HOPES RISE AS JUAREZ VIOLENCE RECEDES

JUAREZ -- From a bar stool inside the historic Kentucky Club on the
Juarez strip, Raul Martinez Soto sees, feels and analyzes the effects
of the drug war on his business, on Juarez, on El Paso and on
U.S.-Mexico relations.

Though Soto, one of the managers of the club that opened in 1920 on
Avenida Juarez, will not be testifying Monday in El Paso before a U.S.
Senate committee, he knows exactly what he would say to the senators
if he got the chance.

"Things are improving here on a daily basis, and thanks for the help,"
Soto said. "Business is improving as tourists are slowly coming back.
All of the initiatives by the officials are working. There is hope now
that things will get back to normal."

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee is having a public hearing
in El Paso titled "U.S.-Mexico Border Violence." Sen. John Kerry,
D-Mass., the chairman of the committee, will preside over the hearing
that will include several other U.S. senators and Rep. Silvestre
Reyes, D-Texas.

The hearing, which is open to the public, is at 8 a.m. today in the
Tomas Rivera Conference Center on the University of Texas at El Paso
campus.

Kerry and his committee are key in U.S. foreign assistance
legislation, including the Merida Initiative which will provide Mexico
with $1.4 billion for its fight against the drug cartels. Kerry's
committee spokesman, Frederick Jones, said this hearing in El Paso
will help the senators get to talk to the people who have seen the
violence in Mexico up close.

Since January 2008, Juarez and Mexico have been marred by a drug
cartel war that has killed more than 6,000 people throughout Mexico.
The violence has taken the lives of elected officials, police officers
and lawyers, and has touched just about every major city in Mexico.

Juarez is among the deadliest. In 14 months, 2,000 people have been
killed. Most were executed or ambushed in broad daylight on busy
streets. Hitmen often left notes naming who was next.

The chaotic environment in Juarez prompted city, state and federal
officials to station more than 8,000 soldiers and federal police
officers in Juarez. The Juarez police department is now being directed
by retired military officials, and military vehicles with mounted
machine guns patrol the city all day and night.

On Avenida Juarez, which is the heart of the city's tourist district,
armed soldiers and federal police are permanently stationed. Anyone
walking from El Paso into Mexico is reviewed by armed soldiers. Anyone
driving from Juarez to El Paso must pass a military checkpoint before
being allowed onto the Paso del Norte International Bridge.

The huge military presence is something that has never been seen
before in Juarez. But, it appears to be working.

"The presence of the military and the federal police is having a
calming effect," said Tony Payan, a UTEP political science professor
who specializes in Latin American studies. "Not only is the organized
crime down, but so are the petty and opportunistic crimes that were
taking place before."

Since March 1 when the new soldiers arrived, the number of daily
homicides has dropped. Where there were seven to 10 killings a day
before, now there are one or two, and some of those are stabbings or
bar fights, not ambushes ordered by drug traffickers. Last week, the
city went three days without a reported murder -- something that
didn't happen at all in 2008.

"The soldiers treat you nice once they know who you are, where you
work and what you are doing," said Isela Solis Mares, a Juarez native
who walks into El Paso every day to work cleaning homes. "I cross the
bridge at night just about every day and they know me by now. They
have made it safer to walk back home."

Juarez is not the only border city where the violence seems to have
ebbed.

Luna County Sheriff Raymond Cobos said that in the past couple of
months the violence in Palomas, Mexico, which is just across the
border from Columbus, N.M., has tempered. Columbus is about 100 miles
west of El Paso and sits on the U.S.-Mexico border in Luna County,
south of Deming.

"The Mexican authorities, by whatever means they used, have
established effective control in Palomas," Cobos said. "Is there still
violence in Palomas? Yes, but we don't see the bullets flying and
bodies dropping anymore."

"What hasn't stopped is the drug smuggling," he said. "They are still
trying to cross drugs every day through the desert, on backpacks. That
is still keeping everyone over here busy."

U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said he is glad to see that other
U.S. senators are now getting to see what life along the U.S.-Mexico
border is like.

"Those of us representing border states have seen the violence along
the border escalate and over the years have pushed for increased
funding and resources to help address the problem," Bingaman said. "I
am glad Washington is now giving it the attention it deserves and is
making it a priority."

Bingaman recently helped secure $15 million in funding that will be
used to disrupt illegal arms trafficking from the United States into
Mexico.

Texas' two Republican U.S. senators, John Cornyn and Kay Bailey
Hutchison, also said they have made securing the border a priority.

"More must be done, including additional Border Patrol agents and
equipment, to ensure that we can fight the drug cartels and do away
with the human trafficking and violence along our border," Hutchison
said.

Among those scheduled to testify before the senators is El Paso
District Attorney Jaime Esparza.

"While the violence in Mexico is bad and tragic, the violence remains
a cartel to cartel issue, and a cartel versus the Mexican government
fight," he said. "The violence has not spilled over in El Paso and
Texas."

But we do need to be realistic and see that nothing is happening on
this side."

In El Paso in 2006 there were 17 homicides. In 2007 and 2008, there
were 20 homicides each year. And so far in 2009 there has been only
one homicide in El Paso.

"There are a lot of people who are not from the border saying the
violence has spilled over," Esparza said. "There are thousands being
killed in Mexico, but not in El Paso. We need to be realistic and see
that nothing is happening on this side."