About 900 soldiers arrived without publicity in Juárez this week. About 300 more were expected today and more on Saturday. The operation will be in full force next week.

There have been close to 200 homicides in Juárez and Palomas since Jan. 1, many of them tied to drug trafficking, according to authorities.

Leaving a meeting with his police chief, Columbus Mayor Eddie Espinoza said he was cautiously optimistic about the news of the troop deployment.

"I've got to see it to believe it," said Espinoza, after being notified of the deployment Thursday. "That's great. I think it's about time they stepped up."

Espinoza witnessed an armed robbery from a dentist's chair in Palomas just days before that town's police force fled and its chief of police sought U.S. asylum. In the ensuing confusion, Espinoza has been unable to get in touch with his Palomas counterpart, Mayor Tani Garcia — Espinoza has also been unable to have his root canal finished.

Rick Moody, agent-in-charge of the Deming Border Patrol Station, said this was probably the sixth time in 13 years the army has been deployed to the border area to quell violence linked to a power struggle between rival drug cartels.

Moody said in recent weeks it's become common for agents to hear gunshots at night. In the past week, he said he was aware of at least nine violent incidents, including shootings and kidnappings, against targeted individuals.

"These are special soldiers that have been deployed. Juárez also received a deployment. They're generally only deployed in situations like this, where the violence gets out of hand," Moody said. "It ebbs and flows but over the last year, it's really begun to spike. There are two major criminal organizations attempting to control these corridors, these gateways into the U.S., and they use terrorist tactics and extreme forms of violence."

After expressing their concerns to high-level officials in the Mexican government recently, both New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., released statements Thursday applauding the news. Espinoza said both officials have been on top of the situation since a border crossing in late 2007 of two shooting victims.

"There have been so many of them, I don't remember exactly (which one it was)," Espinoza said. "It can be pretty taxing."

According to his office, Richardson will be meeting for a second time with Mexican ambassador to the U.S. Arturo Sarukhán Casamitjana in Washington, D.C., in the coming weeks to hold further discussions about the cooperative plan to stop the border violence.
--------------
SOURCE: Las Cruces Sun-News
Printed with permission from the Editor. Las Cruces Sun-News Las CrucesAshley Meeks can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it