Just days after his Dec. 1 inauguration, Calderón´s government arrested the figurehead of the violent protests in Oaxaca City. And a week later he deployed nearly 7,000 soldiers and police to combat increasingly bloodthirsty drug traffickers in his native state of Michoacán.

Calderón´s swift use of force is a major departure from the conciliatory style of his predecessor, Vicente Fox. But that may be just the point - to separate himself from Fox´s often weakling image.

The moves come after five months of chaos in colonial Oaxaca City and a raft of beheadings in western Michoacán, including one incident in which the traffickers dumped five human heads on a dance floor.

"The message is very clear: To say to the traffickers that there are things you can´t do," said Jorge Chabat, a crime analyst in Mexico City. "You can´t chop off heads and throw them on a dance floor, because that affects Mexico´s image.

"If you´re president and you want to attract investment, you can´t have your country looking like Rwanda during the civil war."

Despite a series of high-profile arrests early in his six-year term, Fox often seemed at a loss over how to confront the escalating drug violence, which has claimed more than 2,000 lives in Mexico this year.

"Calderón´s government recognizes the seriousness of the problem," columnist Jesús Silva- Herzog wrote in the Mexico City newspaper Reforma.

By contrast, "his predecessor kept his head below ground, denying the crisis in which we are all submerged."

Fox also delayed for months before deploying federal police to clear out leftist protesters who had laid siege to downtown Oaxaca City, and then continued to negotiate with the group´s leaders even after they retook sections of the state capital.

As Mexico´s first democratically elected leader after decades of authoritarian rule, Fox was wary of the social costs of deploying force to resolve disputes.

His successor seems to have no such qualms.

Four days into the new administration, officials arrested Flavio Sosa, the Oaxaca movement´s most visible leader, along with his brother. Sosa faces charges of arson, kidnapping, sedition and inciting violence, all of which he denies.

And on Dec. 11, Calderón launched Operation Together Michoacán. The anti-drug offensive has been touted by authorities and the Mexican media as unprecedented in both its scale and the number of troops involved.

At least 7,000 troops and police have fanned across mountainous areas of Michoacán, destroying thousands of small marijuana plantations and raiding clandestine drug labs.

As of the latest official tally the bounty includes: three yachts, 2.2 pounds of gold, more than US$2 million in cash, bulletproof vests, military equipment and shirts with federal and municipal police logos. More than 18,000 people have been searched, along with 8,000 vehicles and boats, officials said.

The government force has also arrested more than 50 traffickers, including five top members of the feuding drug cartels.

They include Alfonso Barajas, alias "Ugly Poncho," who is accused of running a kidnapping ring linked to the Gulf drug cartel. His signature method: Cutting off his victims´ fingers to expedite ransoms.

With roughly 530 gangland murders this year, Michoacán has a lower death toll than Tamaulipas, which borders Texas. But its traffickers are unrivaled in their gruesome style -

including at least 16 beheadings this year and a new method of hurling victims from planes.

The violence may be due the state´s strategic importance to the country´s warring Gulf and Sinoloa cartels, which are battling for control of the smuggling routes to the United States and the increasingly lucrative local market.

Michoacán is a key transit point for South American cocaine, which is dumped on its Pacific Coast, smuggled across the mountains and then flown north to the United States out of nearby Guadalajara. The state is also a major grower of marijuana and heroin poppies. And it´s the country´s main producer of the synthetic drug methamphetamine, which is in increasing demand in the United States.

The Michoacán raids "demonstrate the government´s determination to use all the force of the state to return peace and tranquility to our society," Francisco Javier Ramírez, the new interior secretary, told a news conference.

Not everyone supports the government´s growing reliance on the military in the drug war, however.

"The Army´s entrance into the anti-narcotics battle was a bad decision," said Jorge Zepeda Patterson, a political columnist. He cited growing complaints of human rights abuses by soldiers since the military first began hunting down traffickers in the late 1980s.

"The problem is that all the other strategies have failed," he said. "But it´s still a bad idea."

Officials in Washington disagree.

Thomas Shannon, the Bush administration´s top emissary to Latin America, praised Calderón for "deepening the cooperation" between the two countries in the drug fight.

However, officials on both sides of the border acknowledge that the traffickers are a formidable foe, both for their firepower and their cunning.

On Tuesday, soldiers in Michoacán stumbled upon a new hybrid of marijuana plants that can be cultivated year-round and cannot be destroyed by herbicides. The new plants, known as Colombians, produce yields 10 times greater than traditional varieties, according to officials.

Still, they have vowed to keep fighting.

"We will not spare effort nor resources to take on the criminals and establish the minimum of order and authority," Ramírez said.