
and Sinaloa.  The undeclared objective of this effort was the 
capture of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who has been deemed 
responsible for much of the inter-gang warfare since his 
jailbreak in 2001.  Guzman's Sinaloa cartel has violently 
disputed control of northern markets with the Gulf cartel, 
headed by the recently extradited Osiel Cardenas. 
 
Operation Conjunta Guerrero 
--------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (SBU) On January 10, a contingent of 7,600 troops and 
police began to take up positions in Acapulco and other parts 
of the state of Guerrero for the forth major anti-drug 
operation.  Both the Guerrero and Sierra Madre operations 
were officially announced January 19.  On January 22 the GOM 
summed up the results in terms that make comparison to the 
January 3 report difficult.  It said that more than 1,500 
hectares of drug crops had been destroyed, more than 32 tons 
of marijuana and 2.2 tons of cocaine seized, and "dozens" of 
arrests made. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) The media received the GOM's January 22 report with 
much skepticism, and highlighted that since the launch of the 
Michoacan operation only one prominent drug trafficker had 
been captured:  Pedro Diaz Prada, boss of the eponymous 
cartel, which is chiefly devoted to producing and 
distributing marijuana, and is considerably smaller than any 
of the 5 dominant cartels.  He was arrested on January 16 in 
the southern state of Oaxaca -- where no major anti-drug 
operation was under way. 
 
Anti-drug operation expands to Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
¶7.  (U) Since December, Calderon has ordered a total of about 
27,000 troops and paramilitary police into the six states of 
Michoacan, Guerrero, Durango, Sinaloa, Baja California and 
Chihuahua, where the turf wars between drug gangs claimed 
over 2,000 lives last year.  As of February 18, security 
officials claimed to have eradicated virtually as much opium 
poppy as marijuana in the six states: 3,873 hectares of 
marijuana and 3,324 hectares of opium poppies since the 
offensives started on December 8. 
 
¶8.  (U) On January 29 and February 18, respectively, Nuevo 
Leon and Tamaulipas became the seventh and eighth states 
targeted by Calderon's counter-narcotics offensive, with a 
deployment of 3,300 troops and federal police in and around 
the cities of Monterrey, Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa, and 
Matamoros.  Defense Secretary Guillermo Galvan said the joint 
operation would focus on key points along the main 
trafficking routes. 
 
Recent successes 
---------------- 
 
¶9.  (U) The GOM was able to claim three recent successes, two 
of which took place in the states targeted for massive troop 
deployments. On February 6, in Monterrey the authorities 
announced the arrest of 4 members of a "financial cell" of 
the Juarez cartel and the seizure of US$162,000 in cash. The 
cash seizure was directly related to a tip provided to GOM 
authorities by the DEA.  That same day at Mexico City's 
international airport, police seized a shipment of about one 
ton of cocaine from a commercial aircraft that had arrived 
from Venezuela. This seizure was also the result of 
intelligence provided by DEA. Another ton of cocaine was 
intercepted by army troops as it was being trucked through 
Sonora towards the U.S. border. 
 
Cartels strike back 
------------------- 
 
¶10.  (U) While in the earlier operations there were only a 
few clashes between the government forces and the gunmen, 
since late January the gangs have been striking back. On 
January 27, one police officer was killed and two were 
injured in an ambush in Nuevo Leon. That same day in Yucatan 
(outside the main areas of operations), a police and fire 
station was attacked with grenades. On January 29 in 
Monterrey an officer of the Agencia Estatal de 
Investigaciones (AEI), the state investigative police, was 
gunned down in the street, becoming the fifth police fatality 
of the month. 
 
¶11.  (U) Far more serious were two back-to-back attacks 
staged on February 6 in Acapulco by a team of gunmen 
disguised as soldiers: they killed 4 police officers and 3 
civilian employees of the police. The chief prosecutor of 
Guerrero state, Eduardo Murueta, complained publicly that the 
attackers were able to successfully pass themselves off as 
members of the military because the federal government's 
mistrust of state authorities had led to a complete lack of 
coordination between the military and local law enforcement. 
That same day in Sinaloa gunmen murdered the coordinator of 
the state judicial police's elite Unidad Modelo, Jorge Valdes 
Fierro. 
 
