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El Universal (Mexico City) 12/3/09

Official corruption concerns expressed

The PAN party leader in the Mexican Senate, Gustavo Madero, shares President Calderón's concerns that there are major risks that the narcotraffic business will finance local political campaigns.

[Yesterday's M3 Report. ]  In an interview, the senator recognized that in areas where political contests are carried out with little transparency, they can fall to the temptation of seeking illicit funding.  He realizes that narcotraffic is a powerful corruptive force that has penetrated the framework of Mexico and that it is necessary, at all costs, to prevent the political process from having that appearance.

 Concern was also expressed by Ardelio Vargas of the PRI party and a ranking member of the Chamber of Deputies [House] in a work session when he said there are regions in the country where the functions of State have been taken over by criminal organizations.  He pointed out that the lack of police training and better conditions for carrying out operations have caused the local, as well as federal, police to be surpassed by organized crime.

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El Universal editorial, 

Municipality: basis of the failed organization.

In recent times, matters like the discussion of the economic package for 2010, the low quality of public services and the inability of police agencies to offer security to the citizens have cast light on the unhealthy condition the federal pact suffers.  The most critical analysts have pointed out that we are approaching a new type of feudalism: a central government more or less powerful, but without the faculties for cohesion and direction toward a solution to the public problems of the hundreds of political-territorial entities dispersed through a Republic of nearly two million square kilometers and more than 100 million inhabitants.

 It wasn't long ago that so many in our country, as well as abroad, had the idea that the Mexican State could be considered failed.  Immediately, from distinct trenches various voices hastened to clarify that such statements were unfounded.  The Mexican institutions, in effect, have faults; nevertheless, that doesn't lead to the conclusion that the entirety is structurally broken.

 Now, it is evident that the diagnosis of the "failed State" was exaggerated.  It is that those government institutions closest to the people, the municipalities, are those that concentrate the major number of inconsistencies and weaknesses.  In them embody most clearly the poor functioning of our governments.

 [This omitted paragraph establishes at great length and data the dismal conditions of local governments.]

 For all these reasons, if the Mexican State wants to have a future, the entire country must place as its principal priority the municipalities of which it is comprised.  The moment has arrived to leave behind the constitutional rhetoric and to give this institution, in fact, the place it has as the basis of the political and administrative organization of the national State.  For the Republic not to comply with this fundamental mandate would run the risk of it falling to pieces.

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US has delivered 2% of Merida Initiative funds

The US government has advised that there are bureaucratic obstacles delaying the delivery of funds to Mexico provided for by the Merida Initiative.  By September, only 2% of the funding to fight the war against narco organizations has been released.  "We must eliminate the bureaucratic stumbling blocks of our government" so that the money will flow more rapidly, said Eliot Engle, Democrat Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.  Engle suggested the need for a position of coordinator of the Merida Initiative so that only one person would supervise the program and "set in motion a better system for tracking the expenditures."
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 El Debate (Sinaloa) 12/3/09

 Frozen assets

The US froze the assets of 22 individuals and 10 companies within its territory of links to the Beltran Leyva drug cartel, one of the most violent in Mexico, advised the US Treasury Department.  The Department did not reveal the names of the individuals or companies, but specified that the cartel controls companies related to air and land transportation, sales of electronics, health products, business consulting and hospital services.  The companies are located in the states of Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Chiapas, Sonora, Jalisco, Mexico, Baja California and the Federal District.
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 El Imparcial (Hermosillo, Sonora) 12/3/09

 Another Merida Initiative view

In contrast to the story above regarding the Merida Initiative funds, this newspaper reports that the US Ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual, said today that the more than 1.1 billion dollars (sic) for funding the plan to combat narcotraffic is going well.  The article notes that the ambassador's comments followed the report from the federal government that scarcely 24 million dollars of aid have been spent.  The US Congress approved 400 million dollars for Mexico in 2008.
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 El Porvenir (Monterrey, Nuevo Leon) 12/3/09

And both views

Headline #1:  US bureaucracy restrains Merida Initiative funds.

Headline #2:  US Ambassador assures Merida Initiative funding going well.

 -end of report-

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The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) extracts and condenses the above material from Mexican and Central and South American on-line media sources on a daily basis.