A report issued on Monday by the Mexican Council of Bishops expressed concern over the militarization of many Mexican cities and venality among law enforcement. Human rights, the report argued, were increasingly at risk of violation because of the protracted presence of federal troops in Cuidad Juarez, and elsewhere.

The report comes in the wake of the murders of the 15 high school students in Juarez. Visiting the city shortly after the slayings, President Calderon was confronted by angry parents who blame him for their children’s deaths. By most accounts the president handled the criticism well, but refused to change his strategy of direct deployment of federal troops to the streets of Juarez. In fact, he proscribed an additional 400 troops to the city last weekend.

The language of the bishops report was measured. It noted that the president’s efforts still enjoyed vast support throughout the country, but addressing Mexico’s plight should involve greater focus on public education, unemployment programs, and police reform.

Concern over drug violence has become more than a philosophical matter for Mexico’s clerical community. In 2009, as the violence spread out from the confines of gang rivalry, civilians—including priests—increasingly fell victim to the narcos wrath.

Top druglords have been killed or arrested in the past year, but violence has yet to abate. And for all the arrests, few suspected narcos are convicted and sent to jail. Pointing to the inconsistencies of the government’s drug war, as this report does, is just the type of constructive criticism Mexico needs. It’s an unpleasant message for sure, but one that can help Mexico’s democracy reform.

On Sunday 15 people were murdered in Cuidad Juarez. Thirteen were teenagers. In the wake of the “high school massacre” the culprit in waiting is the president. Shortly after the tragedy families of the murdered erected a banner outside of the house of the slayings: “Until we find who is responsible, you Mr. President are the assassin.”

A 30-year-old, Oscar Arroyo, has been arrested for involvement with the attacks. He claims he was paid by the infamous Juarez cartel to stand post and watch for police so the attack could be carried off. According to authorities his believed members of a rival faction of the Juarez cartel, opposed to Juarez drug chieftan and Mexico’s most wanted man, Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, were holed up in the house. Arresting a lookout man is unlikely to pacify those who fault Calderon. Convictions of more central players will be needed.

Mexico’s plight has reached a sad perigee. Even harsh critics of Calderon’s policies would acknowledge that the president has acted in good faith, yet as the violence spreads to affect more and more civilians support for the crackdown will continue to wane. Addressing corruption among local and state officials, many of whom are on the gangs payroll, is needed. Good intentions will not be enough to tackle Mexico’s drug problem or cement Calderon’s legacy. The road to hell currently bisects Juarez. And it is being paved with good intentions.

She drinks tequila, smokes pot, and is worshipped by perhaps two million throughout Mexico. Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, is showing some wear from her years of hard living: instead of the angelic likening usually afforded to saints, her depiction is a hooded skeleton, often accompanied by a globe and scythe. The message of her accessories—death has a long reach, and it is universal.

She represents a syncretism of Mesoamerican and Catholic beliefs, somewhat akin to Bondyè, the higher God of Haitian Voodou, which combines Western African beliefs with Catholicism. Throughout Mexico’s poorest communities Santa Muerte has been prayed to for decades to deliver succor. And mete out retribution. In Tepito, one of Mexico City’s poorest neighborhoods, experts believe Sante Muerte is more revered than Jesus Christ.

Her popularity spread over the past decade, thanks in large part to the narcocultura that pervades Mexico. Now candles, tiny statues, and palm-sized prayer cards with Santa Muerte can be found in hundreds of shops in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and elsewhere. Among Mexican-American teens, typically more middle class than devotees in Mexico, Santa Muerte has become a symbol that allows them to reconnect with a part of their heritage.

Santa Muerte may have deeper roots. According to a recent article in The Economist, some anthropologists link her provenance to Aztec underworld gods. Others, notably David Romo, a priest at one of two temples devoted to Santa Muerte in Mexico City, trace her image to the outbreak of the bubonic plague in Italy.

