Mexico says drug war deaths are plummeting

*Updated May 27*
Guadalajara -
In its latest drug war analysis, Mexico's Department of Government (SEGOB) today reported that during the first five months of the new PRI administration, homicides connected to organized crime activity dropped 18% compared to the last five months of the previous government.

Today's report covered the period Dec. 1 - Apr. 30, 2013. SEGOB said that compared to the same period a year ago, from Dec. 1, 2011 through Apr. 30, 2012, the murder rate had dropped 14%.

Institutional Revolutionary Party president Enrique Peña Nieto took office Dec. 1, 2012, succeeding former National Action Party (PAN) president Felipe Calderón, who was elected in 2006.

In the last five months of the Calderón administration, 6,432 were killed. Between December 2011 and April 2012, the tally was 6,187.

But today's numbers were no cause for celebration. By the end of April, 5,296 people had been killed - about 35 every day - since the government changed hands. Police and public security forces remain frequent victims, with more than one a day killed.

Last month 1,047 died. The government reported that 991 were directly involved in criminal activity, and another 39 were military or law enforcement personnel. Only 17 persons were bystanders or "unconnected to the events," according to SEGOB's analysis.

During Peña Nieto's first 150 days, 218 security officers were killed, including 203 local, state and federal police officers and 15 soldiers.

Both the present and past governments maintain that the majority of drug war victims have been members of competing cartels or crime gangs. No one knows for certain how many have died. On Feb. 15 secretary of government Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong said a good estimate was that 70,000 people were killed during Calderón's six year term. But he emphasized, "there's no official data."

A week ago, with president Barack Obama at his side, Enrique Peña Nieto told a Mexico City press conference, "What is our 'new strategy'? To fight drug trafficking and the other business of organized crime - extortion, kidnapping, executions - by any and all means and tactics at our disposal. But we have also pledged to reduce the levels of violence in this country. Those two goals are not in conflict. They are entirely compatible, and it's possible to achieve both."

Obama administration officials claim that high level Peña Nieto functionaries have made it clear the new president does not intend to aggressively hunt down cartel bosses, a hallmark of Calderón's drug war strategy. Sources in Mexico have confirmed the change of course, and report the government has given military commanders strict orders not to engage drug traffickers and roving execution squads. Units which have disobeyed those explicit directives have been punished, according to this report.

The new policy is said to worry U.S. policymakers, and is partially responsible for a cooler, less personal relationship between Obama and Peña Nieto than existed between the American president and Calderón. How inflexible the policy is remains to be seen. Just two days before Obama's arrival in Mexico City, Enrique Peña Nieto and his team caught a very big fish on the Sonora-Arizona border, in an operation plainly targeted at decommissioning a major trafficker with widespread name recognition.

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For at least the third time this year, SEGOB acknowledged more drug war deaths than those reported by Mexico's Milenio news network, which has maintained an exceedingly close watch on the issue since the previous administration. On May 1, Milenio claimed the April homicide tally was 919, more than 100 less than the administraton conceded today.

May 27 - None of these numbers mean anything, Guadalajara's El Informador said today in a careful analysis of drug war deaths under both the present and past administrations. The paper contends the former PAN government and the present PRI one have played fast and loose with statistics, releasing preliminary data long before all the information is available - and then never updating their reports. The death numbers don't add up, it claims.

Apr. 2 - Mexico's March drug war tally was 1,025 dead, with Jalisco state in fourth place nationwide

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