Mexico has been besieged by gigantic drug cartels that have been causing widespread violence in the country. Drug violence in Mexico has been particularly alarming in 2009. It is said that there are two kinds of cartel wars in Mexico: the government of Mexico vs. drug cartels and the various cartels fighting one another. This is for the obvious reason that drug trafficking has proven to be huge business in Mexico.

The top drug armed syndicates and drug trafficking organizations in Mexico are the La Familia, Gulf cartel, Los Zetas, Beltran-Leyva Organization, Sinaloa cartel, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization/Juarez cartel, and the Arellano Felix Organization/Tijuana cartel.

The drug trafficking situation in Mexico had reached unprecedented heights, along with the preponderance of violence, that Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched ‘an all-out effort to target the cartels’ with the use of widespread deployment of military and police force.

Now, ‘domestic and international human rights organizations have expressed concerns over an increase in alleged civil rights abuses by Mexican military personnel, and U.S.-based Human Rights Watch has even gone so far as to call on U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not to certify Mexico’s human rights record, which would effectively freeze a portion of the Merida Initiative funds allocated by the United States to aid Mexico in its counternarcotics campaign. Even members of Calderon’s own National Action Party have stated that there needs to be a better balance between the needs of the cartel war and the civil rights of Mexican citizens.’

Calderon was quick to defend his anti-crime strategy saying ‘that the military’s large role in the war against the cartels is only a temporary solution.’ He has also ‘tried to minimize the criticism by involving the federal police as much as possible. But it has been the armed forces that have provided the bulk of the manpower and coordination that federal police agencies — hampered by rampant corruption and a tumultuous reform process — have not been able to muster.’

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