NEWS > EVERYONE ELSE > MEXICAN OFFICIALS TO REDUCE CARTEL DEATH TOLL BY IGNORING MURDERS

MEXICAN OFFICIALS TO REDUCE CARTEL DEATH TOLL BY IGNORING MURDERS

April 9 2009

Mexico City, Mexico – Mexican government officials have been under increasing pressure to reduce the death tool that has been overtaking the country in recent months. Aid from the United States and increased police and military presence has done little to reduce the number of people killed in the most dangerous towns and many fear that the violence could result in a complete unravelling of the Mexican government. Now President Felipe Calderón has proposed a radical new strategy in reducing the ever increasing death toll. The government will simply stop classing certain deaths as murder.

Under the new proposal government agencies throughout the country will cease to investigate many murders and classify other deaths as either accidental or suicides. All governments throughout the country will be given quotas and limitations on the number of deaths they are allowed to attribute to Cartel violence though those numbers have not been made public. President Calderón believes the new program will not only reduce the panic and fear caused by the ongoing war, but also show allies such as the United States that the government is capable of dealing with the problem.

“This new program will radically alter the state of the war against the drug cartels. We will no longer allow these drug lords to claim our citizens as celebratory items. Equally the people will no longer have to feel panic by reading in the newspapers about horrific numbers of dead in the streets,” said a spokesperson for the President. “We feel this new initiative will give confidence to the people, to our partners, and to the fighting men and women in the street that we can indeed win this war. We will win this war.”

Plans are already underway to restrict media access to combat sites and to deal with bereaved families. The latter will consist of new forms of grief counselling and in specific cases, ‘enhanced memory debridement’.

“The reality is when it comes to any war or any conflict that if people don’t know it’s happening they won’t get worked up about it. That’s a fairly difficult thing to accomplish when it is your family members that are being killed and the conflict is on your doorstep but you have to give the Mexicans points for trying,” said Scrape TV International Conflict analyst Mario Martinez. “The first step in winning any war is making sure that you kill more of their guys than they kill of yours and with this new initiative they are well on their way to doing that, which means they are well on their way to winning the war.”

The conflict has long worried U.S. officials as the cartels continue to push the border and the violence starts spreading into the United States. This has put both governments under tremendous pressure to curb the violence and reduce the death toll. It is not clear if the U.S. Government is considering a similar option on their side of the conflict.

“The U.S. has tried restricting death toll reporting in the past but as been largely unsuccessful. The biggest failure of course is the current war in Iraq when they prevented picture of soldier’s coffins hoping that that would somehow bring support
to the war. Their failure there would give them pause in respect to the cartel conflict but who knows. With a new president and new technology they may very well make another attempt at preventing the truth from being disseminated,” continued Martinez. “Control of information has always been the most important factor in winning war. Whether that’s breaking encryptions or reporting casualties, the side that best controls the flow of information has a better chance of winning. Much better than the side that controls the flow of bullets. Ultimately though you are going to win any war if you put yourself in a position to tell you constituents that you have indeed won and they believe you no matter what the truth may or may not be.”

According to Mexican officials no one was killed in the country today. It has yet to be decided how many will die tomorrow.  

Emil Uliya, International Correspondent

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