It is said that Santa Muerte doesn’t judge—How could she sit in judgment, she doesn’t have eyes?—but she does offer protection from danger. Undoubtedly gangsters fancy the idea that Santa Muerte doesn’t discriminate between the good and the bad, but her appeal extends to others on the margins of Mexican society, such as cart vendors, taxi drivers, prostitutes, and petty criminals. The unrepentant don’t make model Catholics, and most probably aren’t interested in confessing their sins, or hearing that they should, “Go forth, and not sin again.” But they aren’t exactly atheists either; they tend to live by codes, perhaps believe in kharma, and think that formal institutions are nothing more than a tool of repression. Santa Muerte fits the niche.

Unsurprisingly, Santa Muerte’s prominence has incurred the ire of the Catholic Church. Catholic priests insist Santa Muerte is a satanic cult that encourages violence. The government is uncomfortable too. Last year, the army destroyed dozens of Santa Muerte altars in the northern state of Nuevo León, ostensibly for links to the drug trade. In response, parishioners staged a rally in Mexico City calling on religious freedom.

Despite the pressure from the authorities, the popularity of Santa Muerte is unlikely to wane anytime soon. The group’s draw on the poor is likely only to increase as Mexicans struggle to recover from recession. North of the border Father Marco Mercado, of the Good Shephard Catholic Church in Chicago, worries that “Santeria” is on the rise among his parishioners. Perhaps it’s only fitting for a society with such a large informal job market to have an informal saint as well.

In a recent article on Project Syndicate, Jorge Castañeda equates President Calderón’s war on drugs to President Bush’s invasion of Iraq. He argues: “Just like Bush’s invasion of Iraq, Mexico’s drug war was a war of choice. It was a war that Calderón should not have declared, that cannot be won, and that is doing enormous damage to Mexico.”

The former foreign minister of Mexico is way off target. First and foremost, Calderón did not create America’s appetite for drugs, nor has he nurtured the drug trade in Mexico. Since coming to office in 2006 he has exposed, and disrupted, the grim realities of a narco nation. He could have ignored the reality if he wanted to, but he certainly did not contrive a threat the way President Bush apparently did with regard to W.M.D. in Iraq.

Second, viewing Calderón’s actions as elective overlooks another crucial distinction, that between an internal and foreign threat. The growing reach of Mexico’s drug gangs is in part a product of PRI collusion during its seven decades of authoritarian rule that ended in 2000, and in part a product of the US crackdown on Caribbean transit routes in the wake of 9/11. (For a good historical overview of Mexico’s drug gangs see Shannon O’ Neil’s article in the July/August edition of Foreign Affairs.) Over the past decade, Colombian cocaine has been increasingly pushed up to America via the land route through Mexico. In short, Mexico’s problem predates Calderón’s presidency.

So why did Calderón decide to go after the drug gangs? According to Castañeda the newly-elected president declared a war on drugs in 2006 to bolster his democratic legitimacy. This is a curious assertion given that Calderón soon enjoyed widespread support throughout Mexico, if for no other reason than the unwinding of the PRD after the election. But Calderón’s efforts were not singularly directed to quelling drug gangs; after two years in office, the president had claimed more legislative successes than his predecessor—Dr. Castañeda’s boss from 2000 to 2003—enjoyed in his entire six-year term.

The falling approval rates of the Mexican president and increasing civilian casualties from the drug war are cited as evidence that the drug war isn’t popular. It is undeniable that President Calderón’s approval ratings have waned of late, down to 52%. A return to reality, no doubt, for a man who enjoyed approval ratings above 60% for the past two years, despite increasing casualties from the drug war and Mexico’s slide into recession.

Castañeda cites the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) as evidence of the feckless drug war. Based on statistics contained in the study, he argues that seizures have decreased and drug production has increased since the war on drugs commenced. Yet, somehow, Castañeda managed to overlook the key findings of the INCSR. The conclusion of the 2009 INCSR states:

The restructuring of security forces, coupled with the military’s strong engagement in the fight to dismantle major drug trafficking organizations (DTOs), has proven to be effective. These efforts led to numerous arrests of key narco-traffickers, the discovery of clandestine drug laboratories, and a dramatic decline in the importation of methamphetamine and precursors into the United States. The Calderon Administration is courageously dealing with increased violence as DTOs resist and fight among each other.

