The Washington Post
Editorial Page
WASHINGTON — TIJUANA, one of Mexico’s violence-racked border cities, was supposed to be getting better. A drug kingpin notorious for dissolving his enemies in acid was arrested; a record cache of 134 tons of marijuana was seized and burned.
President Felipe Calderon said the city was a “clear example that the security challenge has a solution.” Then came the massacre. On Oct. 24, gunmen attacked a drug rehabilitation center, slaughtering 13 men. That brought this year’s death toll to 639 in a city of 1.5 million.
The mass slaying was one of three recorded in Mexico in just five days. On Oct. 22, a gang attacked a teenager’s birthday party in Ciudad Juarez, killing 14; the youngest was a 13-year-old girl. On Oct. 27, shooters appeared at a carwash in the Pacific state of Nayarit, where clients of a drug rehabilitation center were working. Some of the workers were wearing T-shirts bearing the words “Faith and Hope.” At least 15 were killed.
The larger message here is that Mexico is still embroiled in a desperate fight to save its liberal democracy.
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