The Changing Drug War and Gobernación

Two days ago, Enrique Peña Nieto , Mexican president-elect, presented his vision for a cabinet change in his upcoming administration, beginning December 1. Since this will directly impact the way that Mexico manages its anti-narcotics efforts, I'm sharing it here for your consideration.

President Peña Nieto will fold the Public Security Ministry (Secretaría de Seguridad Pública, SSP) into and under the Secretary of the Interior (Secretaría de Gobernación, SEGOB). This means that in addition to Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional, CISEN, the Mexican CIA, and the Paramilitary Police that will be organized under President Peña Nieto's administration, the Secretariat will be in charge of:

The Federal Police 

The Secretariat of the National System of Public Security

The Federal Prison System

The Subsecretariat of Human Rights

The Directorate of Social Communications

The Directorate General of International Affairs

The Directorate for Coordination of State and Municipal Police

The Directorate of Private Security

The General Directorate of Prisoner Transport Security

The Directorate General of Police Career and Regulations

(This is by no means a comprehensive list. I cut it short - simply for the sake of brevity.)

There have been a chain of Secretaries of the Interior under President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa
(2006–2008) : Francisco Javier Ramírez Acuña
(2008–2008) : Juan Camilo Mouriño Terrazo
(2008–2010) : Fernando Gómez–Mont Urueta
(2010–2011) : Francisco Blake Mora
(2011–2011) : Alejandro Poiré Romero

I'm not going to speculate on the revolving door at this point because, frankly, it's pointless. It's history and Mexico is moving forward.

The new focus on law enforcement and for the Department of the Interior will be kidnapping, extortion and murder. Narcotics enforcement will be "rethought".

Decapitation Count in Mexico (2008-2012)

>> WARNING <<    

Some people may find this disturbing.

Before

The US policy that pushes that the drug war be fought (down there) to the last Mexican, has been disastrous and it will be felt in the new Mexican policy toward the United States. 

The United States fueled the fire through their Operation Gunwalker Scandal. We now know that the Obama Administration plans to keep Attorney General Eric Holder, architect of the Gunwalker Scandal wherein USGOV agents sold firearms through straw buyers to drug cartels without tracking them. Arming the cartels directly may not play on MSNBC, but the Mexicans take note.

After

There may be more this year so these are not final numbers, but you can use them as a fair guess. These numbers do not include decapitations where the heads were NOT displayed to the public for public relations value.

During the first five years of the Calderon administration, 1,443 decapitation cases were reported. 

Between January and November 2011, 493 cases were reported. 

-Chihuahua leads the pack with 171 reported decapitations since the start of the Calderon administration 

-Guerrero comes in second at 140. 

-Tamaulipas with 119 reported cases since the start of the Calderon administration  

-Durango almost tied for third with 115 reported decapitations. 

-Sinaloa came in fifth, which may surprise some people, with a mere 89 reported decapitations. (What happened to Sinaloa? There were a lot of murders in Sinaloa, but it would seem that the people in that area are less inclined to decapitate their victims.)

-Mexico State, Baja California Norte, Jalisco, Coahuila and Veracruz finished behind the pack.

The cost of Mexican President's US-Sponsored and funded drug war can be balanced by the embarrassingly low number of decapitations before he and his American allies "got the heads lopping". 

There were only 37 reported decapitations in all of Mexico in 2007.

During the first three years of the Calderon administration, 10.3 large-scale massacres were reported per month. During the second three years, an average of 23 were reported on a monthly basis. 

English Source: US Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration
Spanish Source: El Universal