¶12.  (C) Although the intensity of the inter-gang turf wars 
has diminished since December, they have not ceased, even in 
the areas where the army has been deployed. On February 12 in 
Ciudad Juarez five bodies were found, bearing the "signature" 
of drug gang executions. Moreover, the murder of a prominent 
member of the PRD on January 15 in Durango, the attempted 
assassination of a PRI federal deputy, Horacio Garza, on 
February 19 in Tamaulipas, and the killing of four members of 
a dance band in Michoacan on February 18, show that the 
security situation is not improving despite the GOM's 
large-scale offensives. 
 
 
GOM response to recent attacks 
------------------------------ 
 
¶13.  (SBU) The security cabinet met twice on February 20 to 
evaluate the counter-narcotics operations underway, as well 
as to consider new strategies in light of the recent attack 
against Horacio Garza.  Defense Secretary Guillermo Galvan 
claimed that the army had already hit the drug gangs hard and 
this was why they were retaliating so fiercely. He also 
warned that more such attacks were likely. Separately, 
Attorney General Medina Mora emphasized that the war would 
take "years" to win and said that more money and resources 
would be needed.  He also said that the GOM did not plan 
additional joint operations in other states, in the interests 
of focusing on the operations currently underway.  (Note: In 
a February 16 meeting with visiting Secretary of Homeland 
Security Chertoff, Medina Mora said the GOM understood that 
surge operations and extraditions were not enough to defeat 
the cartels.  He said that his staff would be seeking to 
understand the cartels from a "microeconomic" perspective, to 
understand how they source and ship contraband and how they 
buy off low level officials, in order to arm a strategy aimed 
at making the cartels economically unsustainable.  End note.) 

The "cucarracha" effect 
----------------------- 
 
¶14.  (U) Although the operations seem to have been effective 
in curbing drug-related killings in the states where there is 
a continuing military presence, organized crime-style 
killings have spiked in at least three states not targeted by 
the GOM and that were formerly immune to the menace. (Note: 
The local press has been calling this the "cucarracha" 
("cockroach") effect, suggesting that the fumigation of pests 
in one area, only moves them to another area.)  Recent news 
reports suggest that the operations may be pushing the drug 
trade into areas which had previously been unaffected by 
drug-related violence, including Aguascalientes, Oaxaca, and 
the Yucatan.  On February 19, the Governor of Aguascalientes, 
Luis Armando Reynoso Fermat, said that drug gangs had been 
building up their operations in the state.  Last week, four 
state policemen were gunned down by a gang in Aguascalientes. 
With few major drug traffickers arrested, the cartels may be 
shifting their operations to states not targeted by federal 
authorities. 
 
Public opinion 
-------------- 
 
¶15.  (U) According to a poll conducted by Consulta Mitofsky 
(published on February 14) the public tends to disagree with 
the widespread view that the results of the mass deployments 
are meager. Only 23.2 percent of the respondents said they 
had been a failure, with another 13 percent saying they were 
unable to assess the outcome. Overall, 47.1 percent indicated 
their approval of the operations, and no fewer than 83.9 
percent said it had been right to entrust a key role in them 
to the military. About 75 percent of those surveyed said they 
would like to see their own cities targeted by operations 
similar to those launched since December.  
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶16.  (C) Some critics have dismissed the surge operations as 
political grandstanding, suggesting that they have yielded 
little in terms of concrete results.  However, we believe the 
message Calderon is sending is important, even if it is 
partly symbolic.  There is little question that he has caught 
the cartels off guard, many of which have had to modify their 
operations.  Moreover, by demonstrating his willingness to 
stake his prestige on aggressive counternarcotics tactics -- 
something the public has long wanted -- he may be winning the 
political capital he will need to advance the fundamental 
anticrime reforms he has long advocated.  At this point, the 
real test will be whether Calderon can sustain and 
institutionalize the enforcement pressure he has brought to 
bear, both by carrying out small-scale intelligence 
operations and systematic efforts to attack the economic 
viability of the cartels. 
 
 
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