The nation´s top prosecutor told Congress Tuesday that the the aim of the current military operations in Tijuana and the states of Michoacán and Guerrero is not just to capture drug lords but to preserve the very sovereignty of regions most threatened by organized crime.Eduardo Medina Mora, who heads the federal Attorney General´s Office (PGR), told lawmakers the operations are the best response to "the severe problem of the risk of losing sovereignty in important regions of our territory."
Sounding almost like a general at war, Medina Mora described the principle objective of the operations initiated shortly after President Calderón took office on Dec. 1 more or less as the reconquest of lost territory.
"The joint operations focus on dismantling these organizations´ zones of privilege, where their power is based," he told a select joint committee that meets when the Senate and Chamber of Deputies are in recess. "(It is) to recover public spaces that as far as the citizens are concerned have been lost to organized crime."
The attorney general said the military operations come at a time when the drug trafficking landscape has been undergoing a radical transformation - part of it the result of recent government successes.
The capture of some major cartel figures has blurred previously established hierarchies and territorial claims, causing new power struggles and the violence that go with them.
At the same time, cocaine prices are falling as a growing preference for methamphetamine is causing a shift in the U.S. market.
The natural response by the traffickers has been to shift some of their efforts to meth or its chemical precursor pseudoephedrine. But the transition, according to Medina Mora, hasn´t been easy for them.
In the meantime, falling income has translated into rising violence.
The key change, however, may be the booming retail drug market inside the country. More street sales mean more people involved, more turf spats and more ripoffs - all leading to more violence.
"Mexico has stopped being just a country of (transport) and has turned into a nation of consumers," Medina Mora said. "Retail drug sales have been declared a national public policy priority."
Asked about Friday´s surprise extradition of 15 major criminals, including drug kingpins, from Mexican jails to U.S. custody, the attorney general again defended the legality of the move and sought to calm fears of retaliatory violence from the cartels.
He dismissed parallels with Colombia, where judges have been targeted, noting that Mexico has a history of extraditions.
"In any case," he said, "the Mexican government has taken precautions to protect the judges and to strengthen security in the prisons."