It is true that since 2006 Mexico has come to produce more drugs, whereas it was previously just a trafficking hub. Increased drug production in Mexico is certainly cause for alarm, but this may just as well be a product of the declining production in Colombia, supporting the phenomenon known as the “ballooning effect.”

What is the solution? Castañeda proposes a gradual drawdown that will “allow the drug war to vanish from television screens and newspapers, and have its place taken by other wars: on poverty, on petty crime, and for economic growth.” Not a strategy for unbridled success, mind you, but a “least bad” outcome preferable to “prolonging a fight that cannot be won.”

The major err of Castañeda’s argument should be apparent: he isn’t arguing for any solution to Mexico’s drug woes in so much as he is advocating that policymakers turn a blind eye. That has been the story of Mexican governance in the twentieth century, and it needn’t be a de facto perpetuity clause. Mexico’s traditional elites—like Castañeda’s family—would be comforted by the return of an implicit agreement wherein trafficking is largely condoned and politicians are protected from the violence. Meanwhile, the poor would be ravaged by the proliferation of low-grade drugs, and the creeping reach of drug gangs into small business would stymie the aspirations of the middle class.

The faults of Calderón are likely to stem not from his intents, but his constancy. By switching his focus from the war on drugs to a war on poverty, as Castañeda suggests, and as Calderón indicated in a recent address to the nation, deep-seeded changes in Mexico will be supplanted by superficial reforms that kick the can down the road.

Overview Mexicans could be forgiven for thinking they were in hell on earth last year. The economy skidded into recession while drug violence ravaged Juárez and other major cities, leaving more than 5,000 dead. North of the border there was scuttlebutt of Mexico becoming a failed state.

Turns out 2008 may have only been purgatory, this year things have actually gotten worse. As the federal government redoubled efforts to break the back of Mexico’s drug syndicates a crescendo of violence ensued. January was bloodiest month of drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderón came to office in 2006—over 1,000 were killed.

Concentrated crackdowns offered hope of leashing the gangs. The deployment of 45,000 federal troops to 18 locales teetering on chaos, coupled with the arrival of US security aid in the form of the Merida Initiative, produced a sizable drop in violence over the first quarter a year on.

Unfortunately the respite proved seasonal. Several high-profile arrests of drug kingpins this summer spurred a backlash of grisly beheadings and coups de grace. Off-duty policemen, prosecutors, and rival gang members were the usual victim profile. While the scale of the killing had been seen before increasingly innocent bystanders were victimized.

As of this writing, news is emerging that one of the biggest fish of them all, Arturo Leyva, the “boss of bosses” of Mexican drugs, has been killed in a raid by Mexican commandos. The likelihood of indiscriminate gang reprisals certainly has officials waiting to exhale, but the elimination of such a kingpin, as opposed to his arrest, may prove a shrewd tactical, as well as legal, move. Without the chance of bailing out a crime boss there will be less incentive to amp up the violence. And the command structure of the gangs may well be disrupted as result. On a legal front, while Calderón has done a commendable job of organizing raids, the rate of successful prosecution of suspected traffickers in Mexico is lackluster.

The Great Recession The severity of economic contraction stands in marked contrast to the rest of the region. A recent study by the Brookings Institution begins: “With the exception of Mexico, many large Latin American economies have shown a respectable resilience to the global financial crisis.”

The vast majority of government revenues come from the state-owned petroleum industry, remittance payments from Mexicans working in the US, and tourism. All depend heavily on consumption north of the border. As the American consumer went on hiatus, Mexico’s economy went into tailspin, contracting by over 10% from July ‘08-’09. Economic performance for 2009 will likely be the worst of any sizable economy.

Heaped atop these ongoing crises, Mexico’s grand surprise this year came in the form of a new infectious disease, the H1N1 strand of influenza. Swine ’09 trained the world’s worries on Mexico. Other nations proved quick to overreact, further ostracizing Mexico in the midst of its woes.

