MONTERREY CIVIL SOCIETY SEEKS TO RESPOND TO NARCO-VIOLENCE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 MONTERREY 000031

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KCRM SNAR ASEC CASC PHUM PGOV MX
SUBJECT: MONTERREY CIVIL SOCIETY SEEKS TO RESPOND TO NARCO-VIOLENCE

REF: 2008 MONTERREY 438

MONTERREY 00000031 001.2 OF 002



1. (SBU) Summary. Unnerved by the upsurge in kidnappings
and overall violence, Monterrey civil society institutions -
government officials, citizens groups, and the press - have set
to work in attempt to find solutions. Some analysts worry,
however, that the situation will get worse before it gets better
as given the upcoming gubernatorial, state, and local elections
they think that narco-money will inevitably find its way into
the campaigns. For its part, Monterrey's private sector is
working with local government to use technology to increase
security. Despite the improvements, the constant refrain among
citizens across the economic spectrum is that they remain
fearful of reporting crimes because of their continued lack of
confidence in the police. End Summary.




2. (SBU) As the wave of kidnappings, extortion, and
narco-violence continues in the Monterrey region, the public -
across all socioeconomic levels and classes - remains fearful.
Attention shifts from one incident to another, whether it be the
January 6 grenade attack on the Monterrey Televisa broadcast
offices, the January 18 murder of a wealthy adolescent departing
a nightclub, or the January 25 dumping of a tortured corpse
outside the state government's anonymous tipster office. Many
local analysts do not expect the situation to improve any time
soon. (See septel which reports on the results of an AmCham
Monterrey survey on business perceptions of the security
environment.) Former Nuevo Leon Governor Socrates Rizzo told CG
that little could be done in the short-term as the federal,
state, and municipal police were all compromised. If citizens
are afraid to turn to the authorities when faced with threats,
then truly crime victims are on their own.



Organized Crime and the Elections

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3. (SBU) Particularly worrisome, Rizzo observed, was the
prospect of the upcoming gubernatorial, state, and municipal
elections, scheduled to take place in Nuevo Leon on July 5.
While the two principal parties - PRI and PAN - had both taken
steps to guard against the infiltration of narco-money in the
campaigns, in practice it would be practically impossible to
prevent organized crime from bankrolling candidates. One way
the cartels could impact the race would be to just bribe
television anchorpersons and the commentators, thereby ensuring
that their particular candidate received favorable coverage.
Alternatively, he said, organized crime could provide a
candidate's staff with walking around money to distribute to
voters. Meanwhile, another contact pointed out that the
applicable campaign finance regulations only cover the
candidate, so that it would be easy to simply funnel the narco
money to a family member.




4. (SBU) Media representatives conoffs spoke with were
similarly pessimistic about the possibility of walling off the
elections from organized crime influence. They did not see the
January 6 grenade attack on Televisa as a response to any
reporting done by that broadcast outlet on the cartels.
Instead, they saw it as an attempt by organized crime to inflict
political damage on the current Nuevo Leon State Secretary for
Governance - who happens to be the current governor's preferred
candidate to win the PRI nomination in the gubernatorial race.
Under this line of argument, political mafias contracted
organized crime gunmen to carry out the attack - if true, an
even more chilling scenario that the alternative theory that the
cartels themselves were behind the assault.




5. (SBU) Our media contacts had grown sour on the idea
that mass public marches, such as those that took place in
August 2008 in both Monterrey and Mexico City, to protest the
growing insecurity would have much of an effect. One
interlocutor told us that given the lack of progress during the
intervening months, he doubted that any effort now to organize a
similar event in Monterrey would attract much participation.
Note. During the August 30 citizen march, the leaders demanded
an accounting of results after 60 days (see reftel). No such
accounting has occurred, march organizers have not exerted any
follow-up pressure on the government to produce it, and local

MONTERREY 00000031 002.2 OF 002


leaders do not see any progress being made on police reform.
End Note.



Citizen's Advisory Committees

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6. (SBU) At both the state level and in San Pedro - the
upper-class suburb bordering Monterrey - government officials
are using citizen advisory committees to channel some of the
rising discontent and harvest ideas as to structural fixes. For
instance, the well-heeled, resource-rich San Pedro committee has
worked with the municipal government to: publish crime
statistics and trends on the city's web site, stand up an
emergency response telephone number which rings directly to
dedicated San Pedro operators, establish a mobile unit at which
citizens can file complaints (instead of waiting for hours
in-line at city hall),and post a Most Wanted list of persons
who have been the subject of multiple complaints. Best
intentions have sometimes met rudely with reality however. When
the city posted its Most Wanted list on the web, it received
complaints from some on the list who complained they were
falsely accused. In addition, the state's human rights
ombudsman weighed in, telling the city the criminal justice
sector was a state function and that municipalities should butt
out. According to the San Pedro Secretary for Public Security,
a revised, lawyer-approved, version of the list should soon be
reissued.




7. (SBU) Other problems have proven to be more
intractable. Despite the improvements, the constant refrain
among citizens across the economic spectrum is that they remain
fearful of reporting crimes because of their continued lack of
confidence in the police. Both state and city officials
complain about the inadequate legal tools to get at the growing
number of quasi-legitimate casinos and nightclubs, seen by many
as havens for money laundering, drug-dealing, and extortion.
The casinos are a harder nut to crack as some have licenses
issued by the federal government. But the even in the case of
nightclubs, government officials state that when they seek to
enforce space and noise regulations in civil court, judicial
corruption makes it difficult for them to prevail. And if they
were to win at the trial level, the Mexican judicial system
would allow the nightclubs to continue operating without the
required local permits until all appeals were exhausted.



Leveraging Technology

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8. (SBU) One positive development has been the emergence
of C-4 and C-5 Centers (Command, Control, Communications,
Coordination) at both the state and the municipal level. These
units centralize dispatch elements in one place and are equipped
with cameras to monitor street traffic and technology to
identify license plates, thereby allowing the authorities to
respond more quickly should an incident develop. According to
Nuevo Leon Attorney General Luis Carlos Trevino, the state's
long-delayed C-5 unit, which will rely upon Northrop Grumann
engineering, is set to open in March 2009. The San Pedro
Center employs different technology and currently planners are
considering to what degree the two will be able to exchange
data. (It's possible that all they may be able to share are
common camera feeds.) Since San Pedro opened its center in
mid-2008, levels of minor crimes such as burglary, vandalism,
and auto theft have declined. So far, however, it remains to
be seen how effective the centers will be in deterring
narcotics-related violence, as opposed to everyday street crime.
Often the police simply do not have the necessary resolve to
respond to incidents involving organized crime. Ultimately, the
degree to which the C-4/C-5 centers make a difference in that
regard may depend upon the human factor - i.e., the reliability
of those entrusted with monitoring the cameras. If organized
crime can corrupt the monitors and/or their supervisors to gain
access to the data, then it too will be a beneficiary of the
centers' technology.
WILLIAMSON