Mexico leader announces crackdown on crime (w/video)

MEXICO CITY — Mexico's president announced a nationwide anti-crime plan on Thursday that would give Congress the power to dissolve local governments infiltrated by drug gangs, and give state authorities control over often-corrupt municipal police.

The plan announced by President Enrique Pena Nieto came two months after 43 students at a teachers college in the Guerrero city of Iguala were reportedly killed and incinerated by a drug gang working with local police, and massive marches have been held to protest their disappearance.

Pena Nieto suggested Thursday's plan was influenced by the Iguala tragedy, whose "cruelty and barbarity have shocked Mexico."

"Mexico cannot go on like this," Pena Nieto said. "After Iguala, Mexico must change." As if to underscore the problem, authorities said Thursday they had found the decapitated, partly burned bodies of 11 men dumped on the side of a road in the southern state of Guerrero

The president's plan would also relax the complex divisions between which offenses are dealt with at federal, state and local levels. At present, some local police refuse to act to prevent federal crimes like drug trafficking. It would also seek to establish a national identity number or document, though it was unclear what form that would take.

The plan would focus first on four of Mexico's most troubled states, Guerrero, Michoacan, Jalisco and Tamaulipas, sending more federal police and other forces to the 'hot land" area of the first two states, where the government has already sent significant contingents of federal police and soldiers.

"My response to the police operation in the hot lands is, 'What? Another one?'" said Mexico City-based security analyst Alejandro Hope, alluding to a string of other anti-crime initiatives in the area. "The same as the others, for a limited time and without the right conditions?"

The reforms, some of which would require constitutional changes, will be formally presented next week. They would include a single, nationwide emergency telephone number, which the president said could be "911," as in the United States. But Pena Nieto was vague in describing some reforms.

Dissolving local governments could open the door to political vendettas, Hope noted, unless strict prerequisites are set for such actions. And centralizing police command has not improved forces in many cases so far. "We have unified command of state detective forces, and are they very good?" Hope said ironically.

The focus on corrupt local governments reflects the shocking accusations made about the mayor of Iguala, Jose Luis Abarca. Prosecutors say he collaborated with a local drug gang and ordered the detention of the students by local police, who turned them over to gang gunmen.

Municipal governments currently enjoy high levels of autonomy and control their own police forces, something the president is now seeking to weaken. But it was not clear whether the new plan would eliminate local police forces, or simply change their command structure.

Similar broad, federal anti-crime plans announced in 2004 and 2008 brought some improvements in areas such as vetting of police, but failed to prevent some entire municipal police forces from being coopted by crime gangs. As a result, Mexicans have become skeptical of such announcements.

"More than announcements, the public needs to see concrete actions that make this rhetoric seem believable," said Pedro Torres a law professor at the Tecnologico de Monterrey university's school of government. "There is definitely nothing new here that they haven't tried to implement before."

Pena Nieto began his administration in 2012 hoping to concentrate on economic and legal reforms, and avoid the focus on drug-gang violence that had dominated the term of his predecessor, Felipe Calderon.

Thursday marked Pena Nieto's first broad policy statement on the subject, tacit acknowledgement that the issue had become unavoidable.

The 11 decapitated bodies were found early Thursday on a road near the city of Chilapa, an area that is known for gang violence and plantations of opium poppies. It is not far from the rural teachers college that the missing students attended.

The Guerrero state government said the victims had been shot to death, and their heads have not been found.

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Mark Stevenson reported from Mexico City.