Mexico received latent praise by the CDC and WHO for its handling of the H1N1 outbreak, scarce consolation for the tourism industry no doubt, which saw revenues drop by over 30%. An estimated 100,000 tourism-related jobs were lost as a result. As spring turned to summer and the flu season headed south of the equator, the hysteria around H1N1 gave way to insouciance. By the time the WHO declared H1N1 a pandemic in August, global worries had turned to anticipating the illness’ return in the fall.

Mexico held mid-term elections in July. Apparently what’s old is new again; the centrist PRI that governed Mexico for seven decades, until 2000, staged a death-defying comeback. Beyond the headline of a privival, the election underlined the non-ideological nature of Mexico’s political parties. The ranks of the two major parties, the PAN and PRI, are filled by a precarious group of technocrats and political opportunists. The PRD, the major leftish party in Mexico as recently as 2006, is quickly unwinding. The ‘Green’ party, which gained some 10% of the seats in the July election, has a platform that shies away from environmental advocacy in lieu of supporting a death penalty. This may offer the hope of pragmatic governance in the future, but just as easily may point to a trend of bald party opportunism as opposed to platform coherence.

As a result, it seems professionalization, rather than persona-based politics, is taking hold of the highest echelons of government. For all the hardships Mexico has endured over recent years, a whopping 69% of Mexicans approved of the president’s performance going into the election. This should have helped President Calderón’s PAN. Still the PAN was roundly defeated. If caudillo politics are alive and well in Mexico, as many insist, the phenomenon no longer reaches as deeply into national politics.

The most likely explanation is that while the president is viewed as a politician acting in good faith, the PAN is just as riddled with corruption as Mexico’s other main parties. A well-publicized round-up in the president’s home state of Michoacán led to the arrest of 28 officials suspected of having ties to La familia, a notorious crime syndicate. Two of the ten mayors arrested were PAN members.

In other realms, social policy has oscillated between greater liberalization and conservative retrenchment. Personal drug use of everything from marijuana to heroine was decriminalized in August, a stark response designed to more directly target traffickers. Yet state abortion bans have become so widespread that a federal ban may be in the offing. The fits-and-starts character of social liberalization in Mexico is broadly representative of much of the region.

2010 promises more challenges for Mexico. The economy will almost surely return to positive growth by mid-year and there are already signs that exports to the US are ticking up. The major economic concern is the strength of recovery. Recent statements from high-level policymakers indicate Mexico’s commitment to growth through NAFTA is being redoubled. In my opinion NAFTA promises diminishing returns for Mexico for several reasons, chiefly because the US will plausibly remain an unreliable partner, as Congress’ refusal to allow Mexican trucks on US highways indicates. Instead Mexico should look southward, seeking closer trade ties with Brazil. This would provide Mexican exports a second large market and possibly spur Brazilian FDI to Mexico.

The major security challenge will be localizing drug violence. Extirpating the drug gangs is hopelessly naïve given America’s huge appetite for drugs. A realistic goal should be to decrease the number of gangs operating in Mexico, and try to insulate civilians from the gang’s ire. Seemingly frustrated by haphazard US cooperation, President Calderón signaled a strategic shift in his efforts to reform last month. In a mid-term address he spoke of the need to alleviate Mexico’s poverty. A fight against poverty seems likely to be the hallmark initiative of the president’s last three years in office.

Reforms will need to be strategic and structural in order to put Mexico back on track. Not just to produce signs of recovery next year, but for the economic and security challenges of a new decade.

US military officials ceremoniously handed over five helicopters to the Mexican air force on Tuesday, part of the Merida Initiative. Aircraft account for half of the $1.3 billion aid package, signed in 2007, designed to help the Mexican government combat drug traffickers. But 15 other aircraft slated for delivery likely won’t arrive until 2011. As of October 1, only about 30% of the approved funds have been spent. A recent GAO study concludes that bureaucratic wrangling has stymied the aid.

