MEXICAN DRUG FIGHT NETS 60,000 SUSPECTS

2-Year Battle Also Raises Rights Questions

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican authorities have arrested more than 60,000
people in connection with drug trafficking over the past two years,
according to government statistics from a nationwide crackdown that
has also led to dramatic increases in violence and allegations of
human rights abuse.

The detention figures, obtained by The Washington Post, represent the
first public accounting of the government's offensive against
Mexico's powerful drug cartels. President Felipe Calderon declared
war against the traffickers shortly after taking office in December
2006, giving the military unprecedented law enforcement duties.

Drug trafficking in Mexico employs an estimated 150,000 people,
according to U.S. officials, so 60,000 arrests could represent
progress in the fight against the cartels.

But the Mexican attorney general's office said it was unable to
disclose how many of the detainees remain in custody or whether they
had been charged with crimes related to drug trafficking. In Mexico,
it is not unusual for suspects to be arrested, paraded before
television cameras but later quietly released without being charged
with a crime.

The statistics reveal the expanding reach of the Mexican military in
the drug war. From December 2006 to March this year, according to the
Defense Ministry, the army had arrested 12,251 people, nearly
one-quarter of the drug-related arrests reported by the government.
Since 2007, monthly detentions by the military rose 129 percent, the
figures show. The military said it had arrested only those who were
caught in the act of committing a crime.

"I've never seen numbers that come close to this," said Roderic Ai
Camp, an expert on the Mexican military at Claremont McKenna College
in California.

During the Calderon administration, hundreds of active-duty and
retired military officers have taken command positions in police
agencies throughout the country. The army and police perform joint
operations in several zones where trafficking and violence have been
greatest. In the border city of Juarez, for example, all public
security is under the military's control.

In a report released this week, Human Rights Watch alleges that the
military has "committed serious human rights violations" while
fighting the drug war, "including enforced disappearances, killings,
torture, rape and arbitrary detentions." The report describes 17
cases involving what it describes as "egregious crimes" by soldiers
against more than 70 victims.

The system lacks a process to investigate and, when necessary, bring
soldiers to trial in open proceedings with full transparency, Human
Rights Watch said. Allegations of human rights abuses by the military
currently are judged by the military in proceedings that are mostly
hidden from public scrutiny. Human Rights Watch called on the
Calderon administration to prosecute serious abuses by the military
in civilian courts.

"They can point to the numbers and say they are doing an effective
job, but you have to ask: 'What do these numbers really mean? Are all
those arrested back out on the streets?' " said Jose Miguel Vivanco,
director of the Americas program for Human Rights Watch.

Carlos Flores, a Mexico City-based expert on organized crime, said
the government's inability to account for the detainees suggests a
weakness. "Either they are detaining people for whom they cannot
effectively articulate a legal basis for the crime they allegedly
committed," Flores said, "or the justice system is so permeated by
these criminal organizations that even if their members are detained,
they are able to get them out. Both are equally plausible."

The military detained 3,581 people for drug-related offenses in 2007,
an average of 298 a month, according to the Defense Ministry. That
number rose to 6,207, or 517 a month, in 2008. This year through
March, the military had arrested 2,043 people, or 681 a month.

Official complaints about the army's conduct have surged 576 percent,
according to the National Human Rights Commission. The largest number
of complaints allege that the military, which is required to
immediately turn over suspects to the attorney general, has held
detainees for a day or longer. In some cases, the complaints allege
that detainees have been interrogated by the military, beaten or tortured.

In addition to deploying the military in several major cities,
Calderon has launched the most ambitious law enforcement reform in
Mexico's history.

Last week, the Calderon administration sent a package of law
enforcement measures to Congress that would allow the government to
declare temporary states of emergency in "domestic security zones,"
which would expand the military's powers, giving the army access to
files kept by the police and civilian courts. The proposals also may
shield the military as it takes over civilian law enforcement duties.

"The expansion of organized crime poses new challenges for democratic
societies," the proposal states. "That requires the government to
bring to bear all the force of the state to confront it."

More than 10,000 people have been killed in the drug violence since
the crackdown began.