Military Replacing Police in Chihuahua
By Rene Romo
Journal Southern Bureau
CIUDAD JUAREZ -- The army has replaced the Federal Judicial Police in cities in Chihuahua state in what is described as a shake-up of the nation's primary drug-fighting agency.
The Attorney General's Office Wednesday replaced federal police comandante Juan Jose Tafoya in Juarez and other federal police subdirectors with military officers in various cities -- Hidalgo del Parral, Cuahtemoc, Delicias and Nuevo Casas Grandes.
Last week, soldiers replaced federal police officers in Baja California Norte, home of the Tijuana drug cartel, in what has been viewed as an acknowledgement of federal agents' failure to remain immune from corruption and stem the northward flow of drugs.
The changing of the guard in Baja California Norte occurred days after the announcement that Mexico's federal drug czar, Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, had been arrested for alleged ties to Amado Carrillo Fuentes, head of the Juarez drug-trafficking cartel.
"It's about time," said a U.S. Customs agent in El Paso who requested anonymity.
As he prepared to leave office Thursday for Chihuahua City after being replaced by an Army officer, Tafoya said he didn't know where he would be stationed.
"I'd like to go to Cancun," Tafoya joked.
The Mexican Attorney General's Office declined to comment on the switch, but a U.S. government official who declined to be named said the move was a major shake-up.
For his part, Tafoya said he did not know why the federal Attorney General's Office made the change. "The reasons are not public. It's the Mexican government's strategy," Tafoya said.
Asked if he felt the administration of President Ernesto Zedillo had lost faith in the Federal Judicial Police, Tafoya said: "I don't think so, because we're not being run out. We'll have other functions. We'll be in other states."
About 100 soldiers eventually will be stationed in Juarez, charged with trying to seize loads of heroin, cocaine and marijuana that head north into El Paso and eventually to street dealers around the United States, Tafoya said.
In an interview in January, Tafoya acknowledged there might be some corrupt officers in his charge, but he said they were hard to root out, despite periodic drug testing of federal employees.
Juarez citizens had mixed feelings about the replacement of federal police with professional soldiers.
Fernando Licon, who shopped in Juarez's busy downtown Thursday afternoon, said the Mexican military's anti-drug efforts should be limited to rural efforts, like crop eradication, not campaigns in the city. "It will reflect badly on the city. Tourists will think the city is so violent," Licon said. "Soldiers aren't trained to work with the public."
Meanwhile, dentist Alejandro Hernandez called it "absurd" for federal officials to think the military will be less susceptible to the widespread corruption that has hampered Mexico's anti-drug efforts.
"It's not guaranteed that the military is honest," Hernandez said. "After all, Rebollo wasn't."
In addition, Hernandez worried that military officers might become entrenched and resist leaving when federal officials ask them to in the future.
Over the past year, Army soldiers have manned some highway checkpoints around northern Mexico where cars are checked for contraband, while Federal Judicial Police have manned other points, known as Precos (Puntos de Revision Carreteros).
But as of Thursday, soldiers, in civilian clothing, were scheduled to take over the highway checkpoints, as well as the Juarez international airport, said a Federal Judicial Police spokesman.
The Mexican military has stepped up its activity along New Mexico's border over the past year. In recent months, U.S. Customs agents as far west as the Antelope Wells border crossing in the state's bootheel have reported seeing Mexican soldiers patrolling along the international line. Just south of Palomas, a town of 10,000 across the border from Columbus, a permanent Mexican Army barracks is under construction, officials acknowledged this week.
Tom Kennedy, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's El Paso office, is to meet with military officials next week, a DEA spokesman in Houston said Thursday.
Tafoya, who will travel to Mexico City from Chihuahua to receive his next assignment, said it was not unusual for military authorities to be placed in charge of civilian duties.