On the Bloody Border: Mexico's Drug Wars

The Mérida plan provides hardware like helicopters and intelligence technology. But only a third of the cash is directed at the more important software of police reform. It is police officers, not soldiers, who staff the kind of investigative bodies that bring down organized crime. Says Payan: "This effort is doomed to fail if it's not accompanied by effective [Mexican] cops, and Washington isn't treating that as a large enough piece of the puzzle yet." Reyes agrees. "The U.S. needs to assure that police forces along the border are sufficiently robust," he says, "precisely so they'll be the first line of defense for the U.S."

American officials say privately they're waiting to see whether reform programs like that of Reyes are serious and whether other Mexican mayors and governors will finally join the effort. Juárez's mayor, who is shadowed by six assault-rifle-toting bodyguards, has ousted half his old police force through drug tests, polygraphs and other "confidence exams." Under his pact with Calderón, Reyes now has to recruit more than 2,000 new cops, who, he says, will be among Mexico's best paid and educated. (Aside from a starting annual salary of $9,000 — twice the usual pay for a local cop in Mexico — they'll receive subsidized housing and other perks.)

But changing a police culture can take years, and Calderón can't keep soldiers on Mexico's streets forever. Time rode with a nighttime patrol of federal military and an antigang unit called Lobos (Wolves) through some of Juárez's more dangerous barrios. Residents hailed the convoy as it sped through the canyon-like streets, but some had misgivings about the exercise. As the soldiers and police hauled suspected gang members into a patrol wagon, one woman noted that it wasn't exactly a display of due process. "I don't know if this is our answer either," she said as the patrol stopped outside her bodega. Human-rights complaints are on the rise, and the gangs have even bankrolled public protests against the military operations this year.

It's not just U.S. weapons that are moving south. Many of the thugs being picked up by the military are from the Barrio Azteca gang, which is based in El Paso but whose members are recruited to work for La Línea in Juárez. That makes it all the more urgent for U.S. law enforcement to sap Barrio Azteca's strength on the U.S. side. Six Azteca bosses were recently convicted in El Paso on federal racketeering charges. Sheriff Wiles, a Democrat, believes that this attention to localized border strategies is deepening under the Obama Administration and Napolitano, who was governor of Arizona, a border state. "Our input is more of a priority now," he says. Before unveiling its new border-security plan in March, the Administration held conference calls with local law chiefs like Wiles. Until this year, the El Paso region had only seven agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to interdict weapons-smuggling. Under the Administration's new plan, it could have as many as 50.

Still, until Juárez's crisis finally lifts, there are plenty in El Paso who will demand more and "weigh in on national policy," as O'Rourke, the city-council member, puts it. Talk of legalizing marijuana is growing; the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs in March heard prominent drug researchers argue that cannabis should be sold legally and taxed like tobacco. Ernesto Zedillo and César Gaviria, former Presidents of Mexico and Colombia, respectively, have said the same. And Mexico's Congress is again debating decriminalization of marijuana use, after backing off the issue a few years ago under intense pressure from the Bush Administration.

In the short term, of course, legalization of marijuana — let alone any other drug — is not going to happen. That explains why Juárez is such an interesting laboratory. More industrious than the border Gomorrah of Tijuana to the west but grittier than the pin-striped boardrooms of Monterrey to the east, the city has long been a Mexican forerunner: it was the site of the Mexican Revolution's first military victory, the nation's first maquiladoras and the first opposition mayor during the PRI's long rule. Can it now take a lead in the drug wars by pioneering police reform? "This is our opportunity," says Rojas, who is thinking of returning to Juárez soon. "I think we're taking the right road."

It will be a long one.

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