Undeterred by the government’s crackdown, Mexico’s major drug syndicates pose a nagging security challenge. With an estimated 100,000 armed gang members, Mexico’s drug gangs now boast numbers on par with the Mexican military. Their firepower is formidable too; bulletproof vests, fully automatic weapons, rocket launchers, and anti-aircraft missiles are all part of the narco’s arsenal.

Mexican officials have little choice but to grin and bear it. But the dithering in disbursement may portend less brio in combating the drug syndicates. President Calderón has begun to signal a shift in his reform efforts. Two weeks ago he indicated alleviating poverty will be the hallmark of his last three years in office. By implication, the war on drugs may soon become a secondary focus of the federal government.

"May not look like much from this angle, but she's got some serious junk in the trunk."

Times are hard in Mexico. Even, it seems, for drug traffickers. Thanks to stepped-up law enforcement on both sides of the border, drug gangs are increasingly looking beyond their traditional revenue streams of trafficking and extortion. The Dallas Morning News reports that Los Zetas, one of Mexico’s largest drug syndicates, are expanding their presence along the Texas-Mexico border by acquiring legitimate businesses. A year ago, the gang simply extorted money from businesses, but more recently gang members are buying them outright. Members are said to have rebranded their outfit “The Company.” Used car lots, dance clubs, restaurants, pretty much any business that would have distribution networks that saddle the border and handle large amounts of cash, are popular venues. Beyond providing a front for trafficking and laundering, investigators believe the move toward legitimacy may be a precursor community and political involvement. “We could see them running for mayor, even governor, in the future,” said one civic leader in Nuevo Laredo.

Two trends converge along Mexico’s southern border. One concerns the US recession, which has shocked the Mexican economy. The peso’s buying power is greatly diminished. Capitalizing on the peso’s decline against the Guatemalan quetzal, Mexican migrants flock south to sell toys, clothes, and foodstuffs. One popular route stretches from Cuidad Hidalgo, a city in the state of Chiapas, to Tecún Umán, a Guatemalan village with a bustling market.

The police chief of Tecún Umán turns a blind eye: “It’s illegal, but it’s a job for these people.” When it comes to breaking the law, arbitraging trinkets is a benign offense. Most of the estimated 5,000 smugglers return home soon after hocking their wares, and they aren’t known to bring drugs or guns with them.

The second trend is the realignment of drugs routes over land. As the US cracked down on transit routes in the Caribbean, trafficking operations shifted, pushing Colombian-made cocaine up through Central America en route to the US.

As a result, the 600-mile border between Mexico and Guatemala is now “a no-man’s land, a wild frontier,” according to a Mexican naval commander. The border is remote and rugged, part highlands, part jungle. The Mexican government has sought to impose a “vertical border” of police checkpoints spaced 25 km apart. To avoid being caught, migrants take to the hills.

Enter Los Zetas. Drawing their lower ranks from discontented youth in Chiapas, the Zetas leadership is a motley stew of former Mexican and Guatemalan special forces. While drug trafficking is the primary enterprise of the Zetas, over recent years the gang has diversified operations to include kidnapping. Migrants make easy prey. Men crossing the nether region between Mexico and Guatemala are tortured, women are raped, and ransoms are demanded from relatives living in the United States.

Mexican officials are aware of the problem along the southern border, and reform is underway. Former governors and prosecutors in Chiapas have been arrested on corruption charges. Police forces have been beefed up. But the Zetas have hit back, assassinating high-level bureaucrats. In a country where jobs are needed the Chiapas police have 300 unfilled vacancies.

Given American pressure for serenity along its border with Mexico, the cauldron of anomy in Chiapas receives comparatively little attention. It’s easy to advise a less gringo-centric strategy. The more fickle reality is Mexico’s drug gangs are a transnational threat. When the Zetas are under attack they flee across the border to Guatemala. For crackdowns in Mexico to have more than a temporary effect, law enforcement across all transit points—from Colombia to Canada—will have to raise the heat, and keep it up, in tandem.

