Zeenews Bureau
Ciudad Juarez: Mexican drug gangs are killing rivals in record numbers in a major setback for the government, which will seek more support from US President Barack Obama when he visits the country this weekend.
Severed heads, burned bodies, daylight shootouts and dead children are daily fare from Mexico`s Caribbean to its desert border with the United States, even as Army Generals pour soldiers and elite police onto city streets.
Last month was the deadliest month of President Felipe Calderon`s nearly three-year Army assault on powerful cartels across Mexico with 850 deaths, according to media tallies.
The death rate so far this year stands at around 4,000, about a third higher than in the same period in 2008 despite a brief lull earlier in the year.
Mexico has managed to disrupt cocaine supplies and make some major arrests but top barons are still at large and more than 13,000 people have died in drug violence since Calderon took office in December 2006.
US anti-drug aid is slow in coming and the drugs war is scaring off foreign investment just as Mexico suffers a deep economic recession.
Obama in Mexico
Obama will fly to the western city of Guadalajara for his first North American leaders` summit with Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Sunday.
Obama pledged full support to Calderon in the drugs war during a visit in April but Mexico complains that US anti-drug equipment and training promised by the Bush administration in a USD 1.4 billion plan is taking too long.
Calderon is likely to ask Obama about the possible delay of USD 100 million in the anti-narcotics aid after a senior Democratic senator said this week that Mexico has not met human rights requirements needed for the money to be released.
Mexico denies violations
Mexican authorities on Thursday denied that the Army is committing systematic human-rights violations in its fight against drug gangs, criticism from several sectors in the US for that reason.
"The Mexican Army has acted in properly in this fight against organised crime, and it has also launched a series of actions to strengthen its members` training in this field," Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa said.
She conceded that "occasionally and in isolated incidents do situations come up that might be described as abuse of authority, abuse of power, human-rights violations".
Espinosa spoke after Senator Patrick Leahy blocked money in the upper chamber of the US Congress for the Merida Initiative, a US government programme to support Mexico`s fight against drug trafficking.
Organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch say that Mexico has not complied with the requirements of the Merida Initiative, which are preconditions to issue the money.
Espinosa stressed that Mexico is "open for scrutiny on human rights and cooperates with all United Nations organs in that field".
The 2008 death toll from drug-related violence in Mexico was 6,290, with more than 3,000 slayings already this year. Thousands of Mexican troops and federal police have been deployed across the country to fight the feared drug gangs.
(With IANS inputs)
