Mexican gangs try to bribe army as drug war flares

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN08562036

By Lizbeth Diaz

TIJUANA, Mexico, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Mexican drug gangs are trying to corrupt the army into siding with them in a turf war near the U.S. border, threatening to blunt President Felipe Calderon's offensive against the cartels.

Military men from generals to foot soldiers say they are being offered up to hundreds of thousands of dollars to turn a blind eye to shipments or call off anti-drugs operations in Baja California state, where there has been a surge of violence this year.

"These groups are coming to us to try to negotiate, to take us over to their side, trying to break us down," Gen. Sergio Aponte, who co-heads the military operation in Baja California, told reporters.

Since the late 1990s, Mexico has convicted at least five army generals for taking drug money, including the man who was once its anti-drugs czar and led the war against the gangs but was later found to be on the payroll of the Juarez Cartel.

Despite that record, Calderon has used the army as the driving force in his effort to destroy the cartels, sending 25,000 troops into action in an unprecedented campaign that began shortly after he took office in late 2006.

More than 2,500 people were killed in drug violence in Mexico in 2007 and at least 250 have died so far this year as cartels smuggling cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine fight each other for control of routes to the United States.

The military is widely regarded as cleaner and more efficient than Mexico's thousands of local, state and federal police forces.

Senior military personnel have taken over municipal and state police forces in Baja California to root out officers working for the region's main drug cartel, the Arellano Felix gang.

Soldiers in Tijuana, just south of San Diego and one of the busiest border crossings into the United States, say they have rejected bribes but fear drug money will tempt others.

"We are not used to this kind of civilian contact, the army was always such a closed institution and it brings risks in Baja California, where corruption is such a problem," an army captain who declined to be named told Reuters.

STACKS OF CASH

Traffickers now offer discreet stacks of cash instead of the drugs, jewels and prostitutes commonly used in the past to bribe police and the army, soldiers say.

Political analysts believe the military is so far largely untainted by corruption but that may not last.

"The only institution in Baja California that's not corrupt is the army, but if it is corrupted, and there is that risk, Calderon's whole security project collapses," said Victor Clark, a drug trade expert at San Diego State University.

"The long-term threat is that the traffickers control senior military officers," he added.

Calderon hopes the army can dampen drug violence as a consortium of smugglers from the Pacific state of Sinaloa, led by Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, wages war against other cartels.

The president faces criticism from rights groups about his use of the army and he is eager to reassure the public that military operations will eventually be phased out.

"Once we have cleansed and strengthened police forces and the state prosecutor's office ... the role of the army will gradually diminish," he said this week.

Wages sometimes as low as a few hundred dollars a month have played a part in pushing many police to the drug trade to supplement their pay.

"We are catching traffickers who have police radios with them, who show all the signs of working on a daily basis with police protection," said an army major who declined to be named. "They sell information, alert the gangs to our operations."

Calderon hiked army wages on taking office to prevent them from going the way of the police, but desertion rates are high and some of those who leave join the drug gangs.

A group of U.S.-trained Mexican special forces soldiers switched sides in the late 1990s to work for the powerful Gulf Cartel and create the gang's ferocious armed wing, the Zetas. (Additional reporting by Robin Emmott in Monterrey; Editing by Kieran Murray)