President Calderon declares in Informe that crackdown on organized crime is working

By Ken Ellingwood
Los Angeles Times

Fresh off this week's capture of a notorious drug lord, Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared Wednesday that his sustained assault on organized crime and efforts to clean up the police were paying off.

In the president's annual state of the nation report, delivered in writing to Congress, Calderon cited a string of drug kingpins arrested or killed during the last year as evidence of success in his nearly 4-year-old offensive against the cartels.

Although not mentioned specifically in the president's report, the arrest Monday of Edgar Valdez Villarreal, an accused trafficker and hit man known as " Barbie," was another big one.

The annual report, or informe, depicts a nation rebounding from a series of hard knocks in 2009, including an economic tailspin and the H1N1 flu crisis that crimped tourism and commerce.

Calderon touted gains in employment and healthcare and longer-term public works improvements, such as highway construction.

The report, posted on the Internet, leads with a section on security issues in Mexico, where cartel feuding has been mainly responsible for more than 28,000 drug-related deaths since Calderon took office in December 2006.

www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-informe-20100902,0,5735105.story