Columbias Drug War Repeated In Mexico

Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, twin border cities, are the major crossing point for drugs smuggled into the U.S.A. The war is not just against the authorities, but cartels fighting among themselves for control of the very lucrative trafficking routes.

In Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, over four thousand people have been killed in drug-related violence, in the last two years, giving the city one of the highest murder ratios in the world.

Gunzman escaped from a Mexican federal prison ten years ago, by hiding in the back of a laundry truck. He is now the leader of the world's biggest cartel, besides making it into Forbes magazine's list of the top billionaires. Gunzman's Sinaloa cartel is thought to be winning Mexico's drug war, having elbowed out the rival Juarex gang.
Guzman.

Hilary Clinton recently told a Washington foreign policy think-tank, "Mexico is looking more and more like Columbia looked 20 years ago, where narco-traffickers controlled certain parts of the country."

President Obama was quick to refute Clinton's statement.
During the 1980s and 1990s, at the height of Colombian drug violence, the South American country was gripped by attacks on political figures and civilians. Colombia spent many years fighting leftist rebels, who were financed by a lucrative cocaine trade.

Analysts claim Mexican drug cartels have grown in power in recent years, as they took over much of the drug trade from the Colombians.

In late 2006 President Felipe Calderon took office. Since then more than 28,000 people have been killed. Calderon has deployed 45,000 troops and 5,000 federal police in 18 states, but the gunmen in the drug war are now believed to be as young as 12 years old. This is believed to be because the prison population has doubled up in number, forcing more and more of the older gunmen out of action.

Just as mainstream journalists have been murdered and newsrooms attacked, with 2010 on track to becoming the bloodiest year yet, a young Mexican university student began publishing a Narco-blog. The web page carries stories from both the agencies that hunt them down and the dealers.

The blog was born out of sheer frustration. The author writes in a page translated from Spanish, "The idea of creating blog Narco came about because the government media and in Mexico is trying to pretend that nothing is happening, because the media is threatened and the government is apparently bought".

Another blog revealed a Municipal policeman being interrogated. After admitting that jail officials had permitted prisoners out at night to do the dirty work of a rival drug gang, the policeman was shot dead by the drug dealers.