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Writer Enrique Krauze
talks with Daljit Dhaliwal.
 Watch the video Dial-up | DSL or read the transcript.
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How is Mexico changing?
Two years ago, Vicente Fox was elected president of Mexico under promises of "el cambio," or change. But has el cambio worked? In this week's briefing, THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS journalist Ricardo Sandoval reports from Mexico City on how the military works to advance Fox's reforms. Find out what the cost of government corruption in Mexico is to everyday Mexicans in our corruption chart or speak out on corruption and human rights in the photo forum. Then, learn more about human rights conditions in Mexico and its neighbors in Central America in our interactive map.
Can the Military Help Clean Up Mexico?
By Ricardo Sandoval
September 5, 2002
Rene Perez, a clerk at a downtown car rental counter in Tijuana, Mexico, grew apprehensive as police recently approached the door of his house in this rough-and-tumble border city.
Citizens interacting with police is hardly news. But this is Tijuana, an anything-goes city of 2 million and ground zero for North America's long problem with illegal drugs. Ruthless gangs here fight each other and the authorities over dibs on lucrative international trafficking routes for cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines. Their allies: police compromised by millions of dollars in bribes, or intimidated by years of violent retribution by drug lords.
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| 1910 |
Revolution overthrows dictator Porforio Diaz.
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| 1929 |
Party later known as Partido Revolucianario Institucional (PRI) comes to power.
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| 1968 |
Hundreds of student protestors die in Tlaletco Massacre.
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| 1988 |
Mexicans decry presidential elections as fraudulent.
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| 2001 |
Vicente Fox elected president, ending 71 years of PRI rule.
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Yet the cops who swooped down on Perez had a much more mundane mission: returning a wallet snatched by a mugger and found at the scene of a subsequent drug shootout. Marvels Perez: "[The police] were actually investigating the crime."
What Perez witnessed experts believe is the start of a sea change for Mexico. The anti-trafficking and anti-corruption reforms of Mexico's maverick President Vicente Fox are taking root, even in places like Tijuana.
Unlike his administration's more mixed human rights record, it's the fight against drugs and corrupt officials where Fox can truly point to progress. In taking on this task, the president wields a key weapon: the Mexican military.
"The Mexican military is like a broad-spectrum antibiotic that's being used now in Mexico to cure a variety of social infections," said Oscar Rocha, a former liaison between the Mexican and U.S. militaries. "Unlike any other Latin American nation today, to see the military on our streets doing police work . . . is not a bad thing."
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The grave of Maria de los Angeles Tames
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