For Big Bucks, Giuliani Joins Mexico City Crime War

by Diego Cevallos

Giuliani is famous around the world for cutting crime rates in New York City by more than 50 percent under his "zero tolerance" policy. In Mexico City, home to 20 million people, 21 crimes are committed an hour, many of them by corrupt police officers.

Members of the former mayor's consulting firm met in October with Mexico City authorities, and in October began to tour police stations and high-crime areas.

Leftist Mayor Manuel Lopez gave Giuliani and his team a one-year consultancy contract, in the city government's latest attempt to improve public safety.

Within six to eight months, Mexico City residents will begin to see "dramatic" changes in law enforcement and crime-fighting, predicted former New York City police department commissioner Bernard Kerik, who is visiting the capital as a member of Giuliani's group.

According to official statistics, the average number of criminal offenses committed per hour in Mexico City has been reduced from 29 in 1997 to 21 today. However, opinion polls indicate that the widespread perception is that crime is on the rise.

A study by the Citizen Institute for Research on Insecurity (ICESI) reports that around 70 percent of crimes go unreported.

Mexico City is the most dangerous area in this Latin American country of 100 million, with 17,718 crimes committed per 100,000 people, says ICESI, which is made up of experts from business and academic groups.

Mexico is second only to war-torn Colombia in the world in terms of number of kidnappings.

"Giuliani is being contracted just like a great chef could be hired to cook the best baked turkey recipe. But the chef is going to show up and find that there is no turkey" -- in other words, no adequately trained police force capable of implementing a zero tolerance policy, said ICESI director Luis de la Barreda.

Giuliani's advice is unlikely to bring about significant changes, because Mexico City lacks a reliable justice system, a well-trained, incorrupt police force, and a culture of respect for the law, said the expert.

Two Mexico City police officers, Juan Cobos and Jesus Alcantar, provide just the latest evidence of that. They were arrested last weekend, after robbing three people and kidnapping two others in a single day.

Of the city's 27,000 police officers, over half have primary school educations or two years of high school at the most, and a majority earn no more than $300 a month. Furthermore, the basic training course for joining the force lasts less than one year.

By comparison, police in New York go through rigorous training, and earn eight or nine times what their Mexican counterparts are paid.

When it comes to administering justice, there are structural limitations in the Mexican capital that only radical reforms could revert, says a study by the city's independent governmental Human Rights Commission.

Only one-third of all crimes committed in the capital even reach the police and the courts, and 93 percent of those investigated go unsolved, according to the Human Rights Commission.

"If Mr. Giuliani brings results, we'll all be grateful. But that has yet to be seen, and I don't put much stock in all of this," said Roberto Bruno, a young man who works as a janitor in office buildings. Bruno has been mugged three times in the past four years, including twice at gun- and knifepoint.

Giuliani's high-profile consulting stint is just a propaganda move aimed at boosting the political career of Mayor Lopez, a member of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, says Alejandro Diez-Barroso, chairman of the municipal council's Public Security Commission. Giuliani, who was very much in view after the Sept. 11 attacks, also has political ambitions of the highest kind.

It will be virtually impossible to apply Giuliani's zero-tolerance policy in Mexico City, because it will be basically cancelled out by the rampant "impunity and corruption," said Diez-Barroso, of Fox's right-wing National Action Party.

Human rights groups, however, point to the large number of cases of police brutality and rights abuses reported under the zero-tolerance law enforcement offensive in New York, although they recognize the former mayor's success in cutting crime.

In 1993, a year before Giuliani became mayor, 1,927 homicides were reported in New York City, and over 430,000 other serious crimes. In 2000, a year after his term ended, murders were down to 671, and other serious crimes to 184,111.

Giuliani's tips on fighting crime will not be a "panacea," warned Mexico City police chief Marcelo Ebrad. "It is not just a question of bringing in a model from abroad and applying it 100 percent. That would be an error," he argued. "We just have to take what is of use to us."

The $4.3 million plus travel expenses that the former mayor and his team will receive are being paid by a group of business leaders headed by billionaire Carlos Slim, one of the richest people in Latin America, who is also involved in financing a program to clean up the run-down, crime-ridden historic city centre.