An elaborate resting place. A celebration of perspective. Two years ago the National Museum of Death opened in Aguascalientes to chronicle cultural approaches to the end of life. “Mexicans have death imprinted all over their art and culture.” So says Jose Antonio Padilla, the museum’s director. It is the moribund product of Octavio Bajenero Gil, who had too many skeletons in his closet after 50 years of collecting macabre figurines, posters, and the like, and the Autonomous University of Aguascalientes, which was looking to open a museum with a twist. Gil’s collection now forms the backbone of the museum.

The museum’s first historical epoch explores pre-Columbian civilizations. The Aztec are a natural focal point. Known for their warrior culture and brutal imperialism, the civilization was preoccupied not only with ritual human sacrifice to satisfy gods, but also the need to absorb life forces. Hence, the Aztec’s fervid belief in cannibalism.

Other exhibits include diamond-encrusted skulls gnarling at visitors and a dining table of skeletons toasting their own demise. In one room the grim reaper faces a case full of blood-drenched crucifixes. In another, a small quartz crystal skull sits on prominent display. Three have been found in Mexico, 13 are rumored to exist, each with paranormal strengths. Claimed to be of Mesoamerican provenance, new age movements and quack archeology have churned a rumor mill that the skulls reunification is necessary to forestall a cataclysm, perhaps the Mayan doomsday prophecy.

Several dozen paintings depict death on canvas. Calaveras, skeleton cartoons, are perhaps the most ubiquitous depiction of the dead in Mexico. Mexican newspapers regularly carry calaveras, usually accompanying them with satirical poetry. Calaveritas, tiny clay skeletons, are ubiquitous in the museum, and in Mexico in general. Coupled with marigolds and skull-shaped candies, calaveritas adorn the altars made by Mexicans during the Day of the Dead festival. On the night of November 1 and 2, Mexicans remember dead family members with graveside vigils, where they present their altars. Many towns have come to incorporate music and dancing into the Day of the Dead.

Catholicism pervades modern depictions of death. “Saint Death,” known to gringos as the grim reaper, is worshipped in shrines throughout many poor barrios in Mexico. It isn’t uncommon for patrons to leave offerings in front of a museum display. Juan Manuel Vizcaino, assistant director of exhibits, says, “Sometimes we have to remind them that it’s a museum, not a place of worship.”

Reaction to the museum has been mixed. Padilla notes, “some people from (border cities) in the north will say, ‘Why do you want to celebrate something I am trying to avoid every day?” No doubt, the persistence of drug violence makes many wary, but Padilla insists the museum celebrates a distinct artistic tradition. Too bad this tradition has such a rich canvas in present-day Mexico.

With federal resources aimed at drug traffickers and local police more often a part of the problem than a part of the solution, vigilantes are stepping into the void. Suspected criminals who run afoul of these vigilantes endure the brunt of a skewed version of justice that enjoys a groundswell of support. In the southern state of Guerrero and crime-wracked Juarez vigilante corps have taken shape, acting as shadowy militias.

Vigilantes focus retribution on suspected burglars, petty thieves and muggers. Such crime is rife in Mexico, and its perpetrators pose a distinctly different threat than the type presented by drug thugs. Many of the alleged criminals are teenagers. Their persecutors are typically older community members, sometimes including the aggrieved parties.

Vigilante justice typically involves harassment, beating and humiliation. The prey are left in public, tied to light posts or the like, and badly beaten. Recently, an example was made of boys suspected of robbery in Tepic, in the state of Nayarit. A video of their punishment was posted on Youtube: “Little Rats of Tepic” showed the boys being forced to kiss, among other indignities. (The video was quickly removed as unsuitable content.)

Support exists for even the most severe form of punishment. In February a retired general shot a 30-year-old man trying to break into his house. Newspaper headlines read “Dead Rat” and “Military Justice.” Public sentiment was strongly in favor of the killing.

The gaping hole in President Calderón’s push to reform Mexico is local governance. Absent effective local police and bureaucracy, problems like vigilantism emerge. Persistent drug violence demands Calderón’s attention in the short-term. Meanwhile, anarchic strife in Mexico’s villages is sure to continue. At some point the Mexican reformer will have to reaffix his gaze.